It is important to us that our students don't have to worry about how to pay their next tuition fee, but instead can focus on their studies.
Late February we asked all of them to update us; how did they do in the last semester, what were their plans for the summer break and even more important for the next academic year?
Within three weeks all students replied ,including pictures, videos, etc... We screened their materials, translated it when necessary (although most of our students were able to reply us in English) and posted it on our website for their sponsors to see.
On behalf of all our scholarship students and the management of Fund Isaan we wish all visitors to our website a Happy New Year. May all your wishes come true!
Here are some of the more than 100 New Years Cards we received.
Thanks to the support of our sponsors VZW Thaise Vrienden Wevelgem and delaware we were able to buy 210 refurbished notebooks HP and Lenovo i5 or i7 for our annual computer program.
We changed our approach in two ways:
1. instead of importing desktops we opted for notebooks this year;
2. as schools were still closed because of the covid pandemi we decided to first and foremost focus on our scholarship students to make sure they had a notebook for their online study.
Non has had a difficult childhood. When we met her in early 2017 she was living with her mother, some aunts and her disabled grandmother in a small unfinished house. Her father was working as a day laborer in Bangkok and rarely came home. The family had barely enough money to pay their electricity and water bills. Often they had to cut down on food to make ends meet.
Fund Isaan has been supporting Bo with a scholarship since 2016. Bo was abandoned by her parents and lived with her grandparents, small farmers. Bo went to secondary school in Prasat. She was a very bright student. After secondary school Bo decided to study Accounting at Prasat Industrial and Community Eduation College.
We first met Tao in 2015. He was abandoned by his parents and raised by his disabled grandmother, who lived in a wooden shed with no floors. When it rained they had to retreat to a litle wooden platform because the entire shed would flood. Tao was going to secondary school in Ban Thanong. We were afraid that even with our help Tao would not make it through secondary school, but he surprised us big time!
Fund Isaan met Pepsi in 2017 when he was in his fourth year of secondary school. His parents had a small farm. To make ends meet Pepsi's mother sold cold drinks in a small cart in front of the local school. Pepsi has one older brother, who was, at that time, studying for a high certificate in Mechanics. Two students following full time education was very challenging, not to say impossible, for his parents.