United in Service Latin America

[by Gisela Simental]
Cuidad Juarez, Mexico is going through a very difficult situation right now. Most of us who live near the border are familiar with crossing it whenever we want. However, the current situation has made it difficult for people in El Paso to visit Juarez as regularly as they used to. There are also many people who sadly see the city they love becoming more insecure with no apparent solution. The most important challenge is taking care of Juarez’s children, who will be the ones dealing with these problems in the future.

[By Jessica Murillo]
To me, the most fascinating USLA project involves the Tarahumaras in the desolate mountainous regions of Ciudad Juarez. Tarahumaras speak a Uto-Aztecan language named Raramuri. It is an ancient language with several different dialects. There are over 60,000 speakers of this language with the majority of speakers in the state of Chihuahua.

[By Becky Gomez]
On October 4, 2009, the El Paso Times conducted a poll that stated that 80 percent of El Pasoans had not been personally affected by violence in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, but 60 percent do feel threatened by it. Every day El Paso is inundated with negative news of their sister city, Juarez, and it’s not surprising that they feel severely concerned. However, there are many of us who live in El Paso --- the border city on the US side of the US-Mexico border just across from Ciudad Juarez --- who are is affected personally by the violence and for whom it is personal.

When I first started thinking about how we could help people in Latin America, I thought about what I could offer. I'm an engineer so I have a bit of a knack for computers. Unfortunately, I quickly dismissed the idea that electronics would have anything to do with providing relief to the poor. I figured what they needed was food, water, and clothing.

USLA is always evolving; we have expanded our support from Guatemala to also include areas in Northern Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. We support various Projects in many ways, including:

• Financial support (e.g., scholarships for impoverished children to attend school or participate in a soccer league)
• Collecting and disseminating books, computers with learning software, and other educational resources
• Providing assessment and consultation to the projects we support so that children can best meet their educational goals

Our steadfast mission is to serve communities, families, and children through programs that target basic needs, psychological health, and education within Latin America.

In 2005, we traveled to Guatemala to study Spanish and to volunteer. We felt very strongly that our marriage should be bigger than ourselves, and we structured our vows and gift registry around this. We used the money we received from our wedding to help pay (in part) for the costs associated with opening an early childhood center in Guatemala. Claire returned in the summer of 2005 to volunteer at this center. Gradually, we became involved in more projects in Guatemala, and realized we would need to start a nonprofit in order to receive adequate funding and better organize how we support projects in Latin America.