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$ 67.058 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 10th July 2015, we had disbursed approximately US$ 65,332 to scholarship awards.
Selection and awards
Since the last report on 6th May, the Arohana Scholarship Fund Committee has made one further awards totalling approximately US$ 800.
The total funds now raised by the ‘University Scholarships for Students from Burma’ project have therefore supported 60 awards enabling 50 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 24 women and 26 men, ranging in age from 16 to 51 (average age of approximately 23, representing nine ethnic groups, studying 30 different majors at 17 different universities in 5 countries across Asia).
The award recipient was as follows:
Recipient:
Name: Moe
Age: 49
Sex: Male
Ethnicity: Burman
Subject Studied: Post graduate research
University:University of Malaysia
Award Amount: US$ 750
Award Type: Partial scholarship
N.B. Names of award recipients have been changed to protect their identities.
Moe has completed the BSc Zoology in 1991. He graduated the MSc Zoology in 1997. His postgraduate research is the reproductive biology of catfish. After completion of MSc degree, he worked as a demonstrator at the Department of Zoology, Mandalay University in 1998. He joined the PhD in Zoology at Mandalay University in 2002 and completed in 2006. His PhD thesis is about the ecology of fruit bat. During her PhD, he got the three new records of bats from Kachin forest. This finding was published in the international journal, Actachiropterologica in 2005. His PhD thesis was published at the Lambert Academic Publishing (LAP) House, Germany in 2013.
In his own words “I would like to express my gratitude for your support. This scholarship allows me and gives me a great chant to go to the University of Malaysia to present my research paper and also can participate the 3rd International Southeast Asian Bat Conference at Kuching, Malaysia. Without this scholarship I cannot afford all of the fees”.
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
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