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Maimona, is a twelve year old girl and the first student to be given a high school education grant from YouMe Support Foundation, in Vanuatu. Maimona has an older brother and two other sisters.
There is no free education system in Vanuatu and the statistics say that only 18% of students have the privilege of seeing the inside of a high school classroom. Lack of fund made it impossible for Maimona’s older sister go to high school. She now sits at home with no qualifications and no prospect of being able to gain employment. There is no government assistance for the unemployed.
Maimona’s family managed to find enough money to put the only son in the family through high school. He says he wants to be a pilot.
Maimona is a hard working, high achieving student, but unless she is able to get assistance from charities like YouMe Support Foundation and Child Trust Fund, Maimona will end up sitting with her older sister at home. A lot of families in the tropical islands of Vanuatu live on under $1 per day.
Some villagers from islands in the far north of Vanuatu, unsuccessfully tried to airlift live coconut crabs to Port Vila, the capital. They had hoped to raise enough money to be able to send their children to school. There is only airline which services the area and it has refused to transport the live crabs. This is in spite of the villagers having managed to raise sufficient money to pay the freight. The airline asserts the live crabs pose a threat, as they are not sufficiently packaged.
The people of Vanuatu know the value of educating their children, but finding the school fees is a never ending nightmare.
Working with the education department and local schools, YouMe Support Foundation plans to assist additional children each year, through an ongoing high school education grant program.
Dr Wendy Stenberg-Tendys and her husband are CEO’s of Win A Resort, (http://winaresort.com) making a difference in children from Lesser Developed Countries. You can be part of this exciting project. Take a few minutes to check it out.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
