Phuket women’s club scholarships shine light on poor students’ futures

PHUKET: In its decades-long drive to offer educational opportunities to students from impoverished families, the Phuket International Women’s Club (PIWC) recently granted scholarships to 80 students from Phuket and nearby provinces.

The scholarships, valued together at more than 2 million baht, were granted at an event at Satree Phuket School last Wednesday.

The 80 new dedications brought the number of current scholarships provided by the PIWC to 190 and the total number of PIWC scholarships provided over the years to well over 1,000.

“We don’t want anything in return from the students other than that they strive to become good people,” PIWC President Jureewan Smulders-Wongprom told the Phuket Gazette.

“When the students succeed in this, then the PIWC enjoys success, too – and many of our students graduate and become important members of society. We are so proud of them.”

The funds for the scholarships are raised through donations, sponsors, contributions by attendees at the monthly “ladies lunch” events (click here) and through the PIWC’s annual fundraiser.

This year, as in previous years, the main annual fundraiser will be an all-day celebration of Australia’s famous horse race, the Melbourne Cup, or “The Race That Stops a Nation” (click here).

The Phuket Gazette and PGTV’s Phuket Today show, the island’s only nationally broadcast television program (aired daily on True Visions channels 85 and 59), are proud to sponsor this annual charity event.

— Woranut Pechdee