Train Leaders in Asia for Peace and Sustainability

Dear Kind Donors and Supporters,

We would like to express our deepest gratitude for your generous support of our School of English for Engaged Social Service (SENS) scholarship project during the Little-by-Little campaign in March 2025. Overall, we received $3,366 from 27 donors, with $492 matching funds provided by GlobalGiving. This comes to more than half of one scholarship for one student, covering food, accommodation, travel expenses, and tuition fees. Your contribution allowed us to complete our SENS 2025 season in a more stable financial shape. It also enables us to continue offering scholarships to students who have few financial resources at their disposal. This year Little-by-Little prompted us to have greater faith in the collective power of the crowd. We were moved to see our friends and supporters mobilizing their resources to help the project through small (and some large) donations during the campaign period. And this mobilization of new supporters encouraged us to continue the work. 

On April 5th, we proudly celebrated our Closing Ceremony on Graduation Day for the fourteen students of the SENS 2025 program, along with two tutors who were new to the program, and thus also students in some sense. The three-month journey seemed too short for many of us, as we had come to live and study closely as one big family. In our estimation, levels of trust and mutual caring were higher this year. This is significant because our cohort was so diverse not only ethnically and linguistically, but also in terms of religious belief and socioeconomic class. In what may seem an insignificant gesture, our female students routinely borrowed each other’s national dress; Vietnamese women wore Indian saris or Myanmar longyis, and Myanmar and Indian women wore the long flowing Vietnamese  Ao Dai. Our workshop leaders or field trip hosts could rarely guess where anyone was from. During our graduation ceremony, the men joined in this exchange, and one of our students recited a poem she had dedicated to the many victims of the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck Myanmar last month. These were just small glimpses of what we saw evolving in our group: students have developed a view of the world that is not only broader in scope but also more caring and compassionate. Witnessing their growth gives us much hope for a new generation of open-minded and ethically motivated leaders. 

Over the ten years of SENS, peer listening practice has been the backbone that helps us build a relationship-based network of transformative educators and activists in the region. Having been given a foundation in the theory and practice of effective peer listening, many of our students decided to create a space for each other to listen and be listened to on a weekly or monthly basis, and some have continued to do so in the weeks following the end of the program. Many have found that their understanding of and connection to each other is strengthened after each session together. Our genuine bonds within the SENS alumni network were also proven in a recent moment of tragedy. Learning that one of our Myanmar alumni from Mandalay lost her home in its entirety during the destructive quake on March 28^th, her friends from SENS 2023, as well as those who did not know her personally from SENS 2024 and 2025, quickly gathered about 16,000 THB (~475 USD) to support her to rebuild and get settled in her house

In recent years, our efforts to engage SENS alumni through the higher-level Apprentice Leaders Program in Sustainability (ALPS) have borne fruit. Participants have come back to SENS in the roles of tutors and work team members. And their experience and understanding of SENS have made it far easier for us to run the program harmoniously together. After the closing ceremony, the SENS work team—made up of ALPS members as well as new tutors—held a meeting to evaluate the 2025 program and lay out directions for the coming years. We reflected on our roles in leading the classes, supporting tutoring groups, and also taking care of the students outside of the classroom. On that occasion, we also discussed the necessity of guiding the SENS network towards a larger movement in transformative education, peace, and sustainability. We believe that with ongoing personal support and a network of reliable, resourceful people, we will be able to nurture future generations of compassionate, principled, and clear-minded leaders in the region ever more effectively. 

Thank you for reading this report. And thank you for your companionship in this journey to support young leaders in Asia and beyond. We feel more confident than ever in saying: Never underestimate what your donations can accomplish!

We would be glad if you could share this report and/or talk about our work with your friends and family.

With warm wishes,

Ted Mayer 

Au, SENS Program Assistant