Taonga and Demobreys College Fund

Last summer I traveled to Malawi through the Rice 360 Global Health internship. In Malawi, I met Taonga and Demobrey, students at the University of Malawi. They were in their 2nd year of school as engineering majors. They are talented students who visited the hospitals, talked to nurses and doctors, and created new devices to help the understaffed and under resourced hospitals. Recently, they have been forced to drop out of school because the government eliminated all need based scholarships. Please help them to continue their dreams of becoming engineers and giving back to the Malawian community. I hope that you can read their letters below and help them to start school again in August (Full fees due by October!!). You can also check out some of their work here:  http://malawi.blogs.rice.edu/author/kv11/  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqCuMafDSBU&t=184s  ~~~~~ Taonga:   Hie there am Taonga Tembo, 22 years from Malawi a former student of the University of Malawi under one of its constituent colleges the Malawi Polytechnic where I was studying Electrical and Electronics Engineering and I dropped out this school year when I was in my third year of study due to financial challenges. So I was raised by a single parent, my mum who supported my education from primary school all the way up to secondary where the school fees is quite manageable. Going to college, I went under the sponsorship of Malawi government and World Bank, merit which came based on the colourful performance which I had during the national exams in secondary school something which the government stopped. Since last year am back in my home village helping my family to survive. Being engaged in farming and some small scale businesses to generate income and watched all the hopes of going back to school fade away until Karen Vasquez a friend I met at school last year from the US advised me to share my story on gofundme in a quest to raised funds. I wish to continue my studies at Malawi University of Science and Technology where the tuition fee is about $3,000 ( plus 1000 in additional expenses such as room and board) and the new academic year starts this August.  For more information you can contact me through my email or through my good friend Karen. Thank you as you plan to help.   Taonga with his mom and younger sister.  ~~~~~~~~~ Demobrey:  Hi, am Demobrey, 24 years of age from Malawi central Africa. I am the second born in a family of four. I was raised by a single mother since my father passed away when I was a little boy. My upbringing has been hard as far as education is converned. Our education structure(Malawian) is in a state that primary school is free so it wasn't hard but struggle started when I reached secondary school since a lot was required, mum took a huge part to support me in addition to the half government sponsorship I earned with my grades. I passed my secondary (high school) final exams with good grades and got selected to pursue a program in Electrical and Electronics at the Malawi Polytechnic under government sponsorship but could not continue on level three (third year) as the government changed their policy of helping needy students. Since that time I have been trying hard to raise funds to reach those demanded standards but it never worked, I got engaged in family farming activities to help raise funds but it’s just not enough. My mother is a primary school teacher but the minimum wage she gets from that work is not even enough to feed the family for the whole month. I am short of about $4000, $3,000 for tuition fees and $1000 for upkeep and accommodation.  I have passion for school and helping mankind I believe when I get this paper it will help not only my life but also of the people in my community and country for I will always step in whenever I find someone in need like I am now. I believe one giving heart can change someone's wholes story. May God bless as you step in to help. Demobrey (center) with his brother and mom. You can see some of their work here:  http://malawi.blogs.rice.edu/author/kv11/  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqCuMafDSBU&t=184s  Breakdown of costs can be found on page 3 here:  https://www.must.ac.mw/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Economic-Fee-Paying-Students-Advert-2019-2.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3ENzV_6Sf3ltU_mrJF8wq5xqymTiu4pIheN8LipN3rs1AZ4ZVJhlPoHaE