The Donald A. Strauss Public Service Scholarship Foundation, established as a memorial to the late Don Strauss of Newport Beach and now designed to award $10,000 scholarships to as many as 15 California college juniors annually, recently announced that among the foundation’s new group of recipients is Ei Phyu Theint, a student at Scripps College.
Theint, who hails from Yangon, Myanmar, will program and direct an intensive youth leadership program for one aspiring community leader from each of the eight major Myanmar ethnic nationalities. During her time in Myanmar, she will introduce the practice of collaborative learning and will provide these aspiring leaders tools that will enable them to start their own community projects. To do so, Theint will focus on helping students develop critical thinking skills and the ability and courage to ask questions and state their opinions. She plans to utilize Touchstones Discussions, volunteer management and English skills training, and guest speakers from various fields. She will also lead weekly students’ club visits with CONNECT Myanmar board of youth leaders, another program she established last summer.
In 2012, she raised awareness of Financial Literacy in Myanmar through her summer research and the concept of internships through her social enterprise CONNECT Myanmar public event. Theint has also participated in the Pre-Collegiate Program of the Diplomatic School Yangon, a liberal studies program that prepares students for study abroad.
“My experience with Western education and Myanmar’s traditional education systems will help me bridge the past experiences of students while introducing new concepts and materials to prepare them to start their own community projects,” says Theint. “I am truly looking forward to working with the young community leaders in Myanmar to help open new doors as they pursue their education.”
Theint represents the Strauss Foundation’s 17th group of recipients—since its inception, the Foundation has now awarded more than 230 scholarships–and like their counterparts in the past, all of these new recipients have extensive records of community and public service, as well as a demonstrated desire to “make a difference.”
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