"Silvia comes from a small community on the Inca Trail leading to Machu Picchu. Her community is in a beautiful natural area, but unfortunately suffers from challenges like alcoholism, domestic violence and poverty. There is also no option to access secondary education in near her home, so in order to attend secondary school she was chosen to participate in the Sacred Valley Project in the town of Ollantaytambo. Sacred Valley Project provides housing and leadership programming to girls like Silvia. Silvia dreams of one day owning her own restaurant and opening a shelter for abandoned children from in and around her community. To accomplish these dreams she applied and was accepted to Mosqoy. She just began her studies in Hotel and Business Administration and continues to build her leadership skills. We are excited to see Silvia develop into a leader for positive change in her community. “Si te caes, levántate y seguir viendo tu futuro.” “If you fall down, get up and continue to look towards the future.”

Mohamedeid is a grade 8 student in the 2016 school year. His favorite classes are English, math, science, and social studies. Coming from the local orphanage, Mohamedeid is proud to have earned an education and be at the school he is now. In understanding the value of education, he enjoys volunteering his time to tutor children from the local village. He enjoys teaching and hopes to be a teacher in the future, and later the president of his country.

Cabdiasiis comes from a family of four sisters and four brothers. His favorite subjects are English, science, math, and computers. Outside of class, Cabdiasiis enjoys playing soccer and reading books. What Cabdiasiis likes most about school are the teachers who come from different parts of the world to educate him and his peers. Enjoying school so much, Cabdiasiis likes to share what he has learned with his friends and to help them study. In the future, Cabdiasiis hopes to become president of his country so that he can help the poor.

Alexander is the lastborn child in a family of four. All his elder siblings have all dropped out of school in primary level due to lack of school fees. His mother is single and unemployed. She has been ailing and can rarely manage to do manual work to cater for her children. Despite all odds alexander managed to perform very well in his primary level education. He is determined to achieve his goal of becoming a doctor in future. As a doctor, he believes that he will help the poor in the society access medical services. Alexander believes that education is the key to success.

Selpa's father is a cane cutter for the sugar factory. Her mother is a house wife. Among her seven siblings four have dropped out because they could not afford the school fees and supplies. During her primary school, Selpa was at home regularly as her parents struggled to raise the small fees demanded by the school. She also lacked stationery and used to do without lunch. Now Selpa's tuition, supplies and food are paid by a scholarship.

Yvonne is the second born child in a family of five. She is a very bright student and wants to be a lawyer in future. Her dream of becoming a lawyer has been propelled by the need to help the less privileged in the society especially girls and mothers get justice. Her parents are unemployed and only depend on casual jobs to provide for the family. Yvonne believes that success never comes on a silver platter.

Faith is the first-born child in a family of three. She has the passion to be a lawyer and wants to help execute justice among her people and especially the poor in the community. While in school Faith underwent many challenges like being sent home due to lack of payment of school fees, lack of school uniform and lack of kerosene to study at night. However Faith remained determined to achieve good grades. She resulted to be waking up at the crack of dawn each day to go to school before any other student arrived. Once at school she would get out her desk from the classroom since it was still dark and work on her homework. She was fortunate that a few months before she sat for her final exams, a neighbor helped her with kerosene and she was able to study each night until 11.00 pm. She is grateful that some students helped her with pens and pencils and her teachers were very supportive. Despite these challenges, Faith performance in the primary school leaving exam was among the best in her school. She believes that hard work never goes unrewarded.

Davis lives with his 8 siblings and unemployed parents. He enjoys math and science and wants to become doctor someday.