Changing My Life Through Education

Hi, my name is Leila and I am an Australian. I am raising money for my last year at university's tuition.

Here's my story;

I am currently a university student studying at two universities at the same time. How did I get here? Well, it is a bit of a long and complicated story, but I will do my best to give you the short version.

When I was 17, I decided to drop out of high school and I passed a prior learning test to enter university. Unfortunately, right after I got my acceptance into university, I and my family ended up homeless and living out of a tent in 2018. While this was not my first time being homeless, it was my first time going to university. I tried my best to keep good grades despite not having access to the internet or basic necessities. I would often sleep in the 24-hour section of the university library and hide from security so they wouldn't kick me out. I was lucky enough that teachers gave me the needed textbooks for my course. Unfortunately, in December 2018, shortly after I had entered university, a big storm hit our campgrounds, and I lost those textbooks in the flash flooding. Despite this setback, I continued trying my best to maintain my good grades and attend university.

Once I entered my second year at university, I managed to get a scholarship to attend a Japanese university for one year. Once I got the scholarship money, I used some of it to get things I needed before travelling overseas, such as vaccines, luggage bags, winter clothes, and insurance. I thought everything was going great until Covid-19 hit. The university held back from cancelling my exchange right up until the day before I was planning to fly out. Now, if I didn't go on this exchange I would have to return all of the scholarship money and since I had already spent some I panicked. Not to mention, my family couldn't afford to look after me and since the pandemic broke out the options for work were almost non-existent, things were looking grim for my future. So I managed to convince my university to let me go on the exchange anyway even though no one could guarantee my safety or whether the Japanese university would even allow me to study there. But considering my options of definitely being homeless or possibly not homeless, I jumped for it.

Luckily, the Japanese university let me stay and do my exchange. I worked four part-time jobs to max out the legal number of hours I could work so I could live comfortably and have some savings. However, when it came to the end of my exchange, due to Covid, Australia had put in place hotel quarantine and flight ticket prices had skyrocketed. The savings I thought would cover the costs of returning home now couldn't even cover the flight ticket. So, I thought about what I could do, and my dream university in Japan came to mind. The entrance fees into my dream university were cheaper than trying to fly home so I applied. I managed to get a 65% scholarship tuition reduction and I transferred into the second year. However I could not just give up my first degree in Australia, so I have continued studying for that degree online and I am set to graduate this year in November. I did my best to study the two degrees at the same time while simultaneously working as an English teacher to help cover my living and tuition costs. I have had some help along the way but now that my savings are all gone my paycheck alone isn't enough to cover my food costs and I don't have enough money to cover my tuition for my last year at my dream university.

While I am savvy enough to work out food, I can't figure out how to make my last tuition. As a student, I am only legally allowed to work a maximum of 28 hours a week and I simply cannot earn enough. As much as my parents wish they could help me, they are struggling to support my siblings and themselves, and especially now my mum has developed an autoimmune disease, things have become even harder. This money is the amount of my tuition plus 500 for my textbooks. I tried my best to make it, but this is as far as I could go, I need help. I am the first in my family to enter university, and I want to break the poverty cycle. This education is all I have to guarantee myself a future of some kind. I plan to get a job in a company and work in their departments that tackle social issues and SDGs, so I can gain experience in how companies can help contribute to world issues while also saving money so I can study for my master's and after that I hope to work in the United Nations to support children and education development or help refugees working with the UNHCR. If you could help even a little, or even just share this, I would be very grateful. I promise to work hard.

Please don't hesitate to reach out and ask any questions.

My phone number: (+81) 80 6784 6172

My mother's phone number : (+61) 427223589