The Shepherds Internship Program will enable me to reach a deeper understanding about the multiple dimensions of poverty within the United States. I am extremely passionate about educational advancement, as this tends to be a key factor for change among individual people that transpires into a majority of populations’ knowledge within developed and developing countries. My education has been vital in regards to my awareness, concern, understanding, and approach to human rights and poverty issues. Along with increased educational achievement, other products of poverty will become positively impacted because poverty itself is a product of multiple causes that are intertwined. Whether it is advocating for marriage rights in United States or indigenous…show more content… At the end of the trip we went to the city of San Pedro El Cero to build water cisterns and teach children how to wash their hands, brush their teeth and exercise. Two or three teachers taught all subject areas for about 100 students, Kindergarten through sixth grade. A fellow classmate gave a thorough explanation to a teenage girl who asked if I had dyed my hair. She had never seen a map and did not know that India was a country. It was in that moment when I realized how deprived educational systems can be, and are. During the last two days in Guatemala I stayed in the city of Tecpan and toured a private school and spoke with the family about how the school systems were for their sons. When the son arrived home from middle school with homework to complete he simply had to copy down the questions verbatim instead of articulating an answer. Education systems within Guatemala prevent students from achieving necessary skills such as critical thinking in order to formulate the causes that are linked to their current conditions. This course helped me construct a in-depth understanding of the dimensions of poverty within Guatemala, and how education systems are the backbone for upward…show more content… I used this vulnerability and turned it into positive action and returned to Guatemala to complete an internship in Guatemala City at Safe Passage/Camino Seguro. Camino Seguro is used as a tool to foster optimism, good health, educational achievement, self-esteem, and confidence within the children as well as the parents in the most at-risk and poverty-stricken area within the capital city. While I worked with the organization I came to the realization that the project goes far beyond the scope of just educating children; it had become a major support system for the surrounding communities and families who work in the city garbage dump. Most of this population migrated to Guatemala City because of the failure of new policies to solve core problems of land inequality, poverty, and lack of basic necessities in rural areas. This city did not have an infrastructure for the large amount of displaced people, so most people joined the informal economy. According to the 2014 Annual Report, “1 in 3 adults have never attended school” in the community, leaving them with only one dominant skill, collecting garbage. Before this organization was developed there were few options for educational achievement for children, as they started learning the family trade at a young
