A Scholarship Success Story: Luis Diaz
Recent college graduate Luis Diaz (photo below) grew up with his family in Nuevo Paraíso, attending grade school and some of high school there. He learned English as he worked with American groups on construction projects and traveled with medical brigades to poor rural villages. In this way, he made many friends from the United States who formed an important part of his life.
“I consider them a big family through many years together,” he says.
In August 2007, Luis started college at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) with the help of FHC funding. He studied art, then changed his major to communications, eventually getting a reporting internship with the Honduran television news program VTV Informativo, where he interviewed analysts, economists, sociologists, members of Congress, and even the current president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández. Luis also acted in short films and during vacations he came home to work with SAN and Global Medical Brigades. Since graduating last September, Luis lives in Tegucigalpa with his brother Hugo and sister Tania, both college students. His mother works in Spain and his father died several years ago. He would like to follow his older brother, Dany, another FHC scholarship winner who has studied and worked in the United States for seven years, by applying to U.S. Master’s degree programs in cinematography or film production.
“Honduras is a beautiful country, but without many opportunities of getting a job or being someone in life. It’s even harder without studying. Without the scholarship I wouldn’t have been able to attend college and right now I might be walking in the streets asking people for money without any direction of what to do with my life—a burden on society, someone with no dreams. I know now that the key to being successful in life is knowledge, and God put that key in my hands through FHC. Now I have big probabilities for success in my future.”
