I am delighted to write the opening of this PAWA Quarterly Newsletter as the new Chair of PAWA Trustees. A huge thank you to Azlinda Ariffin, our outgoing chair for her leadership and for her ongoing involvement as Governance Trustee. We also welcome Richard Timmins as our new Finance Trustee and thank My Phuong Lecocq and Mei SIm Lai for all their support over the years.
PAWA was built on individual commitment and passion for the power of education in changing lives. As we have grown, we have benefited from much experience and wisdom along the way. To tap into this experience, we have formed a PAWA Honorary Council. Council members are previous trustees and founding members who have much to give and for us to learn from. I am grateful for their ongoing guidance as I take PAWA forward as the new Chair.
You can learn more about the PAWA Trustees and the Honorary Council on our website.
This is an exciting time for PAWA as we approach our 15th year anniversary. We hope to see many of you at our celebratory Open House on October 11, which is also the International Day of the Girl. Additionally, we are really pleased that once again we have the opportunity to raise more funds through the BIG GIVE match funding programme. Join us in this fund raising campaign and help us double the funds we raise.
We celebrate our 15th year milestone as a celebration of the number of teenage girls lives we have changed through the chance to remain at school. This happens through the hard work of all our volunteers. We will be featuring some of our volunteers through the year and in this issue, learn about what drives Elizabeth St.Clair George to give her time and energy to PAWA.
September is when we confirm our funding commitment to our projects. We have confirmed our continued support to existing projects as well as 2 new ones; Nepal Jesuit Society and Children of Mekong. The latter is our first project in the Philippines.
Enjoy reading this edition to catch up on PAWA news.
See you at our PAWA@15 celebrations!
Clare with the OneSky Foundation team in Sangkhlaburi, Thailand, where
PAWA supports 125 girls
With PAWA’s match-funded campaign for floating schools in Bangladesh Going live on October 10th!
This year, we are raising funds for the Learning for Life project in the Kishoreganj region of Bangladesh, which offers an innovative solution for girls unable to travel from their villages to schools due to excessive flooding and unsafe conditions — the schools come to them. These floating schools travel across flooded areas to provide education and life skills training and support to adolescent girls. PAWA has been supporting the project since 2019, and with your donations and the doubled impact of BIG GIVE’s match funding, we can provide more girls with the opportunity to access an education. During the week of the campaign, ask your friends and family to donate directly, or become a PAWA Champion and create your own fundraising event! Get in touch with your ideas and keep an eye out for the link we will be sending you from BIG GIVE!
Come celebrate with us on October 11th! Only a few spaces left so get your ticket now at
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/
PAWA supports Karuna Trust in their work for teenage girls in India with local partners Nishtha and Nirman in West Bengal and Pune respectively. We were very happy to receive this inspiring story about one of the PAWA girls.
Supriya lives in extreme poverty with her parents in a single room hut. Her father is a daily wage labourer who struggles to provide for their needs. Supriya joined a study group within the project and has show enormous determination in her studies. As can often happen, her father was considering early marriage, not believing that education could make a difference to her life, but the project stepped in and he was persuaded to let her continue at school.
Supriya came 565 out of 750 in the end of year Class 10 examinations, and she now aspires to enter the Science Stream in Higher Secondary and to go onto study Medicine. One day Supriya hopes to provide healthcare to her community and family. Her father has come to understand the critical importance of her education, not only to his daughter but to the welfare of his whole family.
PAWA Communications volunteer Elizabeth Gregory talks to Elizabeth St. Clair George about her journey with PAWA.
There are few people better placed to talk about PAWA’s journey than Lizzie, one of the founding members of the team.
Lizzie has spent her career focusing on education, working as a librarian, and later as a director of a culinary school. Raised in India until she was 11, she has travelled widely: her husband’s work took her to Malaysia and Indonesia which is where her interest in the region really developed.
Her interest in books, learning and culture made her an obvious collaborator; in the early days of PAWA she was one of the first people founders Zehan and Betty reached out to for help.
“Zehan and Betty were totally inspiring in that first year when they were setting this up,” says Lizzie, speaking over the phone as the team gears up for its PAWA15 celebrations.
“I think one of the strengths of PAWA is that it isn’t a big charity,” she says. “It helps in small ways, and quite often that’s very telling and rewarding and productive: because we help them in small ways, it’s easy to see the difference we make.”
Over the last 15 years, as Lizzie raised her children and ran a business, her work with PAWA evolved. But since retiring in 2018, Lizzie has led some of PAWA key projects: Home of Peace in Malaysia and Hope for Girls in Bangladesh. She has travelled to Kuala Lumpur to meet team members and some of the students supported by PAWA.
“The first year that I got Home of Peace, I was able to go out to Malaysia and meet everybody. That connection was wonderful,” says Lizzie. “I met Justine [the director of the residential care home] and the girls.
PAWA funds Bahasa Malaysia lessons for the home’s 14 residents, and has recently started funding history lessons too. Home of Peace is a unique project: Justine works with social services in Malaysia and takes in abandoned girls – and lately, one twin boy too.
“She looks after them as if they are her children,” says Lizzie. “All the girls in the home are home-schooled. Justine has a team of teachers who come in and teach them the whole curriculum.”
Home of Peace has been a resounding success, and, explains Lizzie, “Just recently they’ve been able to send the first girl to university in Hungary, to study viticulture and oenology, with the support of living costs from PAWA’s SJMF fund. I mean, here is a little girl who was abandoned as a baby, and Justine took her in, schooled her, gave her a home, and now she’s a wonderful 19-year-old girl.”
Lizzie reflects on her decades-long work with PAWA: “It’s the chance to give something that makes a difference, and to see a progression of these people, these girls, and the difference it makes to their lives.”
“What I’m happy about, excited about, committed to, is the fact that it’s quite a unique charity. I like the smallness of it. I like the familiarity of it. I like that us project leaders get close to, and work with, specific people. Big charities are frightening sometimes – and they lose sight of what they’re doing. But I think PAWA will never do that.”
Looking to PAWA’s next 15 years, Lizzie is excited about a new impact study initiative, which aims to follow some of the girls PAWA has helped. “Finally, we might be able to see what happens to these girls, the sort of life that they live and the things that they achieve,” she says.
Lizzie with PAWA-supported girls at Home of Peace in Malaysia
