Education is a major and sensible issue, more so when it comes to the education of children from disadvantaged families.
Most people will agree that education is the best way to improve the economic outcomes of disadvantaged people and that it determines the prospects of their children and future generations. Unless children are educated, it can be very difficult for them to find a worthwhile job that gives them the chance they need to improve their lives, or to create a job developed by themselves or to create their own businesses.
Children who cannot attend school and that therefore cannot receive the right education face a clear risk of social exclusion, of social inequality.
And if education has always played an important role, nowadays it plays an even more relevant role due to the technological revolution that the world is experiencing. New technologies are constantly expanding and becoming a key ingredient of the economic infrastructure.
It is urgent to educate children in the new technologies. It is essential to give to our children a good education in that field.
“Ngày mai Scholarship” (as we have named this initiative) aims to help economically disadvantaged families so they don’t feel their children education as burdensome. It intends to be a little aid for this kind of families as well as to allow their children to develop their personality in the best possible environment.
It does also aim at preventing school dropout. Children should not abandon school at any time before having the knowledge that allows them to develop themselves and to develop their own jobs or their own businesses.
“Ngày mai Scholarships” started in July 2018 with a question addressed to HEARTS FOR HUE by one of our international volunteers. It was an easy question with not such an easy answer: “What can be done to support the education of children of disadvantaged families?”
Since then, our volunteer gave himself to the always difficult and bittersweet task of finding and collecting money among his friends and relatives in his homeland and elsewhere. People who have worked as volunteers are the ones who contribute the most to us. No doubt that they know these issues and they speak our same volunteer’s language.
We are still at the very beginning of this initiative. Unfortunately, the capabilities of “Ngay mai Scholarship” are modest, as our only source of income are the funds that friends and relatives contribute to us on a yearly basis. And therefore, modest are our contributions to families. We can offer families a very limited support. Our wish is that our contribution can be felt by families as an economic relief and that our limited support may allow families to look at their children’s education in a more comfortable way as well as to avoid school dropout.
“Ngày mai Scholarships” gives support to disadvantaged families with children studying up to and including 12 grade.
In the school year 2018/2019 “Ngày mai Scholarship” has been able to give support to 44 children, in certain areas of Thua Thien Hue Province, such as the city of Hue, Duong No, Vinh Phu or Xuan Loc.
We have learnt from these families, from their children and from the many circumstances around them. We have learnt about their lives and the many difficulties they must face. We have learnt about the harsh conditions of their lives.
Their stories give us courage to continue with our work and to fight for new contributions from all people. After a year of “Ngày mai Scholarships” we feel deeply satisfied with the work done and we are convinced that overcoming whatever difficulties is worthwhile if it is to help the most disadvantaged children.
We hope that the contributions and donations of our friends and relatives make “Ngày mai Scholarships” possible in many years to come.
HEARTS FOR HUE has run with the burden of all the work that “Ngày mai Scholarships” involves in Vietnam. Among others:
- Contacting with local authorities and explaining the program
- Carrying out a process to identify potential beneficiaries
- Collecting information regarding the situation of families and their children
- Selecting the beneficiaries
- Distributing the economic aid to the beneficiaries
- Contacting schools and schools’ principals.
- Monitoring children’s performance as well as the situation of families throughout the school year.
- Keeping the appropriate records of the program
- Preparing final reports and evaluation for each school year
- And many other activities.
Information is key in the program since we need information to establish our goals and to do as much as we can for families and children. It does also allow us to provide all necessary information to all the people contributing to our program.
All these activities involve a great deal of time and effort from everyone at HEARTS FOR HUE, including long motorbike trips since some of the communes where we are developing this program are more than an hour’s ride from the city of Hue.
Without the collaboration and support of HEARTS FOR HUE this initiative wouldn’t have been possible. Therefore, it is totally logical that “Ngày mai Scholarships” is already a program of HEARTS FOR HUE.
We are about to complete the school year 2018/19. We are still evaluating our achievements during this first year of the program. We know we need to improve, and we will do our best for the education of children from disadvantaged families.
Hearts for Hue.
