Fund to Help Indochinese Students Pursue Study in U.S.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A 1999 trip to Cambodia -- a country whose economy and educational system was left in ruins by the Khmer Rouge genocide of the late 1970s -- has prompted a University at Buffalo administrator to create a fund to help meet an urgent educational need in Indochina, one of the poorest regions on earth.

Mark Ashwill director of the World Languages Institute at UB and the university's Fulbright administrator, has established the U.S.-Indochina Educational Foundation, Inc., (USIEF), a 501 (c) (3) non-profit, non-governmental organization to provide financial and other forms of support to some of the best and brightest students from Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos who want to pursue advanced education and training in the United States.

The foundation also will fund remedial English language training, if necessary, and in exceptional cases, will consider both undergraduate and non-degree applicants. It also will arrange for orientation and mentoring of grantees, who, as a condition of support, will be asked to fulfill a service requirement -- visits to local schools, for instance, or participation in on-campus events and other meaningful and mutually beneficial activities.

Initial funding for USIEF was provided by a $10,000 grant from the Paul J. Koessler Foundation. Additional funds will be solicited from individuals, corporations and other private foundations with an interest in Southeast Asia.

"Opportunities in the global marketplace are limited for developing nations without a substantial business or professional class with international experience or education," Ashwill says. "These countries need their own entrepreneurs, humanities scholars, educators, scientists, physicians and business managers to help grow their economies without compromising national identity and cultural values.

"Unfortunately," he adds, "they don't have the educational infrastructure needed to offer higher education and professional training to large numbers of people.

"Because of these obstacles, it's difficult for nations like Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to prepare their young people for the rapidly evolving 'new world.'" As a result, he says these nations remain economic backwaters, subject to foreign exploitation of their people and resources.

Ashwill points out that one of the important steps toward development is to send selected students abroad for advanced study, particularly in business management, economics, technology, education, medicine and the sciences. Civil servants already are sent abroad by their governments for administrative training, a practice well established during years of French colonial rule.

The opportunity for advanced education overseas, however, is usually available only to children of upper-class families or to those few students whose governments are able to underwrite their foreign studies.

"The past of Indochina is so intertwined with our own," Ashwill says. "Not in the least because of the Vietnam War and its spillover into Cambodia and Laos. We founded the USIEF because of our belief that we will all benefit by strengthening ties between this poor but important region and the U.S."

Ashwill says that Indochinese students already receive some scholarship money from abroad, including scholarships provided by the Australian and Japanese governments and a few Fulbright grants. But available funding doesn't come close to satisfying the need.

Each country has discrete issues to resolve in this regard. Vietnam has a number of established colleges and universities, Ashwill says, but has little money available to support further education overseas.

Laos, a largely agrarian nation, has a limited system of higher education and only one university, which focuses primarily on agricultural research with the assistance of a few Canadian and American colleges.

Ashwill says the first concern of the USIEF will be for Cambodia, which faces a situation more dire than Vietnam or Laos.

"An entire generation of Cambodia's intellectual, business and professional classes was wiped out in the Khmer Rouge genocide of 1975-79," Ashwill reminds us. "This disaster left the Cambodian economy and educational system in ruins with no one capable of rebuilding either.

"Cambodia's only hope for recovery and long-term stability," he says, "lies in our helping the younger generation in their quest to improve quality of life in their country. They need and deserve our support."

In fact, the first student to receive financial assistance from the new foundation is Sokna Heng of Cambodia. A scholarship student in UB's English Language Institute, Heng is preparing for graduate study in management or law in an American university.

Another USIEF grantee is Kim San, also of Cambodia, who will arrive at UB this summer to participate in an intensive English language program before beginning his graduate education.