Meet scholarship recipient Mol Mol
an aspiring nurse in need of support!
Mol Mol is a 3rd year student in Chiang Mai University’s Nursing Program—one of the most competitive and prestigious medical schools in Thailand. She excels at her studies there, dreaming of becoming an emergency medic on the Thai/Myanmar border. But with the increased violence in Myanmar after the 2021 coup by the Burmese Military Junta, her family is no longer able to help support her basic needs or food. She only has one last year of school before she is a certified nurse—so close! But without money for food or housing she’ll be forced to drop out. Help us keep her in school and make her dream come true!
Growing up in the war zone of Myanmar’s Karen State, Mol Mol has had to overcome incredible adversity and hardship. Because of malnutrition and lack of access to healthcare, she is the only of her 4 siblings to survive to adulthood. She knew that education was her only means of escape from poverty, so at the age of four she fled to Thailand to stay with her aunt and attend a school for migrant children on the Thai/Myanmar border. There she was able to complete high school and was thrilled at the possibility of continuing her studies at university. But shortly after her graduation, a sudden accident paralyzed her father from the waist down. Hit with huge medical bills, her family quickly became burdened with debt to pay for his care and she had to put her university dreams on hold in order to work. After several years of working multiple jobs in Bangkok, she was finally able to help her family get free of debt, and her dreams of higher education could reignite.
Having seen the devastation that lack of access to healthcare had wrought in Myanmar, she dreamed of becoming a nurse and giving back to her community through medicine. Her sights were set on Chiang Mai University (CMU)’s Nursing program. However CMU is taught entirely in English, so her first challenge was to enroll in an English intensive summer program to prepare her for her studies. Naturally gifted at languages, she excelled in the program and was later thrilled to be accepted to CMU for Nursing Science. With her dream of being a nurse finally in view, she threw herself into her medical studies with a passion. Over the past 3 years she has gotten top marks in her program. But as Mol Mol has succeeded academically, the situation in Myanmar has gotten much worse.
Since the 2021 coup in Myanmar there’s been increasing violence in the area and currency has dropped to half its value. As such, the Burmese NGO that had helped cover her living expenses is no longer able to do so. Fearing that she would have to drop out of school without this support, she turned to Daughters Rising again to help cover this additional cost. In the past we have only been able to fund scholarships, but now we feel it imperative to do everything possible to help keep her—and other students like her—in school for her final year.
So we are introducing a new student sponsorship program where, for $20 per month, you can help students cover their expenses while in school. Each sponsor will be paired with a student and receive a personalized update from them each semester.