Bamboo Builders Information

1. ABOUT US Bamboo Builders is a social venture working to eliminate educational inequality. We mobilize passionate undergraduates across Southeast Asia to empower rural high school students to become confident change-leaders. We then mentor these undergraduates to lead their own trips, thereby increasing our social impact. 2. SOCIAL CAUSE Educational inequality (in Vietnam) stems from disparity between the degree of exposure gained by high-school students in private compared to public institutions, and city-schools opposed to rural schools. Better exposed students get more opportunities than less exposed students. Poorer students go to schools (often public/ rural) that, according to UN research, emphasizes rote memorisation over critical thinking and creative problem solving skills, which better-resourced private schools can better foster. Resultantly, inconsistency arises between what public school graduates learn and the skills employers expect, evident from the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranking Vietnam 59 out of 124 countries in employability, despite students scoring superbly in global PISA assessments (12th out of 76 countries). Focused-groups during our trips to two rural schools in September 2017 found that the lack of exposure led to lower self-confidence and self-restrictive mindsets about their potential. Therefore, we hope to instill confidence in students by seeing their own projects blossom from idea to implementation by their own efforts. This would change self-restrictive mindsets about themselves, giving them confidence to take action to improve themselves and their community. 3. STRATEGY We leverage skills, experience and heart from passionate undergraduates who will mentor local youth to nurture their self-initiated social projects to life through a 2-week programme. Currently, we are carrying out the mission at Binh Phuoc province, Vietnam. There will be two trips per year, in June and December