By Glenda Robinson

I decided to become a Jóvenes Adelante mentor while sitting in the first row of the Angela Peralta Theater. My husband Doug and Ken Bichel had just finished a fundraising concert for JA, which finds bright, motivated but impoverished students in and around San Miguel and helps them get university degrees.

That night I was astonished to learn that in Mexico it’s possible to earn a professional degree—say in law, accounting or architecture—with a scholarship which provides just $1,200 US a year. Wow. Not much money when you consider the impact that degree can have on an individual, a family and maybe a whole community.

I also learned that each JA student has a mentor, whose only responsibility is to meet with them once a month for an hour, then write a brief report. That I can do, I thought. And probably improve my so-so Spanish in the process.

A few weeks later I received my assignment on a skinny slip of paper: Veronica, DOB 9 Jan 1991, University Technologico of Northern GTO, Dolores, Major: Sistemas Informaticos.

Clutching that slip of paper, on which I had written possible

conversation topics (“family, friends, English, pets”) I met Veronica in the Jardin in August of 2008. I found an ebullient 17-year old who loved math and computers, read Octavio Paz, and wanted to be a network administrator. I was smitten.

Not that I know anything about network administration. Don’t worry, the JA folks said. You have been to college. You can talk with her about what it’s like to take tough classes, study for exams, and deal with a brand new peer group.

No one in her family has ever done that.

And so it began. Days after our first meeting, Veronica received her very own laptop, refurbished by another SMA nonprofit, Computadoras Pro Jovenes. That was a thrill—for her and for me.

We got together monthly, and talked about how scary it was to be away from San Miguel, and how easy it was to get lost on campus. About her boyfriend, her favorite classes, her difficult professors, even the touchy issue of birth control. I probably understood about 70% of what she was saying, but it was enough to be a sympathetic sounding board, and occasionally offer

We also talked about how bad she felt to come home on the weekends to learn that the income from her dad’s fruit stand had not been enough to keep the electricity going and food on the table.

I started varying our meeting places. When I invited her to chat in the Bellas Artes, she was afraid to come in. A San Miguel native, she had never seen our city’s most beautiful courtyard.

One year later, Veronica met me with tears in her eyes. Her family had decided that she couldn’t continue with school. There just wasn’t enough money. (JA cannot always cover all of a student’s expenses). Plus, she had been bedridden for three weeks with Bells Palsy. Turns out that a roommate had girlfriends who liked to taunt Veronica about being a “charity case”, because of her JA beca. One girl even threatened to hit her. She got so scared she grabbed her things and left the apartment. The stress of her family’s finances and being bullied had made her sick.

I did some scrambling and arranged for a second scholarship via the Biblioteca so that Vero didn’t have to drop out. Then suddenly I had to go to the States for medical treatment. Judy Holden, the talented therapist who counsels JA kids when needed, stepped in as Veronica’s mentor.

Last November, I came back to find a changed Veronica. Miracles had happened in my absence. Judy had gotten her a periodic babysitting job with a woman with a home in Balcones. She was taking care of her kids…in English! And the Balcones woman had even taken her and her little sister Perla on a trip to the coast. For the first time in her life, Veronica saw the ocean.

We talked about what she wanted to do after graduation. I was glad to find out that she wanted to get a job in San Luis Potosi, or even Guadalajara—not in San Miguel, as she once thought.

And she told me of her desire to visit Egypt (for the pyramids), Paris (for the Eiffel Tower) and the Dominican Republic (for the music). This bird was getting ready to fly!

Helping to give Veronica wings is one of the best things I have ever done.

Glenda Robinson is a Jóvenes Adelante member and mentor.

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