Catalyst programme university scholarships - Cambodia

Catalyst programme university scholarships – Cambodia

Charity:
Lotus Outreach

To empower vulnerable women and children in poverty

Country

Cambodia

Start Year:

2017

Run Time:

3 Participant Age:

16+ years

Which UN SDGs?

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What is Co-Funding?

Co-funding with the ALMT allows individuals, other Trusts and Foundations, and Companies to contribute funds directly to individual, vetted and approved, project partnerships. With fifteen years of experience awarding grants and working in partnership with children’s organisations around the world, the ALMT is best placed to support you in your philanthropy.

Following on from The ALMT’s partnership history with the Girls Access to Education Programme (GATE), CATALYST enables young scholars to undertake university degrees and forge a career once thought out of reach. CATALYST identifies young women graduating from the GATE scholarship program who have been accepted to Cambodian Universities and / or job training programs and provides material support in the form of tuition fees, monthly stipends, food aid (15 kg dry rice per month), medical services, and communal housing facilities for those who are unable to commute to their university programme.

Lotus Outreach provides emotional support and mentorship as the scholars and trainees adjust to a new and potentially unfamiliar settings and facilitates access to further educational opportunities, internships, apprenticeships, and more.

Girls and young women face immense challenges, especially those living in rural poverty. It is rare that young women in Cambodia reach high school and even rarer that they obtain university degrees (5%). Without Lotus Outreach scholarships and accompanying material support, the majority of them would be expected to spend their teenage years working on their parents’ farms before marrying at a young age and going to live with their husbands’ families. Others would be sent to Thailand to work as day labourers and send money home to their parents, a path that carries severe risks of human trafficking and other forms of exploitation.

Over three years, The ALMT are funding 38 of CATALYST’s university scholarships and vocational training. The young women gain a degree of true independence that is, unfortunately, exceedingly rare for women in Cambodia. The project is:
• Increasing education and social skills for young women on the Catalyst programme.
• Improving life and job opportunities and economic well-being for young women and their communities in Cambodia
• Reducing exploitation of young women enrolled on the programme and create change makers in society.
• Improving gender equality for Catalyst students as well as for their friends, families and siblings.