For the past seven years students and staff at Bloomsbury Institute have been supporting and raising money to help the Santa Maria Education Fund in Paraguay. Founded in 2001, the Fund has been instrumental in providing educational opportunities and university scholarships to some of the most able young people from Paraguay’s rural poor, helping to create a new generation of leaders who come from the base of society. This scholarship allows us to work more closely with the Santa Maria Education Fund and to welcome one of their talented scholars into the Institute. The Fund will be working with us to identify a suitable candidate based on their academic achievement and financial need; their potential to lead businesses and empower others back home in Paraguay; and their willingness to take part in Goodenough College’s extra-curricular programme of academic, cultural and social events.

We’re delighted to be working with Bloomsbury Institute and to be able to welcome a Paraguayan Scholar into our warm and welcoming residential community. Our membership comes from over 80 countries worldwide, studying at around 40 academic institutions. Living at Goodenough will give our Paraguayan Scholar unrivalled opportunities to build their social contacts, develop an understanding of other cultures, take part in a wide range of intellectual, social and cultural activities and benefit from the strength found in mutual support.

We are hugely grateful to Bloomsbury Institute and Goodenough College for this very exciting opportunity that marks a new departure for our charity. Up to now we have been funding undergraduate degrees for intelligent students from poor rural backgrounds, and running an ongoing English programme with volunteer native-speaker teachers. But we have only been able to fund a couple of students to do masters degrees and only within Paraguay. We are looking forward to seeing how an MBA or MSc Management from a British institution will open new doors for one of our high-flying graduates with good English, and so contribute to the future of the community.