Ciomara Chávez, Treasurer of the Board of Directors

My name is Ciomara Marisol Chávez Pérez, I’m 30 years old, and I was born in the department of Retalhuleu in the Southern Pacific coast of Guatemala. I graduated as an Office Secretary, and my way of thinking is to continue giving thanks to life for being the person that I am.

I am fortunate in life to have had the opportunity of the education that my parents gave me, which is the foundation that allows me to be someone in life and forge my own path. I come from a family of Mestizo parents. My mother never finished elementary school and my father is the youngest of seven children. They grew up without a mother because she died when my father was 7. He was the only one of his siblings to be educated because my grandfather didn’t have the means to provide an education for his other children. Mi inspiration, from the time when I was very young, was this—precisely the knowledge that my father was fortunate to have an education out of poverty, and knowing that life afforded him this opportunity that, unfortunately, many others didn’t and still don’t have. That’s something that I still carry with me, the understanding of how to value and appreciate what my parents gave us in creating a better future for us. We are thee siblings, and I’m the oldest. My sister followed in my father’s footsteps, she is a teacher of primary education, and my brother, the youngest, has a degree. My father’s family is an indigenous family from the mountain town of Totonicapán, and my mother’s family is a rural family from near Escuintla, in the South of Guatemala.

That’s how my parents’ lives were. In time, growing up with them has helped me to understand better why it is so important to have a good education. Now I am who I am thanks to the fact that they gave everything they had in their reach. From the time that I graduated, I decided to support myself. I worked for several years for various companies in Guatemala, developing in my career as a secretary. I didn’t earn very much, but I was making a better future and now life has brought me to a better situation. Five years ago I had the opportunity to begin working with foreign tourism, and now for two years I’ve had a dance school called Tropicalatina. Thanks to this opportunity, I’ve been able to give something of myself to people in need. The first experience that life offered me to do volunteer work was with an organization called Quetzaltrekkers. They are a group of foreigners that do volunteer work here in Quetzaltenango with children living on the street. They invited me to do dance presentations to raise money for the children. Then the idea came together to give dance classes to the children and in that way bring them a smile and some happiness. It’s been excellent, and during the last few years I’ve also been a volunteer organization called Ceipa that also works with children. Now I continue doing presentations like one this Christmas which was one of the most intense of my life—we did a salsa presentation with foreign students to gather presents for an orphanage here in Quetzaltenango. Seeing the faces of children who had been abandoned, who were between 0 and 13 years old, wasn’t easy, because I knew how much there is left to be done not just for Guatemala but for the entire world. But my greatest satisfaction was seeing smiles on every one of their faces. That is something that I’ll carry with me until the day when I cease to exist.

And now, the opportunity has come to be part of a project whose objective is to give a better future to these children. And since education is the base for them to move forward, growing every day toward becoming good men and women for a better future, and that’s in our hands—why not.

One important part of this Project is that they should be heroes—and that we should have confidence in their ability to achieve whatever they propose for themselves in this life. And not just to do good things for this country, but for a better world, because in this project each of us gives the best of ourselves.

I’ve been privileged—to have a family that struggled so that I would become someone in life, to have achieved some of my dreams, to feel comfortable with myself and what I’ve done in life. There is always more that I can give to the people who need me, and I’ll keep doing what I enjoy.

Ciomara Chavez.
Costeñita.

Click here to read Ciomara's letter in Spanish.

Visit Ciomara's website at www.xelapages.com/tropicalatina.

 Tax-deductible contributions to Project Victoria may be made to:

Project Victoria Fund
Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation
200 1st St. SW
Cedar Rapids IA 52404
319-366-2862