Finding Financial Aid for Gabriella Rivera’s Cosmetology Institute training.
This is Gabriella. She is eighteen years old and a middle child in a family of nine living on a subsistence
farm along Hydro Road in the Waterhole District where we live.
Gaby graduated from Mt. Carmel High School via online classes in the Mano Amiga BZ Student Center in June, 2021, and is our second student to seek continuing education. She enrolled last fall at Mara’s Institute Of Cosmetology in San Ignacio, training to cut and style hair, give manicures, do nail design, and earn a living in the future.
The cosmetology course was intense and hands-on, and each student was required to locate clients on which to perform sixty haircuts/stylings before they can graduate. This proved especially difficult-to-impossible for Gaby, since she lives 10 miles away from town in thinly populated forested/farmland.
During Christmas break, after scouting the area for another school with suitable courses, she found the
program she needed.
Mano Amigo, with help from generous donors, paid her tuition for the half year at $450 (all $ figures
are in USD), but her biggest expense for a cosmetologist is for equipment and supplies: hair dryer,
scissors, brushes, combs, UV gel nail lamps, acrylic and gel polishes, removers, cuticle scissors – the list
is quite long for the initial setup and replacing used supplies. The equipment and supplies she has
been required to buy so far have cost more than $200, and some had to be ordered through Amazon,
upon which she also had to pay duty.
Gaby and her family would be grateful for help with her expenses. She estimates that $3000usd would
cover expenses for her year in cosmetology school. She also hopes to be able to complete the second
year of the course if she can find a sponsor.
Here is what she needs per month:
- Tuition: $35
- Cosmetology Supplies and Equipment: $100
Total: $135usd/mo.
Last year Gaby tutored neighborhood primary school students 20+ hours/wk on her days off to help
earn money (through the Student Center) for her cosmetology course last fall, She had planned to work at a call center while she taking the cosmetology classes. Then they informed her that she had to be able to work on the days she was scheduled to go to classes. But Gaby isn’t ready to give up her dreams for an education for a job at this point, so she came back to us for help.
Here is what Gaby has to say about Cosmetology School and what she expects to do with her training:
I just graduated from high school last year and studied one term of cosmetology at Mara’s Beauty
Salon and Institute of Cosmetology in San Ignacio with help from the Student Center at Better in
Belize. But because I live in the country, I couldn’t complete all of the requirements at Mara’s and
had to quit after half a year. I have found an even better school, though, with requirements I can
fill, and began classes in mid January 2022 with help from donations to the Mano Amiga Scholarship
Fund.I chose this career because I enjoy doing hair and nails and it is possible to make a good income
doing this. I have one brother who is studying Air Conditioning at the Technical Institute in San
Ignacio and one that just graduated high school but isn’t studying because my family can’t afford for
the three of us to be in school at the same time.I want to be a professional hairdresser and nail art technician. I expect to accomplish this by
completing the cosmetology courses at the new Institute. When I graduate in two years, I believe I
will have enough experience and confidence to make a good income.My dream goal is to someday have a beauty salon and help my parents give my other siblings the
help they need to accomplish their goals, and also to do what you are doing in trying to help others
accomplish their goals in life.I am the first child in my family to leave home and go out into the world. I want to be a better
person and to be brave enough to face the world and help other people. I would appreciate so much
any help people can give to help me continue studying. It would give me a light of hope on my way.
