In times like these, when the country is undergoing an economy crises, parents with financial constraints are scrambling to find means and ways to fund their children tuition fees for their university or college funds.
Marie Eorage and her family are helping to fundraise for a young boy’s university tuition fees by selling food dishes in the city.
18 year old Seth Yasida completed his grade 12 at the St. Charles Lwanga Secondary School here in Port Moresby and was accepted at the University of Technology to take up Bachelor of Business in Applied Economics, but is facing a problem with school fees.
Marie Eorage, grew up with Saki Yasida-Seth’s father in Goroka for most of her childhood and stated that he was like a big brother to her, hence her helping to cook and sell to help raise Seth’s school fee funds.
In 2017, Saki was working as her “haus-boi” and she later got him a job as a security guard in the building she was working in. Saki was terminated later on in 2020 when he refused to get vaccinated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Saki Yasida, Seth’s father is working as a cleaner at the University of Papua New Guinea and gets paid only K200 to K250 fortnightly, hardly enough in the range to be eligible for a loan at any financial institution.
Marie and her husband bumped into Saki while shopping at Vision City when he mentioned his situation to them. Saki explained that Seth had done well and gotten into the HECAS program.
School fees under HECSA is K8, 000 but 60% of the fee is required to be paid upfront before Seth could commence his studies. This had happened a day before registrations at Unitech closed for the year, so they got right to work.
“We called the school, explained the situation and pleaded with the administration to give us a bit more time to come up with his school fees and they gave us an extension.”
“Seth flew to Lae on Sunday-made possible by his HECAS ticket, which is part of the scholarship and he is getting ready to start school soon as we have already deposited K3, 600 and will be paying the remaining K1, 200 when we collect payments for the dishes of food we had sold to pay off the 60% component for him to start.”
Marie highlighted that she was ready to assist him in the next four years that he will be studying at the university and has managed to set up a GoFundMe account ‘Lets Help Seth’ that was organized by Molly Igo for Seth’s tuition fundraising.
“I’m looking to do a fundraiser for him. There are people overseas who have suggested that I start a GoFundMe account for him for the next three years.”
“It really touched my heart that this boy worked so hard, even though it was a struggle for him. His father held a flashlight for him as he worked on his assignments.”
Additionally, she said most children take their parents money for granted whereas there are smart students out there who commit themselves to their studies in hopes to succeed, but are held back by financial constraints.
“Doing this for Seth has encouraged me along the way to do a fundraising drive for children who may find themselves in the same situation as young Seth’s.”
Meanwhile, Marie mentioned that there were challenges that she faced when she was fundraising. There were a lot of negative and positive comments, but she is happy that she was able to help Saki and his family.
“I spent out of my pocket to pay for the food, electricity and fuel used to do this fundraising, but I am happy and satisfied with the success of this initiative.”