{"id":4127,"date":"2009-03-23T23:48:58","date_gmt":"2009-03-23T15:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/?p=4127"},"modified":"2009-03-23T23:48:58","modified_gmt":"2009-03-23T15:48:58","slug":"somaraj-cuts-grass-to-finance-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/indian\/2009\/03\/23\/somaraj-cuts-grass-to-finance-studies\/","title":{"rendered":"Somaraj cuts grass to finance studies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Another role model for us to emulate. The boy does not make his family&#8217;s financial status an excuse to study well. He helps his father to <a href=\"http:\/\/thestar.com.my\/news\/story.asp?file=\/2009\/3\/22\/nation\/3532706&amp;sec=nation\" target=\"_blank\">cut grass on weekends<\/a> to earn extra income. I think the hospital should also reward the student as an employee&#8217;s son had achieved 7As. Even RM5000 as part of its CSR will go some way in reducing the financial burden. Perhaps they could even offer a scholarship and bond the student for certain years.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Eighteen-year-old S. Somaraj may be a top student, having scored 7As and 3Bs in his recent SPM examination, but he is forced to help his father with his part-time job of cutting grass on weekends.<\/p>\n<p>Somaraj, a Penang Free School student, hopes to become a doctor in a private hospital here, where his father, M. Sangkaran, 46, works as an ambulance driver.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to make my parents proud of my achievements. But it will cost more than RM250,000 for medical studies. I hope my parents can raise the money somehow.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith me helping my father on weekends, he can earn about RM300 extra a month in addition to his RM1,700 salary at the hospital,\u201d he said, adding that his mother K. Dharamambal, 39, earned RM800 monthly as a factory worker.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily for Somaraj, who is a keen football player, his plight has caught the attention of state MIC youth treasurer J. Dhinagaran,<\/p>\n<p>Dhinagaran, who is Penang Indian Football Association president, visited Sangkaran upon learning that he, Somaraj and another son Sartish were cutting grass outside a house in Batu Lanchang, here, yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>He presented RM2,001 in aid to Sankaran and suggested that Somaraj pursue his medical studies at AIMST University in Sg Petani.<\/p>\n<p>Sangkaran said the aid would be used to partially finance a foundation course at the university. \u201cI\u2019ve heard the one-year foundation fee at the university is about RM17,000. I hope I can raise enough money for that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Dhinagaran said he would support Somaraj\u2019s application for a scholarship from the Maju Institute of Educational Development (MIED), which runs the university.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSomaraj has a bright future,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Those interested in giving Somaraj a helping hand can contact Dhinagaran at 012-4879030.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another role model for us to emulate. The boy does not make his family&#8217;s financial status an excuse to study well. He helps his father to cut grass on weekends to earn extra income. I think the hospital should also reward the student as an employee&#8217;s son had achieved 7As. Even RM5000 as part of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[19,90],"class_list":["post-4127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-indian","tag-education","tag-role-model"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4127"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4129,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4127\/revisions\/4129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}