Guided to apply for scholarships to study abroad when charity 150,000 VND

 Guided to apply for scholarships to study abroad when charity 150,000 VND

Paying 150,000 VND to the Fund to prevent Covid-19 or help children, anyone can get an international student to share their experience of applying for a scholarship or learning a foreign language.

In the last days of June, the project coordination team "Pay It Forward by Vietnamese Students" is busy with the work of connecting Vietnamese students (mentors) with young people in Vietnam who want to study abroad or find find a job later (mentee). From 75 applications to become mentees, the team thoroughly understood their aspirations, then connected up to 64 mentors who matched their strengths and strengths so that the counseling sessions could take place smoothly in the coming July.

The content of counseling sessions can be to support learning English, German, Chinese, and Korean; career counseling; share experiences, support the process of applying for school and government scholarships; or review (evaluate) study abroad records, give appropriate advice to help the profile more complete. Counseling sessions are held 1-1 on Zoom, Skype or Hangout platforms.

Each mentee only needs to contribute a minimum of 150,000 VND to the "Covid-19 Prevention Fund" of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front to join hands in repelling Covid-19; or the "Happy Village" project of the Anti-Flood House to support people affected by natural disasters and climate change; or Blue Dragon Children to help street children, children with disabilities and victims of human trafficking.

Truong Phuc Khanh Tram, a student at Rhodes College (USA), who coordinates the project, affirmed that the coordination team and mentors do not collect any consulting fees. All donations are discretionary and go directly to the foundations. As long as there is a confirmation that the money has been transferred to the above funds, the mentees will be reviewed by the group for their records and aspirations to connect with the appropriate mentor.

"In addition to consulting in the form of one-on-one, the project also builds an online event to advise and share work experience, career orientation or study abroad effectively," Tram said. The project wishes to connect and support former international students to return to Vietnam, apply knowledge learned abroad to contribute to the country.

Talking about the mentors, Tram said that they signed up to participate in the project on a voluntary basis and were all experienced, studying abroad or studying in many countries such as the US, UK, Germany, Australia, China, and Korea. Country, Singapore.

An online seminar organized by the Pay It Forward project by Vietnamese international students in May. Photo: Khue Nguyen.

An online seminar organized by the project "Pay It Forward by Vietnamese International Students" in May. Photo: Khue Nguyen.

Formerly a mentee of the project, Thanh Huyen, a student at the National Economics University, now becomes the Head of the External Relations Department of the project. Before that, when she was a 12th grader, Huyen registered as a mentee even though she knew it was too late to apply to study abroad.

"I find this project to be both transparent and humane and able to learn from good people studying abroad. Even though I didn't study abroad, the listening sessions from the project's mentors helped me broaden my horizons. I looked and registered and was accepted into the Quality Management and Innovation major, studying in English at the National Economics School, which I never thought of," Huyen said. That is also the reason why even though I am not an international student, I would like to join the project and support from Vietnam.

"Pay It Forward by Vietnamese International Students" is a crowdfunding project to contribute to charity funds for Vietnam, established in April 2020 amid the global outbreak of Covid-19 . At that time, the Vietnamese Government implemented many effective epidemic prevention measures. However, the epidemic control situation became more complicated because many Vietnamese students and citizens returned home to avoid the epidemic.

A number of international students have launched the "Pay It Forward" project to join hands to support and share a part of the effort in the prevention of Covid-19 in Vietnam by helping young Vietnamese people with disabilities. opportunities to access scholarships, study abroad, and improve foreign languages. In addition, the project also wants to eliminate prejudices and negative thoughts of a part about international students returning home.

After two seasons of launching in 2020, the project has raised nearly 60 million VND to the Covid-19 and Disaster Prevention Fund of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front. Currently in season 3, the project has attracted 64 mentors and 75 mentees. The total amount raised is nearly 21 million VND.