Courtesy of Arianne Kader-Cu
In this iteration of Vogue Voices, entrepreneur, media executive, and U-Go Scholarship volunteer board member Arianne Kader-Cu shares how education impacts generations of women.
My mother grew up in Malvar, Batangas, as a farmer’s daughter, in a house where there was no room for dreams, only survival. Becoming a nurse wasn’t the obvious path, but somehow, she made it hers.
She didn’t do it alone. Her family didn’t have much, but they gave what they could: small encouragements, shared belief, and the space to try. It was just enough to carry her through nursing school in the Philippines.
In 1978, she boarded a plane and left everything familiar behind. She was alone, stepping into the unknown; not for herself, but to build a life her family never imagined possible.
She rarely talked about that journey. I didn’t hear her story straight from her lips. She wasn’t one to dwell on hardship. I pieced it together slowly, over the years, through bits and pieces shared by my titas, my titos, and my dad. Her sacrifices came through not in her words, but in the way she lived: quietly, steadily, always moving forward.
Eventually, she brought her parents and siblings to the U.S. One shift at a time, one sacrifice after another, she changed the course of an entire family.
Growing up, I didn’t fully understand the weight she carried. What I knew was that education mattered. We didn’t talk much about toys or trends. We talked about school. About grades. About studying harder. That’s how she showed love: through every reminder to focus, every quiet push to do better.
Still, some of my favorite memories have nothing to do with school. I used to crawl into her bed early in the morning, just to be near her. We’d laugh together about nothing in particular. No grand gestures, just warmth and joy.
As I got older, I began to realize what she had given up, what she had walked away from to give us a better life. But the moment it really hit me was when I left the U.S. in 2009 and moved to the Philippines.
Suddenly, I knew what it felt like to leave what was comfortable and known. I began to understand her sacrifice in a new way. Not with sympathy, but with lived experience. I remember calling her and telling her thank you, not just out of duty, but from deep recognition.
Years later, when I graduated with my master’s degree from Ateneo, it wasn’t just a milestone for me. It was a moment I felt her pride. I saw it in her face, in the way she looked at me: not just as her child, but as someone who had finally come full circle.
Coming home to the Philippines wasn’t about “giving back.” It was about building forward. Picking up where she left off. Creating opportunities where there hadn’t been any before.
Today, I work with U-Go scholars, who are young women who remind me of her. They’re determined. Resilient. Many are first-generation college students, juggling school while caring for their families. They don’t need saving. They just need someone to believe in them.
That’s what we try to do. Through U-Go, we provide PHP 50,000 a year and mentorship to keep these women in school. It’s not flashy, but it’s enough. Enough to keep going. Enough to change a life. It’s what worked for my mom.
Everyone has a story about how education changed their life. Mine begins with a nurse from Batangas who took a leap of faith. Because of her, everything is different.
And that’s the thing about investing in women: it never ends with them. The impact moves forward, quietly and powerfully, across generations.
