Grand Master Hsing Yun once said:

“Education is not a wilderness of facts but the palace of learning.

Education is not the dry vine of doctrine but the garden of life.

Education is not pretty flowers but profound learning.

Education is not a toy for the pampered but the source of the Buddha mind.”

On July 5, 2005 Houston PBS broadcast a program “The New Heroes” gave a great message as “you can not feed the poor everyday but education can help those out of the poverty”.

Sompop Jantraka - Development and Education program fro Daughters and Community Center

Mae Si, Thailand and Mekong sub-region (including Laos, Burma and the Yunnan Province of China)

Sompop Jantraka has put his life on the line to save young women sold into prostitution by poor farming families. He is also proving that these women can be far more valuable to Thailand as educated members of the work force than as sex slaves.

Jantraka offers the poor families of young women between the ages of 8 and 18 (who are often desperate for income and easily deceived by brothel owners) an alternative to sending their daughters into prostitution by providing the girls with education, job training and employment assistance. Eight different projects focus on children at risk, children's rights, child sexual abuse and forced labor.

Since 1989 when he founded the Daughters Education Program, Jantraka's work has directly affected more than 1,000 children. Starting with an initial group of 19 students, the program is now supporting more than 360 girls and boys.

Jantraka considers education and training the keys to allow these girls to find alternative employment, improve their communities and reach their full potential.

Inderjit Khurana - Ruchika School Social Service Organization, Train Platform Schools at Orissa, India

As a schoolteacher, Inderjit Khurana used to take the train to work. And each day, in the stations, she would come into contact with dozens of children who spent their days begging from train passengers rather than attending school. She learned that it was not a rare or isolated problem and that millions of children in India live on the streets.

Convinced that these children would never be able to escape their conditions of poverty and homelessness without education, and realizing that it would be impossible to enroll these children in school, Inderjit decided to create a model program for "taking the school to the most out-of-school children."

Khurana's "train platform schools" aim to provide a creative school atmosphere and equip children with the basic levels of education necessary to allow them to work productively, enjoy many of life's pleasures, and become positive contributors to their communities.

Khurana's ultimate goals reach far beyond the 20 platform schools she and her colleagues have created in India's Bhubaneswar region. She is determined that her program become a model for effectively changing the lives of the poorest children throughout India and the world.