A screening of the award-winning documentary The Devil's Miner will be followed by a panel discussion, with proceeds benefiting the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work — Latin American Initiative.

The film takes place in the forsaken world of Bolivian silver miners. Basilio Vargas is a 14-year-old boy living in the impoverished Cerro Rico region of Bolivia. Since the death of his father, Basilio and his younger brother Bernardino are the breadwinners in his family, and they support their mother and siblings working in the Cerro Rico silver mines. Basilio is one of 800 children who regularly work the mines, and it's indicative of the danger and physically punishing nature of the work that the miners swear fealty to "Tio" — the Devil — because it's believed God would never enter such a place.

The University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work's (GCSW) Latin American Initiative seeks to strengthen social work education, practice, research and community development collaborations with countries throughout Latin America that are represented among Houston's diverse Latino communities.

Funds raised from the film screening will underwrite expenses for a group of 11 GCSW students, faculty and alumni who will travel to El Salvador for two weeks to visit and attend lectures at three Universities with social work programs; engage with various agencies in El Salvador that deliver services to children, youth and families; visit with policy makers; and work with various Salvadoran communities, particularly communities with connections to Houston's immigrant Salvadoran population.

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