Education in the words of Tatiana

This is the second in a series about Faire Collection scholarship students.   You can read the previous story of Tamia here.

Being involved in the day-to-day of our artisans over the past 2.5 years I’ve seen more of the fragility of life than i would have expected.  the story of Tatiana, the oldest daughter of our tagua provider, Don Luis, is particularly tragic.

To tell you a bit more about Tatiana, she’s 19 and currently in her second year at the University of Ibarra where she’s studying dietary nutrition.  She says her favorite class is, “clinical nutrition, because there we see more of the relationship between the patient and diet.”  Tatiana is going to make a great clinician one day, as she’s an incredibly empathetic person, “My favorite part of school is when they take us to hospitals and the patients tell us all about their lives.”

While many of our scholarship students are incredibly motivated to overcome difficult family circumstances Tatiana’s situation is especially tragic.  When asked who she most admires in live she replied, “I admire my dad, because right now he’s fighting to continue living after his very serious motorcycle accident.”

Last summer, Don Luis was literally run over in a hit and run accident which was so severe that the doctors pronounced his condition to be fatal, and because of his lack of medical insurance, sent him home to die.  However, miraculously- largely due to the family’s absolute refusal to give up – he has slowly started to make positive steps towards a recovery and is responding to treatments.  Tatiana’s medical training is being put to use every day as she is one of his main home caretakers, responsible for monitoring his feeding tubes, IV’s and other general care, all while attending university classes full-time.

Her story is truly one of strength and resilience and the power of family’s love to literally save a life.