Tamara, an employee of our partner, Deloitte Belgium and a certified EFL (English as Foreign Language) Teacher, arrived in Thailand on Sunday, May 14, 2017, one day before the start of the new schoolyear.

The next morning she started her volunteer work as an assistant English teacher at Phanom Dongrak School in the Surin Province. Phanom Dongrak School is a secundary school with approximately 1000 students.

In less than 40 days, we handed out over 65 scholarships mostly to newly accepted students.

On March 10 we handed out our first scholarship for the first semester 2017/2018. Yesterday we were at 65 scholarships. This means we visited 65 students, mostly at their house, to see how they and their familes were doing and to pay the first part of their scholarship for the next academic year. We listened to their stories and posted them on the secure part of our website where the respective sponsors can find news about their student or students.

Giving Back Association is a not-for-profit organization, registered as NGO number 5374/2557 on December 22, 2014 in Thailand, with the purpose of supporting charities in Thailand and the Region.

GBA helps individual and corporate donors to find information on charities and foundations in the Greater Mekong region that most fit their philanthropic goals as well as information on their governance, financial efficiency and transparency.

Yesterday we paid the first scholarships for the first semester of the new school year 2017/2018.

It is always a pleasure to meet with our students and their families. Bright young individuals who all have a dream. And in each of those dreams helping their families and communities comes back time and time again.

I hope the little help they get from Fund Isaan and our sponsors will help them achieve their dream.  Thank you to our sponsors and all the best to our students, we will be there for you!

Bae, also known as Sirinna Manyuen, was born and raised in the Isaan region. Bae has three sisters. Bae has a lovely 1.5 year old daughter, Miliew

During her secondary studies at Chomphraprachason School Bae discovered her love for English and ... the school library; English was her favorite subject and the library her favorite place to be. After secondary school Bae went to Khon Kaen University, her major was Library and Information Science and her minor was English. She graduated with a high score of 3.12/4 in 1999.

Thanks to the relentless support of our sponsors we will be able to grant 50 additional scholarships. This means 50 students that will have the possibility to continue their studies. This will have a major impact on their lives, that of their families and communities. We can not thank our sponsors enough.

Thanks to the Internet we are all connected, even when we are volunteering on the other side of the world. Felix started his volunteering adventure in Thailand since the beginning of January. Through text and pictures you can follow his activities while teaching high school students at Saikeaw Wittaya School in Surin, Thailand on his blog (Dutch).

Our cooperation with the Odisee College in Belgium was recently featured in Het Nieuwsblad, a leading Belgian Newspaper! The article, titled 'Odisee College sends their students across the whole world', shows the many ways in which Odisee students can perform an internship abroad. Fund Isaan is honored to work together with such an innovative organisation and we hope to send many more student teachers from the Odisee College to Thailand in the future.

The latest Fund Isaan volunteer to travel to Thailand was Maarten Kerkhofs, who worked at the Naraikhampong School. He was our first volunteer there, which can be an extra challenge.