Jazmin will graduate from Akins High School in the top 3% of her class. She will be pursue a degree in Neuroscience with a minor in Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin. Jazmin was awarded the Trustee’s Scholar Award for three consecutive years and the 2009 Social Services Scholar Award. She was also the 2008 First Place winner of the Latinitas Photography Contest.  Jazmin’s scholarship is a great accomplishment for all Villa Esperanza supporters and volunteers, who believe that education is the best means for a better future.

Stay tuned for more details!

]]> http://villa-esperanza.org/2009/11/copa-esperanza-2010-flier/feed/ http://villa-esperanza.org/2009/09/lecture-with-charles-porter-water-thirsty-fields-and-the-elixir-of-life/ http://villa-esperanza.org/2009/09/lecture-with-charles-porter-water-thirsty-fields-and-the-elixir-of-life/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 01:03:50 +0000 gina http://villa-esperanza.org/?p=437 Join Villa Esperanza for “Water: Thirsty Fields and the Elixir of Life,” the first lecture of our 2009-2010 Lecture Series!

Water is man’s only weapon against aridity. It slacks the thirst of humans, provides the foundation for all crop production, and must be in place for a viable agrarian community to exist in dry regions.

While the availability of water affects all humans, lack of access to water and to viable irrigation systems has a particularly devastating impact on disadvantaged communities.

Charles Porter’s presentation focuses on the need for successful irrigation systems designed to create a “living or on-going total system” approach. His talk references ineffective infrastructure projects in northern Mexico and south Texas where thousands of hectares of fields surrounded by concrete channels ready to deliver the elixir of life to thirsty fields have laid fallow for years, and addresses the consequences this has had on poor, agrarian communities. His talk will conclude with ideas about how we could assist governments and/or local farm communities in developing a “living system” approach that could make the expensive infrastructure already in place useful in the successful development of more independent and sustainable communities.

St. Edward’s University
Doyle Hall 132
Wednesday, October 7th
7:00 p.m.

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The Villa Esperanza Charity # is 12186.

Come on out to Plucker’s for some good food and drinks, and help raise money to further our mission for a Better World…Here and Everywhere!

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*When: Monday, May 18, 6:30PM*
*Where: Caffe Medici on 2222-B Guadalupe*
*Who: Dr. Gwen Sullivan*

How is the global financial crisis unfolding in impoverished communities
around the world? How are households responding to the immediate impacts
on their livelihoods and their access to basic goods and services? Dr. Gwen Sullivan will
locate local accounts of crisis within the broader story of inequality in
power and wealth in today’s global economy.  She will draw on the preliminary
findings of participatory researchers in six countries.

Gwen Sullivan teaches in the Global Understanding Program at St. Edward’s
University. She is also a Research Fellow at the Institute of Latin American
Studies at the University of Texas. Gwen lived and worked in Nicaragua during
much of the 1980s and ‘90s. She received her doctorate from the Institute
of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK.

Jovita’s
1617 S 1st St
Austin, TX 78704