Sponsorship

Help us to make a major difference to a young person’s life and career

Lao Educational Opportunities Trust

Registered Charity Number: 1115944

Managed Students

Sponsors sometimes meet a student (or novice monk) while on a visit to Laos and decide that they wish to sponsor them. While many are happy to keep this as an informal relationship, others prefer to ask LEOT to check things out, handle payments and keep an eye on the student’s progress and welfare.

Adopted Students

LEOT receives more applications for support from students than it can fund from the general donations it receives, so is able to offer to a potential sponsor a number of candidates to suit the criteria that the sponsor might require.

WHY WORK THROUGH LEOT?

As stated above, some people prefer to deal directly with a student, and that can work out perfectly well, but sometimes problems and disappointments can occur through cultural misunderstandings.

Essentially, LEOT will endeavour to check out the credentials of the student, identify their educational plans and ambitions and their financial needs. Sometimes the former are not all they seem at face value and often the latter are much less than may be supposed or advised.

We are happy to put potential sponsors in touch with existing sponsors so that they can get an independent account of our work and performance. It is no empty claim to say that when we started our friends were our sponsors, but now our sponsors have become our friends.

LEOT will keep sponsors advised of student progress and welfare and will always answer any questions or deal with any issues in a prompt and efficient manner.

HOW DO I GET STARTED?

Easy ! Just get in touch with us and we will be happy to discuss what you want to do and how we can assist. A copy of our sponsorship agreement is attached here.

When we started LEOT in 2066, we were rather uncertain about the advantages of direct sponsorship of individual students. However, experience has taught us that this is an effective and popular way to help an increased number of students.

Typically, sponsorship takes two forms, with variations within each according to the sponsors’ preferences.

courtesy of Paul Wager

WHAT WILL IT COST?

Maybe less than you might think!

Firstly, although LEOT will invite you to make a small voluntary donation to its Education Development Fund (which is spent in schools and villages on small scale educational projects) it charges no fee for its services, and every penny or cent that we receive for sponsorship will reach the student. We can do this by keeping our administrative overheads down to the minimum and covering administrative costs through other fund raising activity.

Donors from the US can benefit from tax relief on donations which are routed through our partner organisation Go Philanthropic, and tax payers in the UK can opt, at no cost to themselves, to allow LEOT to benefit from the grant government financed Gift Aid.

The amount of support you give is largely determined by you. We suggest that about US$300 or £200 a year is a sensible minimum amount, as this will usually pay the student’s college fees and immediate educational needs. If you are able to be more generous, then a figure twice those sums will pretty much cover their living costs too. It should be noted however that Lao students, even with a scholarship, expect to get a job to help cover their expenses. Fees do vary between institutions, and the above figures assume a low to average fee. We would discourage sponsors from giving larger sums, as these are not really necessary and might do more harm than good. Any sponsor wishing to make large donations might be encouraged to support two students, or support another of our educational initiatives rather than lavish large sums on one

The courses for which we support students are usually at High Diploma or Degree level, and run for 3 or 4 years. We do ask sponsors to commit for the whole of the course, subject to the student performing satisfactorily. A Managed or Adopted student whose sponsor decides not to continue with funding will be left unable to complete their course; their efforts and the sponsor’s donations will thus be wasted. LEOT itself will not “pick up the tab” for the student to complete the course.

Reading a LEOT flyer

Hi, I'm really glad somebody steered me to you guys -- I think you're the solution to a problem I'm been having for a while now . RT (New York)

"Thank you for your unending support" DV (London)

Thank you, as always for your assistance and advice SH (New York)