Meet Our Students

Very appreciative for the opportunity to study, students at IER are highly motivated to be successful.  ​Before IER was established, there was no education beyond 6th grade offered in the valley.  Feeling overwhelmed with household chores and childcare at home, many girls chose to escape home through relationships that often proved to be temporary leaving them abandoned single moms with no money and a limited education. Most boys assisted fathers with farming corn, beans, rice, and coffee, but many were discontent, lost hope, and felt powerless.  
But now IER offers hope through education to break the cycle of poverty by pursuing dreams for a productive future.  Students daily climb mountains and cross rivers to arrive at the main road to catch the bus for school, but they arrive cheerful, grateful, and ready to learn.  

---

Dr. Lesbin Velasquez
2006 IER Graduate

"I was a young boy who didn’t want to study after I finished elementary school.  Also in this area, we didn’t have a place to keep studying…a high school.  Just on time, when I finished elementary school, IER opened and I entered.  That day was the first step to say yes to a life full of challenges.  IER was my other home…it was a place full of peace, Christian values, and teachers with a lot of capacity.  Before I did not have Christ in my life, but at IER, I got to know Him.
​Four years later, I understood the real sense of life when you have God.  IER changed my mentality.  There were teachers that encouraged me to do everything correctly, to believe in my own capacity, to help me to dream, and always to look for the will of God for my life.  IER gave me a big desire to help other people, and I decided to study medicine.  Through IER I met a group of missionaries with “Agua Viva” that wanted to help me to keep studying after graduating IER.  So I am really glad with God and all the people involved with IER who helped me to make my dreams come true.  IER changed me in every aspect of my life." ​

---

More GRADUATES' stories