As a first year law student at UM Law, Evian White has worked tirelessly to succeed. Hoping to get back to the “real world” after long days spent inside the covers of law books, she decided she needed to return to the world of service and head to Xela, Guatemala.

Over winter break, Evian worked with an organization called El Nahual, the only non-profit Spanish school in Xela. El Nahual serves over 300 disadvantaged children in chiefly Mayan neighborhoods on the outskirts of town. The programs include: “Manos de Colores,” an after-school academic course for children, an accelerated weekend primary school program for adults and a community center to teach adults important life skills like art, English and subsistence farming.

 “I thought I would be involved in the traditional one-time service project without any long-term implications. What I got was a little different,” White explains. “My daily tasks included: teaching kids art and English, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, pouring concrete for a new school, publicizing new programs in the poor communities, singing to elderly women for Christmas, painting classrooms and figuring out how to come back for more during Spring Break with a group from the Law School.”

 “I gained a renewed sense of what direction I am heading in the future. The forecast inevitably predicts more challenging leaps and bounds to make a difference- whether it‘s in my own backyard or at an organization like El Nahual,” said White.

Thanks to generous funding from the Law Activity Fee Allocation Committee (L.A.F.A.C.), White will return to Xela with other UM Law students to help create legal clinics for the poor, focusing on legal inscriptions of children, landlord/tenant issues, women’s rights, and/or worker’s rights. They will also work to incorporate El Nahual as a non-profit organization here in the United States.