Empowering Latinas

Edna Castro's eyes light up when she talks about her future. She wants to go to college so she can become a journalist.

"It's important to study," the 12-year-old Northwest Junior High student says, a concept that was reinforced by a Hispanic Mother-Daughter Program.

"She has all A's in her first quarter," Castro's mother, Sonia says proudly. "My dream is that she'll go to the university, but we don't have a lot of money."

The two learned how to access higher education through scholarships, saving money, and setting goals as part of the program they participated in last year, when Edna was a sixth-grader at Backman Elementary.

Edna was one of five girls who participated in the bilingual pilot program for Latina sixth-graders and their mothers, with limited knowledge of the higher education system.

Educator Barbara Lovejoy is working to expand the program to more schools next year. It will be under the umbrella of a newly formed nonprofit, Generacion Floreciente (Flourishing Generation).

Latinas have a 64 percent graduation rate, according to pooled State Office of Education data for 1999 to 2004. That's something Lovejoy hopes the program will change.

Lovejoy got the idea from a similar program at the University of Texas at El Paso, which started in 1986. Of the first 33 girls who participated in the El Paso program, 32 graduated from high school and 30 enrolled in college, according to a May 1993 study.

"We have quite a few (schools) who are excited about it," Lovejoy said. She's also recruiting colleges and universities to help, and the Utah Office of Hispanic Affairs has offered to help the program expand to other parts of the state. A representative of Northwest Junior High is looking at following the girls who participated at Backman.

Sonia Castro, an immigrant from Mexico, has lived in the United States for about 15 years — first in California, then in Salt Lake City. She works in retail, her husband works in construction. Castro has dreams for all three of her children to attend college.

The five mothers and daughters who participated learned how to make college a reality. They set up education savings accounts, they heard from successful Latina women and they toured the University of Utah.

The accounts were opened with $20 donations from Lovejoy and $10 from Zions Bank that the mothers asked be put in their daughters' accounts, rather than getting a promotional $10 phone card. Lovejoy said the girls have been creative in raising funds. A yard sale netted $400, or about $80 for each girl.