The Juan Bautista Gutierrez Foundation works to reduce poverty through its University Scholarship program.
Access to education enables a person’s personal and professional growth, which leads to overcoming limits in job opportunities and poverty reduction. For this reason, promoting access to quality education for all people generates economic and social development in the region.
Isabel Gutiérrez de Bosch, who was president of the Juan Bautista Gutiérrez Foundation, the social arm of Corporación Multi Inversiones (CMI), met a young Guatemalan originally from Quetzaltenango named Luis Armando Jocol in the year 2,000. This young man was the winner of the first-place medal in Chemistry in the National Science Olympics.
When Isabel Gutiérrez asked him what he was going to study at the university, he answered that he was not going to continue studying because he needed to work with his father to help the family economy. It was at that moment when Isabel, aware of the reality of millions of young Guatemalans who cannot continue their studies due to lack of economic resources, decided to start a project that would allow students of academic excellence to access university studies and develop a professional career.
The Creation of the University Scholarship Program
It was this experience that motivated Isabel Gutiérrez de Bosch to create the Juan Bautista Gutiérrez Foundation’s University Scholarship Program to support these young people and help them continue their studies with the goal of having a better future. The Program not only offers full tuition and monthly payments for the duration of the degree, but also provides a monthly stipend to support the cost of books and the payment of graduation procedures.
In addition to this, the program has coaching workshops that are designed to accompany students in the different stages of their university career. This helps them to have a better focus, develops aspects such as self-knowledge, self-esteem and empowerment, as part of their personal growth.
Thanks to this program, 183 young people are currently studying, and 182 have graduated from various careers. This program has helped the professional growth of young people and has opened doors for them to achieve their dreams, contributing, through their professional career and their talent, to the economic and social development of Guatemala.