In Reply to: Report Card Question posted by ELJAY on Monday, 10. July 2006 at 14:54 Bali Time:
When we first started the foundation with 30 students, we could send report cards. Although most of our sponsors thought it was very strange that the report cards were in Indonesian and they couldn't read Indonesian and had no idea what had been written.
Now we have 355 students, this has proven to be impossible to do. This is because we decided to help only the children from the poorest of the poor families. We decided not go to a school and sponsor "a class full of children" before moving on to sponsor the next class. We may only have 2 children sponsored in a school.
It has proven impossible to collect report cards from 100 schools spread over all of North Bali, this would take days to do. We have tried sending a motorbike rider out to collect reports, only to find that many teachers hadn't had time to fill out the reports and our collector had wasted a couple of days of his time for no results.
What we do offer to our sponsors, is that they email me and enquire about their student. When I speak to Sukadana each week, I then ask him to check on the student for me. I report back to the sponsor as soon as I get the information. If you can please email me, I will ask Sukadana to check on your student.
We arranged with the Head of each village to notify us it there is a change in the student's learning ability, a health problem or if there is a problem with their home conditions. The teachers are asked to contact the Head of the village if there is a problem. He then contacts our coordinator and informs him.
When I send out the renewal to our sponsors, I do try to include information as to the position the student has obtained in their class. One thing I can say is that in most cases our sponsored children are in the top 5 or 10% of their classes. The teachers tell us that it's because the students are so proud to be awarded a scholarship.
I hope I have answered your concerns to your satisfaction
Kindest thoughts
Helen
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