The BEAM Education Foundation was founded in December 2009. BEAM (Bridging Educational Access to Migrants) was created to assist with the unmet needs of Burmese migrant students seeking higher level college preparation courses and advanced vocational skills training. Most students must also work full-time jobs for their livelihood. The BEAM Education Foundation is a registered non-profit foundation under Thai law. Tuition and textbooks are free of charge.
CMIRC has been involved with BEAM both in supporting their Graduate Education Diploma (GED) program and with our English Language Cultural Exchange Club. The successful completion of the GED program gives the students accredited high school graduation credentials for applying to most colleges and universities. Without the GED, they could not apply for a college or university program. CMIRC involvement has been under the championship of Linda Pfotenhauer with team members Gary Herman, Bob Carroll and Roger Lindley. Linda provided excellent direction in developing the cultural exchange program for BEAM. Linda has chosen to relocate back to Botswana and will be closer to her daughter who works there. Linda’s responsibility as champion and team member will be assumed by Nick Dale. Linda and her daughter Jessica, pictured below, recently visited BEAM to say good-bye to the students.
Rotarian Gary Herman thought it would be good to have some of the BEAM students present their personal stories and the BEAM story at one of the regular CMIRC meetings. Over the past several weeks they have been working both individually and in teams developing the Power Point story they would like to tell our club. There have been several reviews of each of their presentations and several rehearsal sessions with their fellow BEAM students. The students have learned about each other’s lives, their country and developed presentation skills. The CMIRC team members have learned from the students. Gary Herman will conduct a final dress rehearsal on Tuesday morning, February 12 at 10 am with lunch to follow prior to the BEAM presentations to CMIRC that evening.
The challenge for the presenters is to match their presentations within the time limits of a CMIRC program slot. Unfortunately, the combined time for all presentations would be close to an hour. Each presentation would be interesting to the members of our club but the BEAM students will have to select the 3-4 presentations they think should be shared.
CMIRC involvement with BEAM will soon be returning to review sessions for successfully passing the Social Studies module of the GED test. The Social Studies module focuses on four areas: Geography and the World, United States History, US Civics and Government, and Economics.
If interested in BEAM or becoming involved with our programs there, please contact Nick Dale nick@cmirotary.org.