Agustina's story
Agustina started high school in 2012, in the department of Tacuarembó.
At the time, she was experiencing family problems, and for that reason, she barely went to high school.
“It must have been traumatic even, because I have forgotten a lot about the first time I took 1st grade.”
So, the following year, Agustina repeated 1st grade.
“[It’s harsh, because] you see that your friends from before are doing something else. To me, it was like doing it for the first time because I had barely attended the previous year.
I was worried because I felt behind, and on that second year I tried harder and I did very well.”
With this cohort, Agustina went on to do 2nd grade, in 2014.
3rd grade...
And 4th grade.
But Agustina kept having problems at home, and she knew she wanted something different for her life. She didn’t like the lifestyle where she lived, but rather, she felt drawn by the lifestyle in Montevideo, where she visited her grandmother occasionally.
So after that year, at 17, she decided she wanted to move to Montevideo and attend high school there.
“I was very lonely at home. Here [in Montevideo] was my grandmother, and I had a closer bond with her than with the rest of the family. I came here mostly because I felt more support.”
“The atmosphere in high school was different in Tacuarembó than in Montevideo. In Tacuarembó it is more serious, more closed-minded. In Montevideo it is more dynamic.”
In 2018, Agustina decided to take yet another turn and attend vocational education (UTU) instead to study Electromechanics, even if it meant it would take her three years more to finish her secondary education.
At the same time, she moved in with her older brother and their uncle.
“It took me a long time to figure out what I really liked. At one point I thought I would like to know how to do things myself. My grandfather had worked in things like that [electromechanics] all his life, so I was interested in learning a little more of what I had been seeing my whole life.”
“At UTU, I was the only woman in my class. Everyone felt like they had to be careful with what they said because there was a woman. But I always felt included.”
The following year, Agustina started her 2nd grade at UTU, but she got a job shortly after the year began, and dropped out.
“I lived with my uncle and had free transportation to go to UTU. But I needed more [money] for my personal things. When they offered me a pretty good salary for the level of education I had, I decided to accept it.”
Agustina’s lack of family support made this a swift decision that had no opponents.
She feels that she is only now, at the age of 24, starting to figure out what she wants to do in life.
When asked if she had dreams for her future when she was little, she replied:
“No, because nobody supported me in my ideas. It demotivates you, because nobody validates you. So then you don't know where you are standing, what you want to do in life, where you want to go, what interests you, or what doesn't, because you didn't cultivate that [during childhood], so it becomes harder later on in life.”
Today, she is studying sewing and dressmaking, and working distributing flyers.
This is what her educational trajectory looks like.
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