An interview trip by the Education team enables ISGF volunteers to meet students face to face to monitor their progress and make sure they are not experiencing problems. Volunteer English teachers translate during the interviews ensuring that team members and students have the best possible communication.

Laurien Willemse

Prapaporn Pholchob, one of the first graduates from the ISGF’s Higher Education programme: Her determination and talent won her scholarships that helped her reach her goal.

In her letter of application for funding from ISGF, Prapaporn told of studying at a temple school for primary education, where, she explained, “I was a good student and always top of my class. … My mother wanted me to study as high as possible. She doesn’t want me to have a hard life like her, a primary school graduate.”

Now, Prapaporn is employed in a major Thai company and able to support her younger sister and her grandfather.

Determination like Prapaporn’s is one of the sparks that members of ISGF’s Higher Education Scholarship Programme are looking for when they interview students to bring into the programme.

There are other factors, too, according to Karen Taylor, Coordinator of the programme. “Have they got the motivation, have they got the academic wherewithal to survive? We know that it’s really tough at university. If you don’t have a support system in place it’s going to be even tougher,” she emphasises.

More than money

Karen Taylor

Members of the higher education team see that support system as essential, and it is something they are prepared to invest in personally. During yearly interview sessions with students, Taylor explains, team members often provide what they call ‘pastoral support’.

“When you reach that crucial age of 17 and you’re trying to decide: ‘Do I want to go to university or not?’ If you don’t have anyone offering you advice and guidance, you might not go on. It’s sitting down with them and saying: ‘Look, you do really well in this area, have you considered doing this at university?’”

But the ISGF team members are not alone in that support system. The organisation has long had the cooperation of the former Department of Public Welfare. That relationship continues with the newly formed Ministry of Human Security and Social Welfare.

“ISGF works alongside the Ministry,” Taylor explains. “That means that we are able to call on the Ministry resources, which is a whole network of social workers throughout all the provinces of Thailand.”

The ISGF network includes those social workers, as well as the schools and influential people in the universities – who all help students to choose a study path that suits their interests and abilities.

Thewan Thipwataksorn, fifth year dentistry student

Thewan Thipwataksorn is another example of someone who has benefited from that support system. With top grades from high school, Thewan was accepted into the Dentistry programme at Chulalongkorn University. He receives a scholarship of 10,000 baht per year from the faculty. Like Prapaporn, he is from a large, single-parent family unable to give him financial support, so student loans are also essential. Even that combined financing, however, couldn’t maintain him on the expensive dental programme.

Because of his good grades and dedication, he came to the attention of Dr Amput Intaraprasong, a well-known dentist and a leading professor at the university — and a member of ISGF. She recommended him to the education team which awarded him a scholarship that enables him to continue his studies.

He is also part of Dr Amput’s team at the ISGF/Chulalongkorn Dental Clinic at Pakkred. She established that programme to provide dental care for disabled children. “She gives her own time and recruits the finest students to serve at the dental clinic,” Taylor explains, “and Thewan is one of her key students. She’s been a huge inspiration for him.”

Dr Amput’s inspiration combined with information he learned during his studies led Bangkok-born Thewan to decide to practise dentistry upcountry when he graduates. “I learned from my professor that half the dentists in Thailand are in Bangkok — the distribution of dentists is really uneven. So I decided to help those who cannot afford expensive dental treatment,” he states.

Social Worker, Jennette Eoomkham

Maintaining the network, seeking funding, managing the programme, interviewing the more than 600 students in the education programme – all that takes many hours of work. That’s where Jennette Eoomkham comes in.

Until recently, the programme was implemented by the team of volunteers who make up the Higher Education committee plus one full-time liaison officer within the Public Welfare Department of the Ministry who worked with all ISGF programmes.

The volunteers met with personnel from the department who were responsible to work with ISGF. Through the Ministry network, volunteers then had contact with social workers in the provinces, teachers and administrators in schools. With the reorganisation of the Ministry and the rapid growth of the scholarship programme, it became apparent that the organisation needed its own employee working full time.

Jennette, a graduate of the Faculty of Social Administration at Thammasat University, was hired. In her position as Coordinator and Social Worker, she assists all ISGF committees in their work. “I have to know all the projects, all the people involved and coordinate with the government, social workers in the provinces and the students,” Jennette explains.

She was just getting into the job when a group from ISGF met with learning post last month. Already, though, she had organised a four-province trip to the Northeast. In just two days, the education team travelled to six towns and cities and presented scholarships to more than 100 school children in P1-M6 (grades 1-12).

In addition, the higher education team interviewed college and university students. Such trips are a chance to monitor the progress of students already on the programme, to check their grades and find out about their present financial and social situation. “We could do all that because Jennette organised it very well. She was the real linchpin of the trip,” Taylor emphasises.

Such a trip is also an opportunity for some of that pastoral support the volunteers can provide. Many of them are expatriates who have left professional careers to follow spouses to Thailand. In interviews, they are able to provide the encouragement necessary to boost the confidence of capable students and to support them on educational paths that will allow them to develop their full potential.

“In our families, as we are growing up [in more developed countries] we have support from our parents who have strong educational backgrounds,” Willemse explains. “But for these students, it’s very difficult to get enough guidance and the step to a student advisor is sometimes very high. We can often make the right liaisons within the university for them.”

But how does an expat, possibly with limited Thai language, communicate effectively with a Thai student?

“Actually, at university level it’s important that they’re speaking English anyway,” comments Taylor, “so it’s good for them. We do speak in English quite a lot of the time.” With those students, the interviews might start with pleasantries in the student’s English or the interviewer’s Thai, but more complete communicating is needed when it comes to the essential discussions of student progress, emotional and financial issues.

That’s where another important part of the ISGF network comes into the picture. The committee has recruited Thai teachers of English as translators for the interviews. “They just love the opportunity. And from our point of view, it’s an absolute godsend,” Taylor says with obvious satisfaction.

In addition to arranging the teacher-translators, Jennette also serves in that role. “She will sit by my side,” says Taylor, “the student will sit in front and we might start with pleasantries in Thai, but when we get down to the nitty-gritty, it’s much easier for me to ask in English and for Jennette to translate and tell me exactly what they’ve said.”

Much of what is said in those interviews has to do with financial need. ISGF deliberately seeks students with high potential and poor economic background. “Many are the children of farmers or unskilled labourers, mostly with no education themselves. Without assistance, there is no way they could consider going to university,” Taylor asserts.

Candidates are often identified by social workers and personnel of agencies in the provinces. One such contact is Uraiwan Pakkasem, the volunteer manager of the SEM Pringpuangkeo Foundation in Chiang Mai. The Foundation looks after groups of young people who have been orphaned by AIDS.

As students pass out of the programme each year, there is space to take on new ones. Ms Uraiwan knows that and she knows ISGF’s criteria. “She will contact me and say. ‘I’ve got a group of six students I really want you to consider.’ She has already done an amazing vetting job,” stresses Taylor.

“We give school children 4000 baht a year which basically helps pay for a uniform, books, maybe some lunch. It’s not a huge amount of money but it does mean that parents will allow those children to go to school rather than keeping them at home or having them sell something for 10 baht on the street. So that’s great,” Taylor explains enthusiastically

Once on the programme, ISGF guarantees to support them to the age of 18, but there is no guarantee after that. Students already on the programme must reapply before entering the higher education programme and many new recipients enter at this level.

“They all supply us every semester with their list of bills and at every interview I ask what are your accommodation costs, your bills, water, travel,” Taylor explains. “We were able to establish what their costs were, what they would get from a student loan and decided that if we were to give them 20,000 baht — that’s a significant amount —it would make a huge difference to the students' ability to survive financially at University.

The aim for next year is to have 150 students on that programme. That is in addition to more than 500 students in the school and vocational programmes. That’s a lot of money. So where does it come from?

The majority of the school students are supported by individuals in Europe, North America and Thailand. Those sponsors receive letters or pictures from their students and regular feedback about academic progress as well as the ISGF newsletter. “It’s obviously important to keep them informed and feeling warm,” Taylor comments.

In addition to the education support work of ISGF, other committees provide everything from dental care for disabled children to wheelchairs, eyeglasses and blankets for those in need. For more information about the organisation contact ISGF by email at: ISG_Education@yahoo.com

Some funding for the Higher Education programme comes from individuals, but the majority is from one donor based in Luxembourg, the Association de Soutine aux Orphelins de Bangkok (ASOB). That group sponsors more than 55 orphans in northern Thailand. Most of those students are cared for by the SEM Pringpuangkeo Foundation and the Daughters of Charity. On the horizon for ISGF-sponsored students is support that will offer mentoring by company employees as well as financial support.

Whether sponsors are individuals or organisations, they share with the members of ISGF a deep admiration for the talented young people like Thewan and Prapaporn who have dreams of a positive future for themselves and who just need the right kind of support to make those dreams come true.