BECA 2027 – Scholarship and conservation
Give a chance to teenagers to become students and contribute to the development of their communities in the Peruvian Amazon.
The project BECA 2027 aims to provide extremely poor students with the opportunity to receive an education at the university or at a technical high school thanks to scholarships and assistance provided by Parway. Aside from studying, the students will be asked for the planning and execution of a personal project to promote conservation and economic development in their respective communities. Therefore, they are expected to personally work on the project aside from the studying time. After having finished their education, they will continue working on their project for a minimum of one year.
BECA 2027 ensures the selection of the students, a full cost financing of the studies and the assistance to work on their project.
The project intends to start in January 2020 and will last for a minimum of 6 years to assist students in their studies and projects. The intention is to proceed in 2021 with the second wave of students factoring the results and learning from the first year.
The project has been defined and is now in its kick-off phase. Parway is searching for sponsors (companies or private persons) willing to provide support to one or more students.
Project setup
December 2019:
- Final setup of the project framework
January 2020:
- Election of the scholarship committee
- Funding of the local coordinator
Project roll-out and execution
Due to the pandemic situation, the project has been delayed by 6 months. It pursues the intention to start supporting students from February 2021 onwards.
July – December 2020:
- Provide information to interested students for the wave 2021.
- Fundraising with companies and communities in Switzerland and abroad
December 2020:
- Closure of the applications from the students
- Presentation of the projects as formulated by the students to the scholarship commission
- Selection of the students and approval of their respective project plan
February 2021:
- Settlement of the student in Iquitos
March 2021:
- Start of the studies for the selected students
August 2020:
- Mid-year review with the scholarship commission
December 2021:
- End of year review with the scholarship commission
- Provide information to the student for the wave 2022-2027
- Cfr. December 2020 (second wave with additional scholars)
Xavier Bronlet – xavier@parway.org
Local coordinator to be hired
Risks to successful implementation
A number of risks have been illustrated based on the past experience and knowledge. This section highlights what is known today, and the project will keep an active monitoring of those risks factoring the input of all the instances involved in the project. Because the project enters a complex system, there are unknowns that are unknowns and the project will take the necessary measures to handle the issues that will emerge. Approach is experimental and the project practices will be adapted based on outcome.
The following risks have been identified and classified according to their magnitude.
Running risks
- Some scholars are unable to integrate themselves as students in Iquitos and therefore unable to study
- Some scholars are unable to follow the study due to cognitive limitations or missing maturity
- Some scholars are unable to work on their project plan
- Some scholars are not motivated anymore to pursue their objectives within the project (here motivation can be difficult to evaluate for cultural reasons, experience shows that some students express verbal motivation whileshowing low motivation in their behaviour)
Execution risks
- Some scholars are in delay with respect to major milestones of their plan
- Some scholars are missing some exams and required to repeat the level
- Some scholars are not motivated by the project anymore
- Unavailability of the money to roll-out of the project
Impact risks
- Scholars’ projects are not having the expected impact within their respective communities
- Some project impacts negatively the environment
Download project documentation here.