{"id":348938,"date":"2021-07-30T06:00:52","date_gmt":"2021-07-29T20:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=348938"},"modified":"2021-07-30T06:00:52","modified_gmt":"2021-07-29T20:00:52","slug":"habele-scholarships-highlight-us-micronesian-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/habele-scholarships-highlight-us-micronesian-ties\/","title":{"rendered":"Habele scholarships highlight US-Micronesian ties"},"content":{"rendered":"

Individual Americans have pooled private donations to help promising students in Micronesia attend the island nation\u2019s top performing independent schools.<\/p>\n

Habele, a U.S. nonprofit established by former Peace Corps volunteers, has awarded merit and needs-based tuition scholarships since 2006. It is the only U.S. nonprofit exclusively focused on serving students and schools within the Federated States of Micronesia. Thirty-seven complete, on-time applications from across FSM were received ahead of the June 30 annual submission deadline. Based on the money raised from individual donors Habele was able to award 25 tuition scholarships to students attending eight different elementary and high schools in three FSM states.<\/p>\n

Checks for the scholarships have been mailed to the schools, and families will be also be notified by mail.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are tremendously proud of the scholarship recipients, and take great satisfaction to report that scholars\u2019 grades in 2020-21 were some of the highest since we started the program in 2006,\u201d said Habele founder\u00a0Neil Mellen. \u201cThere were also four 2020-\u201921 scholars who completed their secondary studies this spring. Those students were Cassandra Hagiltaw at Pohnpei Catholic, Crystal Ruerngun Loochaz and Shereeca Pairui at Yap SDA, and\u00a0Maselyann \u201cMC\u201d Suemog Yangr\u00a0at Yap Catholic High School.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Yangr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the spring, Yangr\u00a0, a Habele scholar since 2016, wrote to Habele about the importance of the program. \u201cI am grateful for your help in achieving my goals. You have helped me to stay in school, and now I am only two months away from graduating high school. I am very thankful to have gotten the chance to make it this far with a great education and a school community that has become my second family and home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yangr\u00a0 graduated YCHS with nearly all \u201cA\u2019s\u201d on her final report card and is now headed to the University of Guam, where she will pursue a degree in chemistry.<\/p>\n

Among the 25 scholarships awarded are three memorial scholarships. These are a special type of Habele K12 tuition grant. They honor the legacy of Americans whose life or work demonstrated exceptional commitment to the people of Micronesia, and embodied the best of the longstanding U.S.-Micronesian partnership. These include the Lee Huddleston, Dr. Marshall Wees, and Leona Peterson memorial scholarships.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw first-hand the amazing results of Habele\u2019s efforts throughout Micronesia, reaching students at the grassroots level, even on the most remote of the outer islands,\u201d said\u00a0 Robert A. Riley, formerly the U.S. Ambassador to Micronesia and now a director at the East-West Center, a think tank in Hawaii. \u201cHabele fulfills a unique and critical role in FSM\u2019s development.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe name \u2018habele\u2019 is a wish come true for our children,\u201d said\u00a0Lazarus Ulith\u00a0in a note sent in with a student\u2019s report card last month. \u00a0He said the nonprofit\u2019s name is itself a play on words, meaning both the future tense of \u201cto be\u201d and more figuratively \u201cto achieve an ambition.\u201d \u201cYou make it a reality which is why you make a difference in their future\u201d said Ulith.<\/p>\n

Those interested in learning more can apply, or support the program online at\u00a0www.habele.org. (PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Individual Americans have pooled private donations to help promising students in Micronesia attend the island…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":349012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-348938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}