Providing free education the self-sustaining way
My journey started on 23 December 2012 when I embarked upon a solo mountain climbing trip to a remote region in Myanmar. It was part of my annual self-reflection trip where I withdrew myself from the world around me, slowed my thoughts down and sought tranquillity and inspiration from Mother Nature. There, I encountered things which a typical urban dweller like me would never have a chance to. I often read about poverty, but there, I discovered its true definition. I have learnt much about kindness from books but had never fully understood it until I saw people who could hardly make their own ends meet, shared food with poorer children along the streams where they try to catch their own meal. There and then I wondered that perhaps I was there for a reason.
I had thought of several ways how I could play a significant role in improving the lives of the needy people in Myanmar. Perhaps I could donate some money or food, or perhaps I could volunteer my time to help construct schools and roads, which I did with a group of 18 youth volunteers from a Singapore grassroots organization in June 2013.
However, I don’t believe how one could lift people out of poverty if they continue to depend substantially on foreign aids. I realised that educating poor children and improving their standard of English should help them and the lives of their next generations become better. Perhaps a few of these children might one day play a significant role in their country which might lead to a positive change in their society somehow. With that in mind, my education company, L-intelligent Education, sponsored 2 English teachers and supplied teaching materials and methodology for a local orphanage, hoping that would set the ball rolling.
Together with a few compassionate partners from L-intelligent Horizons (LTH) Eduhub, we called for donations from Singaporeans who might have stationery and books to contribute. Then we flew to Myanmar at our own expense and started distributing books and writing materials to the needy children in October 2013.
Then in December 2013, we gave toys to the 60 needy children as a Christmas surprise and we were glad to have given them much joy that day and we would always remember those unforgettable smile and laughter on their faces. As an inadvertent consequence, we found much inner joy and peace while doing so.
With more philanthropic experience, I started to realise that as long as the orphanage continues to depend on foreign monetary and material aids, they would never learn how to fend for themselves. As an urban dweller who lives in a country that has gone through rapid transformation over the past 30 years, knowledge that I have gained from my own education and experience gained from entrepreneurship should allow me to derive a feasible way to help these needy children create a self-sustaining business model which could generate continual revenue to fund their own educational expenses.
With that in mind, in December 2013, a small group of friends from LTH and I invested in the creation of a cow farming business for the orphanage where we hope would generate sufficient revenue to sponsor the continual education for those needy children. Their involvement in such business activities would also provide them with useful skills for their future endeavours. Hopefully, our “Milk for Hope” initiative would become a significant event in catalysing a positive change in the lives of needy people in Myanmar and help improve the lives of millions of underperforming students in the world.
– Linus Lin
Co-founder / Principal
L-intelligent Horizons Eduhub Pte. Ltd.
Comments
Providing free education the self-sustaining way — No Comments
HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>