Help Poor Rural Girls in Paraguay go to University

On December 15, 2014, 28 girls from the Centro Educativo Mbaracayu graduated with technical certificates in Environmental Sciences.  This is the fourth class to graduate from the rural, financially-self sustainable girls school since its inception in 2011.  

The girls that attend the Centro Educativo Mbaracayu had much to celebrate this year.  In addition to celebrating their graduation, the girls were named winners of the 2014 Stoplight Olympics, a yearly month-long competition for all of the Self-Sustainable Schools in which 350 students aim to elevate the quality of life of their families and eliminate poverty in five specific indicators: family savings, insurance (medical and funeral), diversified sources of income, capacity for planning and budgeting, communication and social capital.  Centro Educativo Mbaracayu had the highest amount of evidence collected and the best results.  The results are based on Fundacion Paraguaya's Poverty Stoplight Methodolgy, a self-evaluation that measures each family on 50 indicators of multidimensional poverty, then allows them to prioritize five indicators they want to improve.  Centro Educativo Mbaracayu had the most families improve those five indicators, and were rewarded with a trip from Mbaracayu, far in the east of Paraguay, to Asuncion, 8 hours away, to tour the capital city and visit the offices of Fundacion Paraguaya and Fundacion Moises Bertoni, both organizations that run the school.

Thanks to the generous assistance of our donors and supporters, we can prepare these girls and many just like them to improve their lives and the lives of their family's.