Studer Trust's Follow-up Program
Every year, Studer Trust visits schools it supported through its Follow-up Program. Starting in June and ending in December each year, Studer Trust’s Field Manager, Naing Min Oo, visits our partner communities to meet with local officials, school leadership, and community members to evaluate how well the school has been maintained and utilized the project.
In order to ensure the longevity and sustainability, the field manager conducts an in-depth assessment of the school facilities and afterwards meets with community representatives to share and discuss the results. Therefore, this provides Studer Trust not only with the opportunity to provide the community with recommendations for the upkeep of the school building but also provides the community with the chance to raise any questions or concern they have and any other exigent needs that may have risen over the course of the year as well.
However, beyond simply intended as an opportunity to evaluate the ongoing success of the project, the results of Studer Trust’s follow-up visits are also tied to the possibility for further support in the future. A highly-rated project can be rewarded with a number of different additional types of programs and incentives, such as playgrounds, school field trips, and summer English programs. And of course, if necessary, Studer Trust also uses its follow-up funds to repair and upgrade school facilities as well. The majority of these additional forms of support are supported through the funds donated by each project’s original donor.
While at first glance these visits may appear to be rather high-stake and stressful, the positive relationships the Studer Trust teams develops with the communities we serve ensures these discussions are both collegial and productive, with many schools looking forward to the visit each year. One abbot from a monastic school noted,”Studer Trust comes every year regularly. This is very good for the schools. Because of these visits, schools have become used to emphasizing the cleanliness and maintenance of their buildings. There is no other organization like Studer Trust who takes such good care of its schools currently working in the education sector.”
Once each follow-up visit is completed, the field manager carefully documents the results and shares them with the other Studer Trust staff to discuss suggestions and lesson learned from our projects. Furthermore, Studer Trust also aims to keep connected our donors up to date regarding the projects they supported, providing them with follow-up reports regarding the status of each school after the 1st and 3rd years after the construction of the school building was finished.
As of December 2019, Studer Trust is happy to announce it conducted ___ follow-up visits for both its government and monastic school projects in locations throughout the country.
Of course, none of this could have been possible without the ongoing and generous support of our donors and partner communities, and we would like to express our gratitude and deepest levels of appreciation to all parties involved.
