Donated to:
Qinghai Ran (冉青海)
$70 of $280 donated
Sichuan, China
My whole family lives solely on tobacco farming. Lately, we have lost much money in our crops, and my brother left the village to find a job. However, my brother is illiterate and earns very little money, not enough to cover my family’s declining annual income and my educational expenses. In these recent years, my parents and my brother have had to pinch and scrape in order to put me through school. The village we live in is extremely poor and technologically backward – with a horrible environment and inferior living conditions. Children are usually forced to grow up quickly, and I am no different. At school, I never had many friends. Initially, I did very poorly in school, was censured by my teachers, and was almost expelled due to failure to pay academic fees. I didn’t give up though, and I started to study harder than anyone in my school. Eventually, I was the top of my class. While I spend more time studying and focusing on my grades, my classmates still look down upon me ...
Guangen Shen (申关根)
$200 of $200 donated
Sichuan, China
I was born in a small remote village, nestled in the mountains. Although I long to visit the big cities, my village lacks developed roads. People in my village either do farm work or hard labor. The only source of income in my family is the money earned by my father. Unfortunately, when I was little, I fractured my right arm, and in order to afford my medical expenses, his family had to borrow money from neighbors. To pay for tuition fees of both my sister and me, my father had to find a second job. The work was hard to find because my father is illiterate. Like many other poor families who have children attending school, my family is heavily in debt. Despite my difficult circumstances, I love to read. Physics is my favorite subject. When I was in elementary school, I often borrowed physics textbooks from my older sister every time I went home. Since I lived approximately 8.3 miles away from my elementary, I could only go home once every three weeks. In middle school, I enjoyed phys...
Shangui Yan (严善贵)
$150 of $150 donated
Sichuan, China
My family has a couple acres of field and farmland. Due to the recent dry spell, the output of these fields is not much. My younger sister and I are the only two children in my family, and our parents love us so much. My father is a farmer, as well as my disabled mother. The day I started school, my mother broke down into tears because she realized that she could never afford to pay tuition for her children to fully complete their education. For the majority of my sister's and my life, all our clothes were given to us by kind friends. When I was in fourth grade, I got a disease that forced my family to use the little money that we had saved to pay for my medical expenses. My father even sold his own blood to get money for me. Luckily, I was treated and cured. I used to be number one in my class, but after I went to middle school, my performance dropped noticeably. I lost confidence and courage, becoming unsure about my future life and studies. I didn’t know if my family could ...
Irene Obonyo
$300 of $300 donated
Tororo, Uganda
Irene is a student in Educate!’s Socially Responsible Leadership Course that focuses on the entrepreneurial and leadership skills students need to find solutions to poverty, violence, disease and environmental degradation. Educate! trains teachers who become mentors to their students (like Irene), building powerful relationships that give youth the confidence to lead change. The mentor also facilitates the Educate! Social Entrepreneurship Club that gives students like Irene practical business skills while aiming to solve a community need. The amount requested covers the cost of training, salary and transportation for the Educate! mentor, as well as all materials/handouts/textbooks provided in the Socially Responsible Leadership Course. Irene has an infectious smile and it is easy to think of her as not serious at first glance. That is until you are told she is the head prefect at her school. As you wonder how she got there, her teachers tell you she is the most focused and pragmat...
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