In 2019, after working for six years in a removed village located in the mountains of South Central Vietnam, teaching art and holding our summer camps, we saw not only the poor conditions that our students were living under, but the lack of educational support for them to be successful in school. The village families are made up of the the ethnic group called the Raglay.

 

Approximately 150 families live in the village, and students attend a small school that provides education from 1st-5th grades only. After 5th grade students are sent to a boarding school for Eehnic minority students 1.5 hours away from home. At the age of 12, the drop out rate is high after a year or less in the 6th grade at the boarding school, especially for girls, who are often pressured by their families to stay home and care for other siblings. If a girl was doing poorly in the transition to the new school, there usually is no support guiding them to stay in school.

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Our Goals

 

In 2019 we piloted a summer tutoring initiative for 30 girls from the village. We hired teachers, and starting to provide tutoring and grade-specific pre-teaching in the spring and summers, and year-round for high-school aged girls. The program's success has led to its expansion, and not 100 girls attend.

 

Our comprehensive curriculum supports girls in 1st to 12th grade:

• Grades 1-2: Weekly reading and storytime with peer mentors.

• Grades 3-5: Weekly art classes for self-expression and creative freedom.

• Grades 5-12: Weekly tutoring in math, chemistry, literature, english, physics, and Vietnamese language classes starting in 2nd grade.

• Grades 2-4: Weekly tutoring in math, english, and vietnamese language classes.