Mujeres en Cambio (Women in Change) [] Rotary Club – Rotario Midday, A.C.

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Women in rural Mexico face unique challenges—one of the greatest is to receive an education sufficient to support themselves and their families. Indeed, having an education may be the most powerful development tool available to both women and men.

In Mexico, education is free only through the sixth grade and few families can afford to pay for all of the costs of attending school such as registration, fees, books, supplies and uniforms. Many families must remove their children from school to help the family support itself through daily work.

That’s why Don Caldwell, the President of Mujeres en Cambio, will speak to MidDay Rotary about these important goals. Since the Covid 19 pandemic, students were granted few chances to attend school in classroom settings and few had any significant infrastructure for learning virtually through the internet.

Caldwell, raised in Alberta, Canada’s high desert plains and now having spent 18 years in Mexico’s high desert plains, has an Honors BSc from the University of Alberta and Worked for the Canadian Foreign Service right out of college.  He has held numerous postings abroad in both trade promotion and trade policy assignments—Tokyo, London, Manila, Algiers, Washington, D.C. and others.

In 1995, a group of Canadians, American and Mexican expatriates and citizens joined together to form Mujeres en Cambio.  The goal of this group is to give families all of the incentives necessary to keep their girls in school and set them on a path different from many of their parents..

In its first year, over 25 years ago, eight girls joined the Mujeres en Cambio program.  And in 2020 alone, Mujeres en Cambio assisted 177 girls by raising $90,000 US in scholarship funds.  The true test of success is the actual completion of a secondary, preparatory or university program.  In the 2019/2020 school year, Mujeres en Cambio reported that due to its funding, 21 young women graduated from secondary school; 35 from preparatories; and 17 from universities.

Rotary is where neighbors, friends and problem-solvers share ideas, join leaders and take action to create lasting change.  For more information about membership, contact President Skip Essick at skipessickmedia@gmail.com.