habele Scholarships

Habele Announces 54 Tuition Scholarships for 2022-23

US nonprofit continues to expand access to Micronesia’s highest performing private elementary and high schools.

(Colonia, Yap) Fifty-four promising students across Micronesia have been awarded tuition scholarships to attend the nation’s top-performing private elementary and high schools across three Micronesian states.

The K12 tuition scholarships are provided by Habele, a US nonprofit serving students and schools across the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Established by former Peace Corps Volunteers who lived and taught in the Islands, Habele has been granting tuition assistance to Micronesian students since 2006.

“These investments in individual students highlight the deep personal connections between the United States and our allies in the Freely Associated States,” observed US Congresswoman Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen of American Samoa. “Though our governments are united by formal alliances and treaties, it is the personal ties of our peoples, over decades of shared history, that make the relationships truly vibrant. My family lived in Micronesia for almost 17 years, both on Majuro and Saipan and I also lived on Guam while attending the University of Guam, while I have nieces and nephews with Marshallese and Chamorro heritage through marriages of my brothers. As a former Peace Corps employee in the Pacific, “I’m also pleased to see the scholarships were established by former Peace Corps volunteers”

The Compact of Free Association (COFA) allows Micronesian students to come to the United States for college, where they are eligible for generous federal grants that pay for their higher education. However, many young people in Micronesia -particularly from lower income families- aren’t able to take advantage of these opportunities because, they don’t complete high school prepared to succeed in American higher education. Habele’s K12 tuition scholarships help place such students at high achieving, independent schools, and on a path towards ultimately obtaining a college degree.

Habele Scholars come from villages across the hundreds of islands and atolls that comprise the Federated States of Micronesia. Students from Yap, Chuuk, and Pohnpei, as well as their lagoon and outer islands, will be attending eleven different schools in 2022-23, including Xavier High School, Saint Mary’s, Faith Christian Academy, and SDA Schools in Yap, Chuuk and Pohnpei.

The K12 scholarships are entirely funded by donations from individual Americans who support Habele. Most are themselves former Peace Corps Volunteers, civil servants, tourists or contractors who spent time in Micronesia.

This is the seventeenth year Habele has awarded merit and needs-based scholarships, which average between 50 and 75 percent of the total tuition families owe. The nongovernmental organization also provides book donations, support for traditional skills mentorships, and organizes high school-based robotics clubs. Habele remains the only US nonprofit exclusively focused on serving students and schools within the Federated States.

Among the 54 scholarships awarded are several Memorial Scholarships. These honor the legacy of specific individuals whose life or work “embodied the best of the longstanding US-Micronesian partnership.” Introduced this year, the Martin Yinug Memorial Scholarship, honors the late Chief Justice of the Micronesian Supreme Court, and his outspoken commitment to public service, rule of law and judiciary independence. Another, the Marshall Wees Memorial Scholarship, honors a US Navy doctor who battled an outbreak of yaws that was ravaging the native population of Federai Island during the War in the Pacific.

“Being one of the Habele Scholarship recipients for the past two years is a tremendous honor and a joy,” said Sheridan Giltamag. A rising junior at Our Lady of Mercy Catholic High School, Miss Giltamag earned a 3.9 grade point average over the course of last school year. She and her family have also been involved in WeavingConnections, a Habele program to support mentor-based preservation of traditional weaving skills.

“The scholarship indeed helps my parents with tuition obligations at OLMCHS in Pohnpei. In addition to the financial support, Habele Scholarship has motivated and helped me in many ways, which include keeping up with my grades, spending more time with my school work, and the importance of education and my future.”

habele Robotics

Yap schools lead way in collaborative robotics

Yap Catholic High School, the most veteran of participants in the FSM-wide Habele Robotics League, has been promoting robotics to other high schools across Yap State for a decade. This year, the school pioneered a new model for the annual “Yap Robo Day,” a public exhibition in which robotics clubs from across Yap and its Neighboring Islands demonstrate their STEM accomplishments in a series of competitive challenges. In past years, participating schools gathered in a central location for a single afternoon, maneuvering their robots through rounds of timed challenges until a champion emerged. 

This year, Yap Catholic invited other public and private high schools to their campus for “Yap Robo Week,” an intensive five-day exercise in training, creative robotics design, and collaboration between staff and students from different schools. 

Teams pooled spare parts, tools and knowledge over the course of the week to build personalized robots equipped for the final challenge. The final competition was an arena filled with small plastic balls, and baskets of varying heights, each bucket representing different point values. Teams had two and a half minutes to score as many points as possible, by maneuvering their robot to place as many balls as possible in the various buckets. No design restrictions were placed on the size of the robots used, and teams spent the days leading up to the competition adjusting designs to focus on maximizing scores. 

When the dust settled on the Yap Robo Day 2022, the champions spot was awarded to Yap Catholic High School, with second place going to Outer Islands High School, and third place to Yap High School. The 2022 Robo Day welcomed a new participant in Pacific Missionary Aviation’s homeschool students, who laid the groundwork for strong performances in competitions to come. 

This was the final competition for some Yap Catholic students, after years of participation. “With my two years of joining the Robotics club, I have come to learn that you can do so much more when you are in a team, “ says Chastity Minginug, a 2022 graduate of Yap Catholic and Habele Scholar. ”Team work is an essential part when we work together and I believe that Robotics will be a fun experience for everyone if given the chance.” 

Habele, a US nonprofit enables and equips high schools in the Robo League across all four of the Federated States of Micronesia. Habele was founded by former Peace Corps volunteers who taught in Micronesia. The nonprofit first introduced robotics to Micronesia in 2011. The Habele Robo League provides students in some of the world’s most remote island communities the opportunity for hands on learning and problem solving with today’s technology. 

Support from the US Government comes through the Office of Insular Affair, which provides technical assistance funding for development projects in Micronesia. Habele’s Robo League is growing the knowledge and skills of future island leaders, and deepening the historic bonds of the US-FSM partnership.