A touching letter by one of our CEF students ~ Translated by CEF's Ms Thuy

My name is 'T' and I am in grade 12. I felt very lucky and happy when receiving your scholarship. To me, it not only helps me in day-to-day life but also gives me courage to overcome difficulties and challenges in my life.

My mother died of cancer when I was in grade 11. Her four - year treatment was actually a difficult time for my family. When discovering my mother’s illness, my father took my mum to many hospitals for treatment. The amount of money that my parents had saved wasn’t enough for medical bills, so my dad had to borrow money from our relatives and friends.  After the first 2 years of treatment, my mother’s health was worse and at the same time, my mother realized that she was 4 months pregnant. My dad continued taking my mother to many hospitals and found many Occidental and Oriental medicines; however, my mother couldn’t recover. My mother passed away when my youngest brother was just 2 month old. The death of my mother was a great loss and pain for my family, especially for me.

Since that time, my family has faced many difficulties continuously. My younger brother was so young and didn’t have mother’s milk; he had to have formula milk. At that time, I was a student at high school and my eldest sister was at university. My dad had to work, so we had to hire a baby sister to look after my little brother.

Although my father has arthritis, he still has to work very hard to look after the whole family. His salary is just enough for my younger brother‘s expenditure.  Sometimes, thinking about the difficulties and pressure in my life, I used to feel powerless and tired as well, as well. Fortunately, thanks to the support and encouragement of people around me, and your education scholarship, I feel the caring and the sharing of many good people. It makes me stronger and able to keep going. Your scholarship was very meaningful to me and my family as it reduced our financial pressure a lot and pushed me to work harder.

I’d also like to share with you my good news at school. In the first semester, I was the best grade 12 student in the whole school. I also won the ‘Consolation prize’ in the Provincial advanced chemistry competition.

Lastly, I would like to give grateful thanks to you. I will try my best to improve my studies more. I wish you good health, happiness and success. I hope CEF can continue to help more poor and good student.