Oliva Lopez Now Attends San Carlos University Full Time
Oliva Lopez runs the family textile business on Calle Santander in Panajachel. Her family makes quality blouses and shirts, shopping carriers and handbags. Oliva’s interest is in marketing and she has been studying business administration at San Carlos University in Quetzeltenango part time to earn her degree.
Canada Maya Scholarship Committee in Orillia granted her a $3000 CAD scholarship in December 2010 following an appeal in October to raise funds to send her to university full time. The response was instant. People in Orillia, Ontario wanted to help a woman in Guatemala get a degree, and to have the chance to be a leader in business. She will finish in November.
In the past Oliva has been traveling Saturdays two hours very early in the morning to attend classes all day. She did not get home until late in the evening.
Now she has moved to Quetzeltenango and visits home on Sundays to see her parents and her nine siblings.
All money for Oliva’s scholarship came from individual Canadian donors. The committee appealed to 19 Canadian mining companies for help, but only one replied to our two successive appeal letters. The reply came in an email that said the company only helped aboriginal people and environmental causes.
Our response was to point out that Maya women had lived in Central America for 12,000 years and that Oliva was a leader in the campaign to clean up Lake Atitlan.
“What we want for ourselves, we desire for all others.” We wonder if the Canadian Mining Industry would ever use this prayer of grace at a corporate luncheon in downtown Toronto or Vancouver.
.
