Indigenous Institutional Educational Grants

In 2022 we donated US$ 500 to Empathy International, a UK-based charity, to help support their Bamboo Schools project to benefit indigenous children and young adults in northern Laos. In June, 2023 we received a progress report. With this grant Empathy has been able to add training in jungle honey bee farming to their training programs in sewing, pig farming, mushroom production, motorbike mechanics, hair and beauty salon, and English. This training helps the students start sustainable income-generating initiatives when they return to their villages. For many of Empathy's students, this is their first time ever outside their indigenous village.

Following the Covid-19 pandemic, inflation in Laos rose to 40%, and shows no sign of slowing. The most staple food, rice, has doubled in price. Empathy's training is provided at no cost to the students, and it enables the country's poorest youths (indigenous Khmu, Hmong, Akha and others) to secure an income. Please consider donating, by clicking the Donate menu on this page, if this is the kind of project you would like to support. Watch a short thank you film on our YouTube channel.

In 2021 we donated the second US$ 500 instalment of a US$ 1,000 grant to The Karen Hilltribes Trust in northwest Thailand. In October, 2021 we received an updated progress report. With this grant KHT has increased access to quality education for indigenous Karen children and young adults. Covid-19 has already had a devastating impact on education. In developing countries over a billion children have fallen behind in their schooling. Based on the current vaccination situation, this will only get worse. Access to education in Mae Hong Son Province in northwest Thailand was already difficult enough. It is now more important than ever that Karen children be able to continue attending school.

KHT has used this grant to help provide a daily school bus transport service (including a new bus for the current term) for 331 students (61% of them female) from thirty villages to ten schools. The grant also helped to provide three daily meals for 172 students (60% of them female) living in dormitories across eight schools. Schools were able to re-open in June, albeit a few weeks late. It is hoped that in-person classes can resume in the new term, and KHT has distributed Covid safety material in Karen communities to help toward this goal. Without this support, the school drop-out rate would be high — especially among girls. Please consider donating, by clicking the Donate menu on this page, if this is the kind of project you would like to support.

In 2018 we donated the second US$ 500 instalment of a US$ 1,000 grant to Help for Education and Local Projects IN The Gambia (HELPING). In August, 2018 we received an updated progress report. With this grant HELPING has built and supplied an art area at Chamen in the Nianija district on the north bank of the River Gambia. This project helped indigenous children from the region to express themselves in art.

As soon as the materials arrived — paint, paintbrushes, art paper, glue etc. — the children put on their aprons and began using it. They did not want to wait for the art area to be painted! That painting will now have to wait until the end of the current semester. The children and their teachers send a big "thank you" to all our donors who made this possible. A similar project is now underway at Chessay Ma Jaw, where the bricks for that art area are now being made and construction will begin very soon. Please consider donating, by clicking the Donate menu on this page, if this is the kind of project you would like to support.