Real Lives

The Lives of a Scholarship Student and a Scholarship Applicant
Mint is a junior high school student. She is orphaned, and now lives with 14 of her relatives in one small house.

Mint and the 14 other people in her family live in the same small house in a slum in Udon Thani Province. Three months after she was born, Mint’s father left. Later, her mother also disappeared (the family recently learned her mother is in prison on drug charges). Mint and her older sister were brought up by their grandmother in her home.

Mint’s grandmother earns her income by selling food. However, it is not always enough to supporting all 15 family members. As soon as Mint comes home from school, she helps with the domestic chores. On weekends and school holidays, she helps her grandmother with her work. Mint has no time to play with her classmates.

Because of her situation, Mint is really happy to receive a Darunee scholarship. She wanted to continue to go to junior high school, but she did not want her grandmother to face the additional economic burden of her going to school. The Darunee scholarship makes it possible for Mint to go to school without putting any extra financial burden on her grandmother.

Mint dreams of becoming a doctor. Doctors work to ease the pain of patients; Mint works hard to reduce her grandma's burden as much as possible.

Mui, a sixth-grader at elementary school, earns his living by collecting garbage and practicing Muay Thai

Mui is a sixth-grader at elementary school, living in Mahasarakam Province. He lives with his parents, his little sister, who is in the fourth grade, and his little brother, who is in the first grade. They live in a small hut on land belonging to relatives. Because his family does not own land, Mui’s parents must make their living taking low-paying jobs on a day-to-day basis. His father has limited work ability because he lost his right arm from the shoulder down in a car accident when he was a child. The bulk of the family's burden and expenses rests on his mother. However, she cannot get jobs everyday. When she is not working, Mui and his siblings have to go to school without allowances for lunch.

When that happens, the family goes to the woods and rivers to pick natural vegetables and fish for their meals. On the weekends, Mui helps his family with household chores and looks for used items from the dump that he can trade for a little money.

Mui is also a talented Thai boxer. He learned Thai boxing, or Muay Thai, from his father. Whenever there is a Muay Thai match for children in the village, Mui goes to the canvas with his father so he can compete. He is proud to earn money for his family through boxing, even if it is only a little. He dreams of being a professional Muay Thai boxer. He wants to go to junior high school this year on a scholarship so he can help reduce the financial burden on his family as much as possible.

In Mui’s farming village and many others in northeastern Thailand, there are still a number of children who cannot go to junior high school due to poverty. However, without support from scholarship donors in Japan, many of them will have no choice but to give up their dreams of education forever.