Remittances help keep kids in school - and in Mexico

For now, the Aguilar sisters mostly survive on cash sent home by their father, Ignacio, who has labored in the US since 1981, with his work ranging from picking peaches in California's Central Valley to laundering hotel sheets in North Carolina.

Ignacio's wife, Bertaldid, who earns spare cash by sewing from home, is grateful for the immigrant-run scholarships. "Jobs are scarce here. There's brickmaking or the fields," she says.

Bertaldid and her daughters envision the family being united in nine years, once Ignacio retires and returns to Indaparapeo.

"We'll all be together," says Ivette. "I know I'll have work here," says Ivette. "Why would I leave Mexico?"

For this project to continue, deeds must go beyond words. On the US side, the program's organizers must keep fundraising alive. That means organizing dinners, dances, and raffles that bring in other migrants and their spare dollars.

Indaparapeo native Juan Carlos López who has migrated off and on to northern California since 1977, organized a raffle last August that raised $6,000. The prize: an '87 Corvette donated by another former resident of Indaparapeo who now runs a successful landscaping business in northern California. That event was followed by a soccer tournament in Napa Valley, home to thousands of Michoacán natives, and raised an additional $2,500 for the scholarship fund.

Education and immigration experts in Mexico point out that such philanthropic groups, while impressive and serving a valuable purpose, are no substitute for comprehensive programs - and that their sustainability isn't guaranteed.

"We can't forget that 1 of every 4 Mexicans living in the United States falls below the poverty line," says Rodolfo García Zamora, a migration expert at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas. "An enormous effort must be made to seek donations and keep up these programs."

Mr. López, who runs a midsized plastering business, agrees. "It's a lot of work organizing these events," he says. "But it's worth it when you see people turn up, willing to help out. It shows how much we miss our towns and the responsibility we feel to the people back home."

At least twice a week, López calls up Horacio Tovar's brother, Luis, who moved from Indaparapeo to Chicago more than 20 years ago. After years of factory work, Luis is now an established union official and coordinates the scholarship's fundraising activities in Chicago.

López signed on with the education initiative after hearing about it from the Tovar brothers, his longtime friends.

"I was in vet school in Michoacán and dropped out because I felt this need to make money in the States," says López, whose parents remain in Indaparapeo. "I didn't value my education then. But I know now that it would've made a difference to come to the US with a degree."

Perhaps with a college degree, says López, he may not have ever left Indaparapeo. And, even if he did end up leaving for the States, the degree would have made it possible for him to start his own veterinary business there, and face less discrimination.

"Titles count," he says. "They make you somebody."

He says he hopes to come back to live in Indaparapeo one day.

Programs such as the one in Indaparapeo may herald a paradigm shift. Amy Shannon of Enlaces América, a Chicago-based group that helps immigrant organizations build better communities in the US and in their countries of origin, says that for years, migrants have helped to fund the well their family lacked growing up or pave the road that runs through town.

But now, the emphasis seems to be on efforts that can transform society.

"Migrant groups in the US are now saying, 'OK, how can we bring long-term change to our community?' " says Shannon.

The Indaparapeo project may have a ripple effect. The group's leaders are advising other expatriate groups on how to launch similar programs.

Luis Mejía, the government official in charge of Michoacán's Three for One program, says that the government is prepared to support other migrant groups looking to launch similar scholarship projects. He adds that some federal officials are hinting that the Indaparapeo program could serve as a nationwide model for tapping a slice of the billions of dollars in remittances that Mexicans living in the US send back home to their families each year.

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