My dream is to provide women, especially working single mothers, with the opportunity to get an education. Education is the key to knowledge, and with that key, we can reduce the social gap.
Nicaragua is the second poorest country in Latin America. Many households are headed by single mothers in severe poverty. Why are there so many single mothers in this country? It is mainly due to machismo, a type of male chauvinism where men flaunt their masculinity and rarely fulfill their parental responsibilities. As a result, women have to balance a job and raising their children. On top of that, their work hours are long, and the pay is low. A child may have no choice but to wait at home alone while their mother is at work.
I was in a similar situation as my mother was a cashier at an energy company. She had a heavy workload and commuted 40 minutes each way. I would always patiently wait for her as she came home late every night. As I grew older, one question continued to bother me. How could I help people like my mother, who work long hours and can’t be with their children?
Fortunately, at the age of 16, I was granted a scholarship to study economics. That was when I started to discover my motivation. I wanted to support entrepreneurship among poor women, single mothers, and youth so they can find the abilities they need to achieve a better quality of life. Why? Because even when as a young child, I developed teaching skills to help others. Whenever I heard about a friend who was having difficulty in class, I would sit next to them with a colorful highlighter as if I was the teacher.
At the age of 22, I developed a social project called de Lew Power Nicaragua to be implemented in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Colombia. I continued this work through my personal brand Adela Ubau, promoting entrepreneurship and empowerment. This has provided educational opportunities to a total of 450 women and youth.
I am still in the middle of developing my dream, where my motivation to move forward is remembering all the times my mother came home late due to overtime work. Sadly, the situation is not different for many women in developing countries. I want to continue to support women like my mother so they can learn how to become an entrepreneur to work for their own dreams. Thus, I will continue to develop my entrepreneurial projects to fulfill those goals.
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