Genius can be found in all corners of the world—and in this case, in the rural town of Magdalena Milpas Altas, Guatemala. There, a girl with a bright mind and big ambitions lives with her parents, two brothers, and dog in a small house built by her father.
Meet Julia, a 12th-grade student with a knack for engineering and a drive to harness her skills for good. Like other impoverished students in Guatemala, Julia is no stranger to hardship. Forced to move into an unfinished home with few resources and little comfort while enduring health problems and a pandemic, graduating high school seemed like an uncertainty, even for someone as studious as Julia. In Guatemala, only 1 in 10 students living in poverty graduate high school because of barriers like the cost of transportation, supplies, and uniforms. With the financial challenges that Julia’s family faced, a Rise Youth Development Program scholarship from Cooperative for Education (CoEd) was just what she needed to continue working towards her dreams.
Rise didn’t just provide the financial resources necessary to open opportunities for Julia, it helped her explore her interest in electronics and engineering. In a meeting with her Rise staff mentor, Julia learned about a school that offers an electronics program, which she now attends. Since then, she’s built and coded a robotic glove, heart monitor, and volume unit meter—just to name a few. Her projects have been so impressive that she was asked by the program director to present one at an open house.
“I am delighted to be enrolled in a diploma program that allows me to develop my creativity and my thoughts and helps me develop my logical thinking,” Julia reflects on her experience.
Julia demonstrating the heart rate monitor that she coded.
In addition to learning new skills, staying in school enabled Julia to participate in an internship at a textile factory, where she gained valuable experience and impressed her supervisors with her work ethic and intelligence. In recognition of her contributions, Julia was even paid and promised a job at the factory upon graduating.
To say that Julia is making the most of her scholarship would be an understatement. In the last two years, she’s been recognized as a distinguished student, and in 2024, she received a medal for being one of the top students in her class. Julia was also selected to compete in the 2025 Latin American Robotics Championship, for which she’ll travel to Costa Rica. And in late 2025, she’ll be a proud high school graduate.
Julia’s aspirations don’t end with graduation. She dreams of using her skills to help others and plans to work towards that by attending university. “I’m very inspired to create projects that help society. Next year, I hope to apply to a university to study electronic engineering or medical engineering,” Julia shares proudly.
“My mission is to create products and machines that help people. Thanks to your support, I’ve been able to pursue that dream.”
Supporting scholars through Rise doesn’t just mean that a student will be able to graduate from school—it empowers that student to dream big and use their abilities to change their community for the better. With a Rise scholarship, students like Julia will reach even greater heights and inspire more future graduates to build the world they hope to see.