FERC, the Foundation to encourage the Education of Rural Children, has been supporting and building lives for decades. It has a new president and she is determined to keeping rural kids in school. There are 34 upper secondary schools in Chiang Mai province. This year, FERC has accepted one sponsored student from every single one of them.
FERC’s president, Eveline Willi, a Swiss national who also co-founded the SLS (Swiss Lanna Society – Swiss club in Chiang Mai), has spent the better part of the last 10 years focused on a narrow but stubborn problem: what happens to potential poor rural kids the moment additional cost occur which cannot be absorbed by their parents / family anymore?
Eveline’s route into FERC ran through the SLS (Swiss Lanna Society), which she and her husband co-founded and ran for a decade on the board. Marc Dumur, FERC’s founder and Chiang Mai’s Honorary Consul of Switzerland, who got Eveline interested in FERC in the first place, pulled back from day-to-day involvement a few months ago.
FERC was not always an education charity. It began in 1999, when a group of American women in Chiang Mai ran a fundraiser to buy a vehicle for the Viengping Children’s Home, so staff could reach the 80 children then living in foster homes around the city. The fundraiser worked well enough that the group kept meeting, and kept fundraising, and eventually registered as a Thai foundation. Early projects included preschool facilities in remote villages and school dormitories. Over time the focus narrowed to what it is today: keeping potential low-income rural students in upper secondary school long enough to graduate.
FERC marked its 25th anniversary last year. It now supports close to 100 students, up from a much smaller base when it started.
In Thailand education is basically free and funded by the government. However, from grade 10 (M4) additional non-funded cost incur as the upper secondary schools usually are far away, creating higher cost for transportation, dormitory, food, etc. Many young people have to leave school and loose the opportunity to study at a university or get any further education.
Covid did not help. When schools reopened after the pandemic, more than 120,000 desks nationwide stayed empty because families could no longer afford to keep their children enrolled. FERC drew on its own reserves to sponsor extra students which was an exceptional situation.
The sponsorship will enable a student to graduate and go on to have a better quality of life in the future. FERC scholarships change lives, not only for the students but also for their family and often their entire community.
Sponsorships and general donations will make a big difference to the life of a student in Chiang Mai Province by helping this child to stay on in Upper Secondary School for the final 3 years (M4 – M6) and to secure a better job in the future. The support is not only about money. Sponsored students will know: “someone believes in me and is investing in my future.” What a very special feeling.
The organization is run entirely by volunteers, a Board of Directors headed by Marc Dumur and an Advisory Committee: Eveline Willi (president and sponsored students program) chairs alongside Alberto Cosi (treasurer), Thomas Morf (secretary), Heinz Willi (scholarship committee, website and IT), Ferdinand Hoekstra (fundraising and PR), Nun Chadathacha (alumni program), and Patrick Roberts (marketing). FERC says all sponsorship money goes directly to the student it is earmarked for, with running costs, banking fees and the website covered separately through dedicated fundraising.
And you can participate when FERC holds its annual fundraiser on 29th November, with a Christmas event to follow, and Eveline will give a talk at the Chiang Mai Expat Club on the 28th November.
