Meghan and Christa just returned from a wonderful, whirlwind trip to Nicaragua, where we attended the high school graduation of Michel, ONE’s third graduate! Michel has been with ONE for five years, all of her high school career, and she was simply glowing throughout the day. We are so proud of her, and even prouder because she has every intention of continuing on to college to become a teacher. She wants to attend Saturday classes in Esteli, a town about 1.5 hours away from El Sauce. We are simply over the moon about her plans and will work to help her as much as possible.

Michel has had some big challenges over the past few years. Her father is very sick with kidney disease and cannot work to support the family. The only income coming in is from her mother, who sells tortillas. Michel has had some health issues that have made studying a challenge, but she has persevered and done really well, especially this last year of high school. We couldn’t be prouder of her.

Michel’s page will soon be joining our “graduates” section, so please visit to see a description of the event and lots of photos. Here we have included a short video taken as Michel received her diploma on December 4, 2018. Felicidades Michel! Estamos tan orgullosas para tu exito!

Michel Receives Her Diploma from One New Education on Vimeo.

We also have some other pretty wonderful news. If you call, Teresa got pregnant at the end of last year, so she left the program, since that is really our only hard and fast rule. Well, we returned to Nicaragua to find out that Teresa had stuck with it, despite having a pretty young baby, and she finished high school! Not to detract from Michel’s wonderful news, but we are really proud of Teresa. She told us that she realized she needed to finish because of our help and support, and that she wants to go on to college to become a teacher, and to keep dancing on the side. So congratulations, Teresa! Although we are sorry you left the program, we are so happy that you continued and finished your high school education. That’s more important than anything.

Teresa and Mateo (click to enlarge)

Congratulations, Teresa! (click to enlarge)

So we’d like to finish this post by thanking all of you for your support over the past (almost eight!) years, and to remind you that it is because of all of you, our donors, that young women like Michel (and Teresa) are able to continue on with high school and move on into their future dreams. You can all be proud for having helped Michel (and Alicia and Karina before her) graduate from high school. Next year, we will welcome three more graduates!

One New Education will be creating a new application soon for post-secondary school scholarships. We want to help our girls beyond high school, whether that be with university, a technical or vocational school, or even starting a business. Any and all donations will help us meet this goal, as well as the goal of keeping all our girls in school and helping them realize their dreams. As we have watched Michel over the years, it has become obvious that the support and love she has received from all the donors she doesn’t know have helped her believe that she can accomplish her dream. Sometimes all it takes is people believing in you, and that’s what ONE is all about.

Soon we will send out our annual report, and please keep checking back for more updates on the girls’ pages. We will have new photos from Nicaragua, Uganda, Tanzania, and Honduras soon!

Thank you again for your support. Please pass the word on about our foundation, and we hope you have a very happy holiday season with your friends and family.

Christa, Meghan, Leslie, Janeece, Heather, and Birgit