November 2021: Extremely proud of our scholarship students!

We are extremely proud of our scholarship students! The first semester of academic year 2021/2022 has been particularly difficult! Just a few weeks after the start of the academic year, the authorities ordered schools to close their doors in an attempt to stop the spread of the pandemic.

 

Students were forced to study online in their dormitory or at home, often without computer and with an unstable internet connection. Teachers were not prepared and some didn’t even show up for their scheduled online classes.

 

According to a survey (Thai PBS World: May 3, 2020), many students living in remote areas of the country do not have access to the internet. The survey included 678 public and private school teachers in 67 provinces. It found that 66 percent of students do not have access to a computer or the internet. About 36 percent of students don’t have a smartphone. The survey concluded that only about 45 percent of students nationwide had the ability to attend online classes during the lockdown.

 

Yet our scholarship students continued to fight, determined to finish their education and improve their future and that of their families.

 

We were touched and overwhelmed by their stories and determination! 

We were in touch with each and everyone of them and the overall tone of the conversation was almost always identical: “It has been difficult, I struggle with the online classes, I miss my friends an family, my families small income has gone down even further due to the pandemic, I lost my student job, but I will never ever give up on my dreams!”

 

We are so proud of you guys and we are there to support you! We made sure all scholarship students had their scholarship paid before the start of the new semester and we even offered all of them a notebook for free to make online learning easier!

 

All of this is only possible thanks to the support of our loyal sponsors, individuals who financially adopted one or more students, non-profits like VZW Thaise Vrienden and companies such as Deloitte Belgium and delaware who donated money and/or notebooks. Thank you ! You change lives for ever!