Six high school graduates left their native communities to attend universities after being awarded with scholarships.
Total E&P Bolivie and a local foundation have partnered to help high school graduates from six communities in the municipality of Lagunillas to pursue university studies. Thanks to this partnership, six young graduates between 16 and 19 from Lagunillas, Iviyeca, Tasete, Irenda, Itaimi and Morevity began, as of 2019, studying at universities in Camiri, Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Cochabamba.
Four men and two women were awarded with scholarships that will cover the costs of food and housing during the 2019 academic year and, depending on their academic performance, throughout their entire course of study. The young graduates have chosen different areas of study: medicine, industrial engineering, agricultural engineering and business administration. These students were selected taking into account their intellectual capacities, academic performance, and vocational aptitude.
Promoting education opportunities
TotalEnergies in Bolivia contacted a local Foundation (AmigaRSE) that had experience in scholarship programs, looking to join efforts and offer youngsters from neighboring communities to operated areas university education opportunities.
“The purpose of each of these projects is for beneficiaries to acquire necessary skills to develop their own future. We seek to promote the empowerment of communities on a daily basis so that each person is in control of their own progress. There is a Guarani saying that goes: we are all the artists of our own lives, it is up to us to live a good life and make our community beautiful,” explains Maria Elisa Landivar, Manager of Public and Social Affairs of Total E&P Bolivie.