RUK’UX SCHOLARSHIP
Today’s Scholars, Tomorrow’s Leaders
Since 2007, the Ruk’ux Scholarship Program has organically evolved into a program that carefully screens scholarship applicants for superior academic achievement and leadership qualities.
The scholarship program offers study stipends to ten exceptional junior, high school, and university students each year. The program fosters leadership development through tutoring, life skills learning, and community service.
A range of activities complements their academic studies, better equipping them to face the challenges of making a living in a disadvantaged and inherently unfair economy.
Older students tutor the younger students, creating a community of mutual support. Most are the first in their families to attain higher levels of education, which comes with a very particular set of social challenges. Natik supports the Ruk’ux Scholarship Program in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala with funding and administrative mentoring.
Ruk’ux Scholars are encouraged to think of themselves as ‘agents of change’ within their families and communities.
The students are exposed to a wide variety of extracurricular experiences, including conceiving and managing income-generating ventures that can help subsidize university studies and contribute to supporting their families after graduation.
Ruk’ux encourages the can-do attitude of entrepreneurial ventures.
The students have the opportunity of experiencing how an idea, (plus creativity and willpower) can translate into a source of income. These are valuable lessons for students who live in economically depressed regions and come from homes where the primary sources of income are subsistence manual labor.
Ruk’ux Cultural Immersion Initiative
Since 2015, the students have been developing their entrepreneurial competencies through the Ruk’ux Language and Cultural Immersion enterprise. The students coordinate local homestays, manage volunteer work in local organizations, organize cultural activities, and offer formal language study of Spanish and/or Maya Tz’utujil for international students.
The students and local families are compensated for their involvement and the profit from this initiative contributes to the scholarship fund.
“According to the story my relatives told about education in the past, women were the ones who did the housework, while men were sent to school. But even the boys often had to leave school at an early age to contribute to the families’ financial survival. That’s why the scholarship program is so important, and why most of our scholarship students are women!” Dolores, Coordinator Ruk’ux Scholarship Program
Josefa is one of the Ruk’ux scholarship students. In this video, she shares about her life and what the scholarship program has meant to her.