Can volunteers shut down Chiles slums?
With the help of the program, Marquez studied food handling. “But more than anything, I went to learn to pronounce and speak well,” she said. “I only got to fourth grade and didn’t have much character. But now, thanks to the project, I get by pretty well. I go to offices, talk to important people, and defend my rights as a woman and a mother.” Her daughter Carleyn was 9 when the first volunteers arrived at the slum and began helping her with schoolwork. “If it wasn’t for them, I would have been another pregnant teenager dropping out of school,” said Carleyn, now 21. “They were our superheroes. They would sacrifice weekends with their friends and parents to help us study, and later to talk to us about birth control. They encouraged us to study and value ourselves as individuals.” Those volunteers are now lawyers, engineers and journalists — and continue to help her. When Carleyn graduated from high school they offered to chip in for her university tuition. “But I got a scholarship for m
