Royal is a Primary School, which is the equivalent to an American elementary school. When a student graduates from Royal Primary, he or she is sent to a Secondary School (high school) under the guardianship and support of the Royal School organization. Even though students are being educated at other campuses, they are still supported by their LoveGrows sponsor.
Tuition at these "outsourced" Secondary Schools is more expensive than it is at Royal, and a disparity arises between sponsor donations and the actual cost of supporting a Secondary Student. In the past, sponsors were asked to double their payments to support the increase after Primary graduation, but that caused 80 percent of them to cancel their support altogether. When we took over the program at the end of 2010, we made the decision to keep the sponsorship rate consistent across Primary and Secondary in an attempt to halt sponsor attrition.
To make matters more challenging, the last class that graduated from Royal scored so high on their final exams that they were sent to an even more expensive Secondary School - twice as expensive, in fact.
We want the best future for the Royal School students, and receiving a better Secondary education is a huge part of that. However, we are faced with the fundamental problem: how do we give them this advantage without increasing a sponsor's support level?
We recently received a 9,000 USD invoice from one of the Secondary schools we are using. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to settle the bill, and the continuance of our students’ Secondary education is threatened. If you have a solution to this challenge, please send an email to
info@lovegrows.org.