WINGS: We Invest in Gifts of Scholarships
In September 2019, Gorkhaly Foundation in collaboration with The Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC) launched an annual college scholarship, job placement and mentorship program for youth whose parents are in incarceration. With an aim to support education without disruption during an extremely challenging time in a young person life, we seek to address in a small part the vicious cycle of unemployment, poverty and crime. We are on our third year of the program having supported a small cohort of students each year receive a technical college degree (18 month program) and job placement support. The scholarship has been accessed by youth from all corners of Nepal and has provided for tuition, food and lodging, books and stationaries, travel and other related costs of acquiring a degree and preparing them for employment.
Despite of Covid-19 disruptions, we are thrilled that all three students from our first batch have graduated in 2021 and are currently in job placement, or starting a business venture. We have three students from our second batch graduating in 2022 and our third batch of four students have been identified and enrolled. We had one student drop out from the second batch given extraordinary family and health circumstances.
In 2022, four female students received scholarships for the eighteen-month technical degree in mechanical engineering, making a total of 11 students supported till date. It is also noteworthy that our four students are the only female students enrolled in the technical college this academic year. We are currently raising funds to support our third batch and hope you will join us in this small but important undertaking.
Gorkhaly Foundation aims to remain a long term partner to ECDC in this very important initiative, and is currently in discussion with ECDC on scaling and sustaining this long-term.
Who can apply?
Children of inmates currently in the prison systems of Nepal are eligible for this scholarship. To qualify, they should have completed their Secondary Education Examination (SEE) and passed entrance exams at one of the technical schools of Engineering and Technology in Nepal. The scholarship provides for tuition, food and lodging, books and stationaries, travel and related costs. Scholarship opportunities are promoted in prisons across the country in coordination with prison authorities. Interest in and reception of this scholarship program is growing and we have seen increasing number of applications each year.
Why is this work important?
Many children are born into or have life experiences that place their educational opportunities in complete jeopardy. Children whose parent(s) go into incarceration have their lives altered, producing many negative consequences. In Nepal, 30,000 adults are behind bars leaving their children without a parent or both, sometimes cared for by extended families but very often fending for themselves. A significant population of these children are low income without other adults in their lives who are able to provide for them. Currently the government of Nepal does not have programs that are able to support these children. Organizations like the Early Childhood Development Center fill this gap by providing a home for many of these children taking care of their needs.
Youth throughout the country are left in a vulnerable situation once the breadwinner of their family is no longer at home. This age group is at a high risk of not being able to continue education given resource needs at home, resource needs for college and the perpetual stress of living in what society labels a “household of crime”. Studies show that these young adults are at a higher risk of partaking in illegal activities, falling into substance abuse and get trapped into a vicious cycle of poverty, unemployment and often crime. ECDC has acquired government permission to launch this program as well received support from the Prison Management Department to support with recruitment.
We believe that everyone should have access to education and training and hope to raise funds in order to support more students each year.