Recently a member of MIPC gave me an article written by Nicholas Kristof about educating girls in Vietnam. In the article Kristof tells the story of a 16 year old girl who ranks near the top of her 11th grade class. She gets up each morning at 3:30 AM, checks her homework and commutes an hour each way to school. Each night she washes her one school uniform-a white dress-in a bucket and hangs it up to dry. She hopes to continue to the university where she would like to study economics. She is very poor, but very tough. She has gotten her scholarship through a program called Room to Read, but MIPC has its own scholarship program that sends poor children to school in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, South Africa, and Mexico.
Here is what is surprising in Kristof's article. He says, "It puzzles me in my travels that the donors who invest most in education are fundamentalist Wahhabi Muslims from Saudi Arabia. Often in Africa and Asia, I see madrassas that they have established to inculcate reactionary attitudes, because they understand that education is the best tool kit to change societies."
If you would like more information about MIPC's scholarship program (ISSF) please contact Glo Ceteznik, gloc@mipc.org
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