“There are still things that I don’t have an answer to, but my growth is constant.”

Fearless. Persistent. Bright. Determined. These are a few adjectives we can use to describe Paula Machado, 19. Born and raised in a small town called Carneiros, Alagoas (Brazil), Paula is a writer for the Storytelling team and a business administration student at the Federal Institute of Alagoas. Her contribution to the LALA community has transformed the lives of Paula and many other young people in Latin America through her work to democratize education.

Her artistic side has always been present in her life since she was young: besides playing electric guitar, guitar, and ukulele, Paula expresses her thoughts through her great passion: writing, but, according to her, “I was never able to show what I write to anyone.”

Transitioning to a federal institution was essential to Paula’s personal and academic life. There, she found many opportunities she didn’t have access to before and faced her shyness so that she could enjoy them to the maximum. She was part of the selective process of the Young Ambassadors – which made necessary a 4-hour journey from her city to Maceió so she could take the exam – and even though she was one of the semi-finalists with one of the highest grades, she wasn’t selected, what ended up motivating her, even more, to search for exchange programs. Therefore, she discovered LALA and decided to make the application in English, even though she was insecure with the language.

“At the activity where we had to draw something representing us, I drew a trunk because I felt like I was closing myself off, and I had stuff inside of me that I had no idea because I didn’t have access to them,” she said. Even though she’s a person with a lot of interests, she has always had difficulty exploring them. “Before, I would participate in many projects without a purpose, and I guess after I participated in LALA, I started to realize why I was doing that and how it was helping other people and me,” she said. Today, she doesn’t only seek even more personal growth, but she is also engaged in many projects, such as Experiências, where she is the coordinator of the ambassadors’ program.

Her next step to get over her English insecurities was becoming a teacher at the Thinking Learning Organization, which she founded with colleagues after participating in VLB3 in July 2020, and that works to democratize education in Latin America. “It’s important to look inside of me, and LALA helped me a lot with that, and from there on, focusing more on helping people throughout what I have inside of me,” she said.

During the past year, she has been working on the application process to US universities, where she wants to combine her love for writing with her vocation to teach and study English – or Portuguese major if she decides to stay in Brazil. “Before LALA, I was pretty blinded because even though I had qualities in me that I knew existed, I wouldn’t focus on them.” she said, “I had this vision of studying abroad, but I used to say ‘I won’t try because I will not succeed’ and LALA helped me a lot with my English insecurity,” she concluded.

For the future, Paula says clearly, “If there is something that I don’t want to do is stop being involved with LALA. Many things that I didn’t understand the reason for, for now, I have them 100% clear in my head”. We at LALA are grateful for having someone like Paula in our alumni community, and we are excited to keep following her growth in and outside LALA.

These stories are written and edited by the Storytelling Team, an alumni-lead team that collects stories with the objective of recognizing and celebrating the wonderful work that volunteers, staff, and alumni do for LALA and also to show how the organization has impacted their life.