Scholarship Recipients: Class of 2009

Chim: is extremely enthusiastic student from the Tujia ethnic minority. His mother divorced when he was five and in order to live, left for Guangzhou to find work. His brother went with his mother. Chim's father is out of work because the factory closed down, so he does odd jobs to survive. In his family, no one has a steady job to provide income. While studying at the University, Chim has a part-time job at a private English school tutoring students studying English.

Candy: has one sister and her parents. Her father worked in construction before his health took a turn for the worst. Now her father helps her mother sell tofu in their home town. Her mother serves as a cook at a construction site. They live in the same rural remote village, Heping in Yanhe country, Tongren prefecture. Candy's sister now attends Tongren Normal school (high school). Her enthusiasm and athletic ability have helped her to compete in the 4x100M run.

Oliver: comes from faraway family of six in farming village. She has two brothers and one older sister. Her father is very weak and her mother disabled, unable to work. They live on the crops they harvest. Her older sister studies in Chongqing University and her brother is in high school Three of the four children going to school so Oliver family does not have enough money to pay for the tuition and living expenses. The father sold corn and borrowed money from people in the village so she could come to school. Oliver is in the top ten percent of her class. She is in the Tujia ethnic minority.