Edelia Aracelly Cruz Torrez, born in 1996 in the San José #2 community, municipality of San Carlos – Rio San Juan. She grew up with her father Rafael Antonio Cruz Zavala and her mother María Magdalena Torrez Gámez with 3 more siblings. Edelia lived for 12 years in the community of San José #2 and then moved to San José #1 along with her family members, because her parents decided that their children must study and the schools were far away from where they used to live, especially the Highschool. Her parents bought a piece of land in the community and it was there where Edelia finished her primary school education.

Edelia started her highschool at the José Coronel Urtecho Institute, which is located 3 kms away from her hometown, to attend classes Edelia walked those three kilometers every day back and forth and thanks to all of her efforts she always showed her academic exellence earning awards for any important achievement she had in that school.

Edelia finished her high school studies at the age of 17 years old, but her parents couldn’t afford to send her to the University, because the classes one was in the city of Juigalpa Chontales. Since Edelia was still interesting on keep studying her parents decided to help her to study at least a basic computer class in a Cyber (Internet shop) in the city of San Carlos which is about 24 kms away from her community San Jose#1 in which Edelia attended her classes during the weekends, allowing her to find a job and help her parents to pay for her classes. She was a teacher in her community in a program called “Youth and Adults Literacy” teaching to people with little literacy knowledge at her community twice a week. By doing this work Edelia was able to help her parents who did not have a fixed salary as her mother is a housewife and her father a farmer.

Magdalena, Edelia’s mother, was a beneficiary of the Women’s Empowerment Program, receiving training and loan who started selling baked goods and with her savings she bought a corn mill and now her incomes are higher since other peoples from her community and surrounding communities come to grind corn in her mill. At the age of 18 years old, Edelia had the opportunity to study to become a Teacher in the city of San Carlos thanks to the extension of the Escuela Normal Regional Gregorio Aguilar Barea from Juigalpa – Chontales, which provided teachers from its branch to travel once a month to San Carlos to give teaching classes to people with limited economic resources. In this way, Edelia, who really wanted to succeed, made a double effort to come to San Carlos to also study this degree for three years. In the last year, almost to finish teaching, the school requires all its students to carry out an educational project where all the Normalist schools throughout the country participated and Edelia won it in the three different locations where the competition was held (San Carlos, Juigalpa and Managua) with her project named “WHATSAPEANDO AND STUDYING THE EDUCATION WE ARE IMPROVING” obtaining an award of recognition for excellence in the same year she finished her study in 2017. During this year, Edelia was hired for five months in the organization Self Help International, making a subsidy to Lic. Yolanda Fletes for her pregnancy, demonstrating all her skills in her work.

In 2018, Edelia began to study a microcomputing operator and qualification course authorized by INATEC, the period lasted 18 months, In 2019 Edelia began to study at the UNAN-Managua University the “Innovation and Entrepreneurship”, although with a lot of effort due to the distance that the university was located she overcame all obstacles, although there was times that her and her parents’ incomes could not cover for her studies and her parents had to sell something from their own such as: a pig, a calf or beans to solve the situation and always support their daughter. On April 24, 2021, Edelia married Maynor Ismael Rivera Osejo, who took over Edelia’s studies. Maynor’s job is to buy and sell basic grains as rice, beans, corn, etc, plus also works in a grocery store. When Edelia got married she started working along with her husband in the store to support him in any way possible as well as keep paying her education, obtaining that way her degree. Edelia started working for Self – Help International  in 2023 as the Women’s Empowerment Officer.