Hola, hola! I’m excited to share an update this week, as it has been filled with a lot of exciting things! The past 2 weeks have been busy – welcoming a group of entrepreneurs here from different parts of the country to help them grow their businesses, connecting with the entrepreneur landscape all over the city, spending quality time sharing meals and stories, teaching new skills, empowering new communities, celebrating successes, and taking every opportunity to learn and grow. 

Before I get ahead of myself, I think it’s important to include a little bit of context first. For those who don’t know me, I have spent the last few years of my college career working with a nonprofit organization that serves latino immigrant communities in Nashville, as well as under-resourced communities in Mexico. This gave me the opportunity to regularly travel abroad, which is where my passion for international work first began. For most people, these “work trips to Mexico” looked very different in their imagination than they were in my reality. I worked in a tiny, desert border-town where the majority of the small population lacked basic necessities. However, to this day, that tiny desert town holds some of my favorite moments, memories, and relationships. It’s the place that gave me the desire to travel the world in a way that most people don’t want to. Rather than seeing the most amazing tourist attractions and staying at the fanciest hotel, I strive to visit these small communities to serve their biggest needs, because that’s where I believe the true heart of a country and its culture lives. This simple desire would eventually become the inspiration behind moving here to pursue this Lumos project. 

This week I had the opportunity to visit a community center that serves an under-resourced community here in Mendoza. This little community reminded me of that sweet desert town and reignited in me that passion and purpose behind this experience. In this community center, there are opportunities for women to create work for themselves through learning sewing skills and being given a platform to sell the products they are making to local hospitals, schools, and businesses. There are also opportunities for women to use culinary skills to make meals for kids in local schools and have income from these opportunities as well. Partnered with these job opportunities are education classes in the areas of reading, writing, and business. This community center is truly focused on equipping and empowering individuals through education and employment to be given opportunities that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to. It was amazing to see how this cycle plays out in this community, and how many people are working together to empower others. 

I’m excited to have the opportunity to continue working in this community and in these programs throughout my time here. I have been assigned a project that will continue to develop additional projects like these ones to create further opportunities to empower this community. This visit was such a cool experience to dream about the future and see the beginning stages of such a powerful and impactful opportunity.

With love, Sarah