By U Soe Lay | Senior Program Manager
Overview
We at Thabyay Education Network’s Arohana Scholarship Fund would like to extend our gratitude to all of you who have donated to our ‘University Scholarships for Students from Burma’ project on GlobalGiving.
After the deduction of GlobalGiving administrative fees, we have now received a total of approximately US$ 65,275 in disbursements from GlobalGiving for the University Scholarships for Students from Burma project (funds are received over time in Thai Baht at different exchange rates, so USD figures can only be approximately calculated).
By the 6th March 2015, we had disbursed approximately US$ 64,129 to scholarship awards.
Selection and awards
Since the last report on 6th March, the Arohana Scholarship Fund Committee has made one further awards totalling approximately US$ 90.
The total funds now raised by the ‘University Scholarships for Students from Burma’ project have therefore supported 58 awards enabling 48 students from marginalised communities across Burma to start or continue their Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD studies at universities across Asia.
The recipients of these awards comprise 22 women and 26 men, ranging in age from 16 to 51 (average age of approximately 25, representing nine ethnic groups, studying 30 different majors at 17 different universities in 5 countries across Asia).
The award recipient was as follows:
Recipient 1:
Name: Min
Age: 23
Sex: Male
Ethnicity: Mon
Subject Studied: IELTS Preparation
University: Kant Kaw Education Center
Award Amount: US$ 90
Award Type: Partial scholarship
N.B. Names of award recipients have been changed to protect their identities.
Min came from a nuclear family consisting only of her mother, father and two sisters. He had completed matriculation exam in 2007 and graduate bachelor degree in 2013 majoring in English. Min did a lot of work including both paid jobs and unpaid in history and onwards. He had also volunteered for Mon Conversation Club (MCC) in Yangon where he involved as an education team coordinator, assisted in fundraising and culture exchange, coordinated and facilitated reading club and conversation club with around twenty participants and taught general English to young adults. Moreover, he taught as well for Kayin University students group in Kayin state in 2012.
Min was so excited to get a partial support from Thabyay Education Foundation to attend the IELTS preparation. In his own word “I want to set up a well education system and worth social status. In specific, I am working for Myanmar’s relationships as an ambassador with the international countries”.
Future Plans
The Arohana Scohlarship Fund remains committed to helping key community actors gain access to appropriate higher education to optimize their positive impact in Burma in key sectors including health care, education, community development, rights and media. The Arohana Scholarship Fund is currently waiting for further funds to be received from GlobalGiving before the Selection Committee meets to decide on further scholarship awards.
Closing Statement
We hope that this report shows clearly the potential of these scholarship recipients to become catalysts for incremental social change in Burma, and that you can appreciate the direct link between quality higher education and grassroots development in communities in Burma. We also hope that it demonstrates that even the smallest contribution of US$ 10 can make a difference in terms of keeping a Burmese scholarship student in university education.
We would like to reiterate our gratitude to all of you who have helped raise funds for this project by making donations and spreading the word. We hope that this report will inspire you to continue to support us in the future. The beneficiaries of these awards, the students, have individually expressed their gratitude to us for the support they have received. We would like to pass on their thanks to you.
If you have any questions about this report, or about our work, please do get in touch.
With our best wishes,
U Soe Lay
Senior Program Manager, Scholarships and Student Support
Thabyay Education Network
Email: usoelay@thabyay.org
Websites: www.thabyay.org
www.arohanascholarships.org
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
