Search Results for: Eh K' Pru Shee Wah

I’m happy to introduce Eh K’ Pru Shee Wah, a charismatic and poised 13-year-old honor student at the Hackett Middle School in Albany, N.Y.

She spent the first 10 years of her life in a United Nations refugee camp, her family fled Myanmar (formerly Burma) during the religious persecutions there. Our wish for her is that she spends her high school years at one of the best private schools in the Northeast.

Eh K’ Pru’s family entered the United States legally several years ago. Her father works repairing windows.

I’ve entered into discussions with the Albany Academy, a prestigious private school to help them find gifted refugee students to enroll in their academic program with full scholarship support.

As you know, we have worked to support RISSE, a refugee and immigrant support group,  through donations, private support and the very successful Amazon Wish List we suggested.

We also supported the refugee soccer team, now a part of RISSE.

We can continue to support the soccer team through donations to RISSE and also through the Wish List. After we helped Sakler Moo, a gifted student from the same school,  to get into the Albany Academies, I approached several private schools with the idea of offering scholarships to other gifted refugee students.

I talked to a lot of people before I found a wonderful and dedicated teacher at the Hackett School named Kathy Faso, she enthusiastically recommended Eh K’ Pru and last Friday, I met with her and Kathy at the  Hackett school.

E K’Pru is a remarkable young woman, smart, poised, articulate. She works hard to get good grades, she a class leader, skilled both in academics and social skills. She has made amazing progress learning English language skills and acclimating to the U.S. She is very popular with the other students.

If you see Kathy with her students, you can see just what teachers ought to be. She is clear, challenging, inspiring and full of love and interest. I hope I can do this with her every year.

“She is just an amazing person and a remarkable student,” Kathy told me, “I can’t think of anyone I could recommend for fully for a scholarship program.”

I’ve met and spoken with Christopher Lauricella, the head of the Albany Academies, he is sincere about working to make his school more diverse.  My job was locating promising students, and there are quite a few.  I have also partnered up with a senior at the school, an impressive 17-year-old named Alex Boggess, who has made helping refugee children enter the academy his senior class project. Alex is also a gifted photographer.

I’m urging him to create a blog, so his work can be seen.

My idea was that the first student needed to be a female. Everyone else agrees.

I’ve brought this idea to several private schools in the area, they are all interested in the idea.

If Eh K’ Pru is admitted to the Albany Academy, the school will offer her a scholarship. There are many refugee children in the Albany Public  School system, their teachers work long hours and seem especially dedicated. But the classes are small, and funding a struggle.

At the Albany Academy, Eh K’ Pru will be challenged in a way she wants and needs.

I don’t know the amount yet.

Alex will assist in fund-raising for this project from the school community, and if we need further assistance, I’ll ask for  help from the Army Of Good or we’ll consider a gofundmepage.  I hope that won’t be necessary.

I’ve made the argument to the school – and will continue to make this argument – that if they are serious about being diverse, they will consider that refugee families have little money to spare, they will need a full scholarship one way or the other. I believe Christopher Lauricella is quite serious, he is on it and he is also impressive.

I can testify that a lot of the people I contacted don’t care about this issue. He does.

I’m meeting with school officials and Chris and Alex and financial aid staffers on February 2nd. I spent 45 minutes with Eh K’ Pru last Friday, she is gracious and hard-working. She is, in fact, remarkable, just as Kathy said.

Eh K’ Pru loves Hip-Hop (Amigos) and wants to work in business after college.

Why business?, I asked. “Because no one in my family has been able to work in a big business,” she said, “I want to be the first person in my family to do that.”

Eh K’ Pru is a perfect match for the Albany Academy, whose students often enter the business world at the highest levels.

I am excited about this new direction when it comes to refugee support. I think we can change the lives of some of these very gifted and deserving children.

I had nothing to do with getting Sakler Moo into the Albany Academy, but the Army Of Good was able to help bridge the gap between what the school could offer him and what he needed. Sakler’s experience inspired me. He also had the support of one of his teachers.

I think this is a strong plan. The school is a partner with me on this, and so is Alex. Chris Lauricella reached out to me and asked for my help. He wants this to happen. So do I, especially after meeting Eh K’Pru Friday.

I believe this is the most effective way for me and the Army Of Good to help the refugees and their family. It is, in so many ways, about the children. I hope you will continue to support RISSE and the soccer team, and also, the ballet dancers.

We can help in a thoughtful and focused way.

Thanks. I’ll keep you posted on the effort to help Eh K Pru enter the Albany Academy.

And special thanks to Kathy Sosa. I tried contacting a lot of people, many teachers and even the refugee groups blew me off. Kathy answered my call and went to work on behalf of one of her most gifted students.

She is a hero here. So is Christopher Lauricella.

I am determined to do everything in my power to make this happen. Every year. Stay tuned, this needs to happen.

I am proud to report that We have raised enough money to guarantee Eh K Pru Shee Wah’s enrollment at the prestigious Albany Academy for the next four years.

Thank you, thank you, you have contributed much more than money, you have altered the course of a life and affirmed the American dream of openness and generosity.

The Army Of Good send more than $15,000 to the academy’s special tax-deductible fund in the last few weeks.  Academy Senior Alex Borgess and his family raised more than $6,000 to cover Eh K’s tuition shortfall for her senior year.

We did the rest.

The academy had awarded her a $21,000 tuition. The costs for her are closer to $28,000.

I agreed to raise the remaining amount, along with Alex, who made his contribution his senior project. Alex is going to the Manhattan Institute of Technology in September. Thanks Alex.

I’m also sending a check for $375 for  Eh K Pru’s lunch plan for the year.

In addition, we sent a total of $12,000 to the Academy to support Sakler Moo’s tuition for 2018 and 2019. Sakler and his family do not with any publicity or interviews, and so our contributions to him will end this year.

Your generosity is boundless.

I will, of course, respect his wishes not to talk to me about his experience at the school.

The school has made arrangements to cover the remaining costs for him, he can stay as long as he wishes to.

I have to give many thanks to Kathy Sosa, Eh K Pru’s teacher at the Hackett Middle School. She first told me about Eh K Pru and worked very hard to help with the application and admission process, complicated under the best conditions.

I want to thank Christopher Lauricella, the academy Headmaster, for supporting this idea and for keeping his word. I argued with him and others for a full, rather than partial scholarship, but they were generous in the money awarded Eh K Pru, and I am nothing but thrilled by the fact her total tuition is covered for her full-time at the Albany Academy.

I’m going to continue my fight with these private schools to give these refugee children a full scholarship that covers all of their costs. I didn’t win that argument this year, I will keep fighting. The $1,000 admittance fee and the $6,000 in additional tuition costs are crippling for families with no money at all. And me and the Army Of Good won’t be around forever.

To do right by these children and their very battered families, they need to offer full scholarships with financial aid.

I plan on paying Eh K Pru’s lunch plan fees over the next few years and also providing ancillary support for the sudden fees and costs that come with life in a private school – trips and fees. I’ll save some of the donations I receive for the refugee fund.

I will be going to see Eh K Pru from time to time at the academy to see how she’s doing and report back to the good people who have made her enrollment possible.  She and her family are happy to talk to me.

And they have agreed that I can take her picture.

As you know, this transparency is essential for me, it’s a condition of support before I will ask for money or accept any. You have the right to see where you money goes, and to whom.

This policy was a source of continuous conflict at RISSE, the refugee and immigrant support center. So I went out on my own. It is much better for me.

Eh K Pru is a remarkable person, she spent a decade in a U.N. refugee camp before moving to Albany, where she rocketed up the ranks of her public school class and became an honor student.

I’m going to meet her parents in the next few weeks.

She is, Kathy says, a hard worker, an accomplished student, a generous classmate and friend. She is also charismatic, poised and articulate.

I am thrilled.

Now, onto the next gifted refugee student. I’m still working with Noorul Potak from Afthanistan, he felt the Albany Academy was not the right school for him, we are looking at some other schools.

I’m meeting on Monday with officials at the Bishop Maginn High School, a private Catholic School with an avid interest in refugees and minority children, and also with the Emma Willard School in Troy, considered one of the best private schools in the country. I’ve approached several other private schools as well.

I will work hard to make this happen, I will not be discouraged or deterred.

The school is eager for refugee students to apply, and no one is denied admission over money.

This is laborious process on all ends, it is worth it. We don’t need any more money for Eh K Pru.

I am especially grateful to the Army Of Good for your support for Eh K Pru, and for Sakler Moo these past two years. Also for your trust in me and in this work. I believe this is the true and lasting spirit of America.

I think you have done a truly wonderful thing. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I got my assaulted computer back this afternoon, and got it running just in time for great news. I have to put it up on the blog, I told Maria, it was the first thing I thought of.

Eh K Pru has been accepted to the Albany Academy.

Eh K Pru Shee Wah is a poised, gracious and extremely bright young woman. She is 13 years old and spent 10 of those years in a United Nations refugee camp, she and her family fled the religious persecutions in Myanmar, and narrowly escaped.

Her life took a dramatic turn this week,  the Albany Academy is one of the most prestigious private schools in the Northeast. She is the first gifted refugee girl to be accepted into a private school under the new program I began last Fall.

I intend to help get some of these academically talented refugee kids into excellent schools at the recommendation of the dedicated public school teachers in the Albany School system.

Everyone involved wishes she could remain in the public system, but the public schools in Albany are underfunded and overcrowded. The gifted refugee children need special care and that it’s difficult for the public schools to provide.

I spent  months dealing with the school bureaucracy to find and talk to a teacher who could help me identity the most outstanding of these many talented students, and when I found Kathy Saso, a middle school and ESL (English As Second Language) teacher at the Hackett Middle School – the refugee organizations in Albany would not even speak to me – things began to happen.

Kathy jumped at the chance, when a guidance counselor relayed my plea for help, she called me instantly. It is a gift to see her with her students, her class size is enormous, she has great control of her students and great rapport with them.

Kathy was thrilled to work with me, and to support this work. She teaches refugee children every day and understands their issues and needs. From the first, she urged me to help Eh K Pru. It only took a few minutes to convince me, she is impressive.

It took a lot of phone calls (thank God I was a reporter) to find the right teacher, but Kathy is pure gold, and has a heart of gold as well.

Kathy introduced me to Eh K Pru, we met at her school.

By then,  I made my rounds of some of the best private schools in the area. She is very special, remarkably smart, hard-working, positive and gracious.

Two or three schools in the area are interested in this program, the Albany Academy was the first to jump on it, Christopher Lauricella, the HeadMaster, and Bramble Buran, the Director of Admissions, met with me and Alex Boggess, a senior at the school who has made this part of his senior school project.

Chris wants the academy to be more diverse. He was supportive of this idea from the first.

Kathy and I are meeting with officials at Emma Willard in Troy in a couple of weeks. They have a huge endowment, we hope there is some money left over for other students like Eh K Pru.

If Eh K Pru needs money – she will surely need some –  Alex will work with me and the Army Of Good and our blogs and school families and private donors to help raise it.

I plan to do this every year, I feel this is the most effective and rational way to help the refugee families.

Kathy who has several different jobs and works almost unimaginable hours, worked hard to help Eh K Pru fill out her applications and guide her through the process. Tomorrow, she wants me to meet a young student from Afghanistan, she says he is extraordinary and we are prepared to work with him as well. I’m going to see him tomorrow when school gets out.

The school has offered Eh K Pru a generous scholarship, in excess of $21,000.

But the full tuition is higher, there is a gap of at least several thousand dollars, I’m not certain yet just how much. There is a $1,000 admission fee upon her acceptance, due April 10. We’re planning a meeting to see how much we need and talk about how we are going to raise it.

This is a thrilling moment for me. What an honor to help this extraordinary child reach out for her  dreams, which are quite beautiful.

I am in awe of people who do this, it takes a lot of work and there is much resistance, lots of obstacles.  I never expected to be one of them, I wouldn’t think I have the temperament for it.  Dealing with bureaucracies like non-profits and schools is not my favorite thing.

It’s kind of addictive, I find. Once you do it, it’s almost impossible to stop. I’m not going to give the group a formal name, or formalize it. I’m just going to do it.

We can change a life here, and it isn’t easy to do that. I can’t really capture how good it feels. Kathy says Eh K Pru is filled, and her parents – her father repairs windows in this country – are excited for her. They great value education.

And as Maria points out, I am willful and not easily deterred. I guess that is so, I would probably be dead if I weren’t. This could never have happened without Kathy Saso, she is an angel, underpaid, overworked, and completely dedicated to her students.

I’m  going to meet Eh K Pru again tomorrow, after I meet Noosul. I’m also going to meet her family next week. We plan to celebrate. I thank you for following this work, and as always, for your support.

Today, another chapter in my life, and hopefully that of a  remarkable young woman named Eh K’Pru Shee Wah, a 13 year old refugee child who we hope will receive a full scholarship to the Albany Academy, one of the region’s most prestigious and sought after private schools.

I have a meeting with school officials this morning at the Academy to make this happen.

Eh K’Pru is finishing up her applications and we will try and sort out jut how to get her admitted and her tuition paid for . This has been my new refugee project since our excellent soccer team found itself a new sponsor with some deep pockets.

Eh K’Pru is one of the most impressive young people I have met in some time. She spent 10 years of her life in a refugee camp – her family fled the persecutions in Myanmar – and is now an honor student at the Hackett Middle School, a public school in Albany.

She is poised, gracious, hard-working and exceptionally bright.

This is another chapter in my three year effort to work with the people we call the Army Of Good to help refugee children and their families in their very hard journey to get to and live in America. I think this is a good way to continue this work.

I have been searching for someone like Eh K’Pru for some months in the Albany, N.Y., area, where many refugees have come. The non-profit refugee groups were not interested in helping with this project – getting one or two  refugee students into private schools each year – so I turned to the Albany public school teachers.

They were instantly and enthusiastically supportive.

It’s uplifting to meet teachers who care so much. After a lot of phone calls, trips to Albany,  e-mails and frustration, a teacher named Kathy Saso invited me to come and meet with Eh K’Pru.  Kathy was right, she is a perfect candidate for this program.

Kathy is eager to join up with me and help some of her refugee students in need. Some of them are coming to visit the farm once the weather clears. We are helping others with clothes and reading materials.

It is liberating to work with the teachers, they just want to help their kids, no paperwork or bureaucracy or politics.

Christopher Lauricella, the head of the Albany Academies, met with me last month, he is very serious about making his school more diverse. I’m also partnering up with an Albany Academy Senior named Alex Boggess, he is working to raise money within the school community to bring more refugee students to the academy and also to make up any difference between what the school can offer and what a student like Eh K’ Pru might need.

Between Alex and the blog, and the support the school can offer, I feel confident we’ll be able to do this, this year and next and hopefully, for some years after that. I can’t think of anything we can do that will change a life more positively than to help someone like Eh K’ Pru get the education she needs to meet her promise in America. A not-so-small act of great kindness.

I’ve approached two other private schools in the area, they are interesting in pursuing this program also. I am finding this is not quick or simple work, it takes time and a lot of perseverance and the good will of people like Kathy and Alex.

Refugee families don’t by definition have much money, so I’m going to press the school officials to make the commitments necessary to make this happen, if they are sincere about diversity. Mr. Lauricella seems very sincere to me. I’m excited about the meeting, I’ll report back.

As always, I will be open and transparent about this. I never ask anyone to send money unless they know where it is going and for what and to whom. I will honor that pledge here.