Mujeres en Cambio is a 17- year -old grassroots charitable organization in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico that seeks to empower young women with limited resources in the surrounding villages of San Miguel by offering educational scholarships which enable them to complete highschool and, for some, continue on to university. We support 150 girls annually, and commit to each girl that we will support them with scholarships grades 8-12 if they continue to stay in school and maintain a grade point average of at least 8.0 or "B". The university girls must have a gpa of 8.5 and write a short essay expressing intent to enter our university scholarship program and maintain this gpa until they receive their degree.

We also support a woman's cooperative in one of our villages that design and make rughook products, "Las Rancheritas". Now they are self sustaining, but we have recently provided funds to this coop to complete a building which will house their products and provide a workshop. This program has helped these hard working women become financially independent, thus empowering them to make changes in the lives of their families and community.

Problem

We have a continuing annual budget of $70,000+ each year to fulfull our commitment to the 150 chosen worthy young women that we support with educational scholarships. We are a totally volunteer organization with no paid staff in order to keep our overhead under 3%. Given the difficult world economy, and donor fatigue in our community of expatriots, we are anxious to tap other possible sources of funding in order to continue to educate these young women.

Solution

It is a well established fact now that when one educates a young woman in a developing country, such as Mexico, she becomes empowered with a sense of purpose and confidence to change her life, that of her family and thus the ripple effect becomes expansive. Educating women is the way to change the world for the better.

Example

One of our graduates, as seen interviewed in our youtube, went all the way through middle school and highschool and college with the help of our scholarships, and is now a practicing attorney. She now devotes a portion of her time for "pro bono" work back in her village in order to handle legal matters of her community members that they would otherwise never be able to afford. These poorer people often get taken advantage of by more affluent landowners and business people because they cannot legally defend themselves.

Marketplace

The biggest competition we have is other worthy charitable organizations in our town of San Miguel de Allende. We are all tapping the same community for donations, and donors must make choices.