By Kurtis Hiatt
The book Clifford Goes to Dog School could very well be a child’s ticket out of poverty. That’s the thinking behind a grass-roots initiative launched by GW senior Andrea Ruiz, at least.
Reading, Ms. Ruiz knows, can mean power for those trying to escape poverty. But a key ingredient is often missing for the less fortunate: books. It was out of that problem that the Global Youth Initiative was born. “I rallied my high school friends and started what became a movement, really,” said Ms. Ruiz.
Just a junior in high school, Ms. Ruiz hopped a plane from Miami and lugged the first load of books—around 1,000—to the small rural town of Calacalí in her native Ecuador, just outside the country’s capital of Quito.
That was just half the work, however. She also gathered the town in the central plaza and kicked off a “Reading Extravaganza.” Community members read the Clifford book and others and engaged the kids in fun activities to promote reading. “We don’t just give away books,” said Ms. Ruiz. “The idea is to get kids excited about reading.”
Since that day, and lots of book drives and a generous donation from Scholastic later, Ms. Ruiz and her friends have reached communities in Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica and Miami (where Ms. Ruiz moved after 10 years in Ecuador).
“It really turned into more than just that one project. Because that was the idea—just to do this one Reading Extravaganza and have that be it. But it was so cool to see all the kids really interested in reading and saying, ‘Oh this is fun!’ ” said the Elliott School of International Affairs student, who estimates the initiative has netted roughly 13,000 books.
The project hasn’t been without its challenges. Accessing faraway rural towns high in the Andes and keeping in touch with volunteers 2,500 miles away proved difficult. But more worrisome, said Ms. Ruiz, was the fact that, after the Reading Extravaganza, the books were often under lock-and-key, not always accessible to the children.
Her goal shifted from growth to maintenance. “Once we started seeing that pattern repeat itself and saw that our goal wasn’t just to start ‘N’ number of libraries but to actually have kids reading, we started a pilot program in one of the communities,” said Ms. Ruiz.
That community is the coastal town of Crucita, Ecuador. There, Ms. Ruiz and others are working with a librarian and principal to incorporate the donated books into the students’ curriculum. Developing the pilot program and defining its specific, measurable goals was something Ms. Ruiz learned at GW. In fact, she said, GW classes and her research at the Institute for International Economic Trade Policy have changed “everything” about how her initiative operates.
“All my internships and work experience and career at GW are based on preparing me to contribute to global development,” said Ms. Ruiz, a double major in economics and international affairs.
She’s well on her way, particularly given her selflessness, said Alejandro González, who helped Ms. Ruiz launch the Global Youth Initiative in high school. “Andrea is an amazing human being with a passion for serving others. She is an inspiration,” said Mr. González, a senior at Georgetown University. “I work with her because she is fully dedicated to her cause and inspires me to give more of myself.”
It is that initiative that struck GW Assistant Professor of Economics Paul Carrillo, who taught Ms. Ruiz in an econometrics class. “From the very beginning I could tell she was one of the brightest students I’ve worked with,” said Dr. Carrillo.
When she has free time, Ms. Ruiz can be found doing karate (she’s a green belt), mentoring students as a house scholar, or maybe, just maybe, watching a movie. (She doesn’t watch TV save for an episode each of the season’s hits to have an idea of what her peers are talking about.)
She’s also in the process of passing the torch on her initiative. Other teens, like the high school sophomores she’s working with in Montgomery County, Md., should have the experience she had, she believes. Hopefully it’ll light a fire in them like it did Ms. Ruiz, inspiring them to pursue development work abroad.
Come May, Ms. Ruiz hopes to work analyzing the impact of development projects and eventually apply to public policy school to, as she says, “just make the world a little less unequal.”