Meet Soila Lucinda and another great book

Soila Lucinda joined our family in August of last year. She is our oldest sponsored child (well, nearly an adult now!) and turned 17 last December. She lives in rural Guatemala, near the capital of Guatemala City. She lives with her parents, 3 sisters and 2 brothers. Her father is the sole breadwinner for the family and brings in about $154 a month working as a carpenter. Her home is constructed of concrete blocks with a concrete floor and corrugated metal roof. It consists of a kitchen and 4 bedrooms. Cooking is done on an open fire. The family is fortunate to have running water in the home and wooden beds to sleep on. She reports that people in her community work the land and harvest lots of corn.
Soila likes to play basketball (even though she's only 4' 10"!) and soccer in her spare time. Her favorite school subjects are Math, Accounting and Art. She has a talent for drawing and painting. She speaks Spanish and a little Cakchiquel (an indigenous language) and is learning English. She wants to be a teacher "in order to go on and help child(ren) like you are doing to me now". I have contacted Children International to ask if she needs help with school to achieve that goal.
When I first sponsored her I sent a Special Needs Gift of $100 to welcome her to the family. Here she is with her gifts. She is a lovely young woman with a good heart and I am happy to be able to help her.

I've just recently read a great book called Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn a husband and wife team of journalists. I really can't say enough about this inspiring book. Here is a website about the book, the authors, their work and the organizations they profile in the book. Each chapter outlines a problem in a developing country and a person or organization that has chosen to tackle that particular problem, often because they themselves have suffered from it. Often these groups have been started by local women who saw a need and decided to try to remedy the problem themselves, for their own sake and that of their families and neighbors. In other words many of these organizations are grass roots, home grown, local, bottom up instead of top down programs started by people who know what is really needed and what will work. As opposed to well meaning but misinformed top down foreign projects that sometimes miss the mark, or aren't culturally savvy enough in the countries they are trying to help, to know that they are breaking local taboos or stepping on toes. Here is an article by the authors that will give a good idea about the book. It is a long article but gripping reading. Try your local library for the book.