Long Time No Write

Since my recent travels my life has been busy, and in my opinion, not quite as eventful as it has been over the past four months. Over the past month I have been conducting my independent study project. As some of you may know I have been interested in women's education in developing countries for a really long time. Also, over the past year, as an in state Vermont student, I have recognized the current issue of youth migrating from rural to urban areas. So, after stressfully revising my proposal, I ended up doing my study at IESP Pukllasunchis, a teaching institute here in Cusco. Pukllasunchis is an education association that does research and has a K-12 school that incorporates indigenous cultural aspects within an intercultural bilingual curriculum. Two years ago Pukllasunchis founded IESP Pukllasunchis to help train indigenous men and women to become intercultural bilingual teachers. The majority of the students come from rural communities and speak Quechua as their first language. For my field work I interviewed six indigenous women on why they wanted to become teachers, they're experiences living in the city, and they're thoughts on how to improve the Peruvian education system for indigenous women. Through my interviews I found out that all of the women had encountered cases of discrimination in the education system due to their indigenous identities. Also, the majority of their teachers only spoke Spanish so, since the students spoke Quechua as their native language and could only understand a limited amount of Spanish when they were in elementary school, the amount of information obtained int he classroom was limited. They all encountered difficult situations when living in the city of Cusco, like trying to pay for their education and living prices and the lack of support systems, the majority told me that they want to return to their communities after finishing their studies. Despite having difficulties they told me that IESP formed a support network for them while living in Cusco. I'd also like to mention that the majority of the students are young, single mothers. They told me that they chose to come to IESP because there was a nursery to take care of their children and that the class schedule,  5-9 PM, helped them to work in the morning and study in the evenings. Also, since the majoiryt of the students were barely making enough money to survive IESP allowed the students to pay the amounts that they were able (if they made 320 soles a month then they could pay 50 soles, since they were paying for mostly living costs).  Despite their difficult situations all of my interviews wanted to change the education system by incorporating cultural elements and inspiring their students with kindness. They also believed whole heartedly that their communities could improve if more women could gain access to education. Honestly, every time I left my interviews I felt incredibly empowered and hopeful for the future.
I'm now upon my final week here in Cusco. My semester here in Peru has certainly had its ups and downs but my experience at IESP Pukllasunchis confirmed how I want to become a teacher amongst disadvantaged populations, whether that be in Colombia or the Sustainability Academy in Burlington, VT.