TomG
Apr 5, 2004, 8:19 PM
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There are some nice Mexican women who are helping indigenous women with educational scholarships. The real engine in all this is Lila Downs.
Lila Downs is a singer of immense artistry and control who was trained in Opera and Anthropology at the Univ. of Minnesota. She sings in 5 or 6 languages: Mixteco, Nahuatl, Zapoteco, a Maya tongue, Spanish and English. She herself is half Mixteca and half liberal Minnesotan. Capitalizing on her world reputation she donates her time in two concerts each year in Oaxaca, her Mexican home state, to raise money for about 10-12 scholarships she funds for indigenous women in Oaxaca each year. While our young Mixe friend F. is not one of the formal recipients for her law school studies we think she is benefiting from being in the secondary circuit. The whole project is run through the Casa de la Mujer (Woman’s House) in Oaxaca City.
The Instituto de las Mujeres (Women’s Institute) in Chiapas also is working to help very needy women, but without the help of someone as influential as Lila Downs. To my knowledge they cannot fund scholarships. If only Lila Downs could find more time……
Sure there are tin cups everywhere, and your local Catholic Church in Mexico is getting shabbier by the year without enough support money from the rich. But educational opportunities for indigenous in the south of Mexico is the equivalent of giving the neediest a fishing pole and teaching them how to fish. I don’t want to generalize, but these young scholarship women are as nice as young people get – at least they seem so to me. And even if you can only give a little bit of money it could go a long way. These young women can live frugally enough to garner the admiration of Warren Buffet himself.
E-Mail: casamuj@antequera.com
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