Help me help Ria

I have a very good friend here in the blog-o-sphere called Ken who writes on kenthinksaloud.

A few days ago, he put up a post called “Help me help Ria” which talks about his goal to help one of his ex-students from Bangladesh attend Lancaster University here in the UK.

Just a bit of background on Ken. He and his family have recently moved back to the United Kingdom after having been living and teaching in Bangladesh for 5 (I think!) plus years! Ken will kindly correct me if I am wrong 🙂 He and his family worked with a non-governmental organisation called LAMB who help to provide healthcare to areas in Bangladesh that otherwise would have none. He taught different subjects at the local school assisting in educating and helping all those that he and his family encountered.

I’ve learnt over the time I have known Ken that he is very selfless and very kind and his latest venture just keeps affirming what I already knew.

So back to the story. Whilst in Bangladesh, Ken taught a student called Ria Mollick.

This is Ria Mollick 🙂

One of her goals has always been to train in Business and accredit herself up to an international standard, so that she can go back to Bangladesh and help make a difference for the women there. As I said before, Ria already received an unconditional offer from Lancaster University – I want us to help her get here.

Ria cannot apply for her visa to study in the UK until she can prove that she has the tuition fees for one year. Here is where it starts getting amazing. Studying in the UK for overseas students (and for anyone studying in a country that is not their ‘home’ country) is extremely expensive and her family already support an older daughter in her studies. Ken has proposed three things:

• He and his family have agreed to let Ria stay in their family home for the 3 years that she will be studying in the United Kingdom free of charge, so she will not have to worry about the cost of housing and food.
• Ken is currently working on a book called Sonali, which is a collection of photographs and text about rural Bangladesh and where Ria comes from, promising to give all profits made from the book towards Ria’s tuition fees, and;
• Ken has also agreed to add thank you’s in the book to all those that help in assisting Ria to her goal.

Is that not amazing?

A GoFundMe page has been set up to raise money for Ria to cover her fees for the first year. You can donate to help Ria if you so wish by clicking the link at the beginning of the sentence. A donation can be made publicly or privately – you have an option to choose! What would also be amazing is if people could go to the GoFundMe page and share the link with others.

If you want more information, feel free to click on the link below and get in contact with Ken yourselves:
http://www.kenthinksaloud.wordpress.com  ———————> Help me help Ria

Together we can help make this young girl turn her dreams into reality!

xoxo

~ by originalapplejunkie on March 5, 2014.