Changing the Lives of those in need through International and Cultral Exposure

Javier Mere Prado received The Outstanding Graduate Student Award from the Center for International Studies in 2008. This award is given to the graduate student who contributes the most, academically and through extracurricular activities, to the development of International Studies at Texas State University. In the summer of 2007 Javier taught English and Western Culture at the Royal University of Phnom Penh as a participant in the Texas State’s Wilson Asian Faculty/Student Exchange Program. This experience changed Javier's life and is changing the lives of Cambodian students.

"One of my students asked me to correct his English in a letter to his grandparents, in which he asked for $125 to be able to continue for another year at the University,” Javier said. “Since his grandparents probably don’t read English, I think the student must have wanted to tell me his life story. In the letter, he said that his parents had died in the war and that the teachers in his home town had raised the money for his first year of college. He wanted his grandparents to ask the teachers for help again so that he could continue another year at college.”

Javier knew he had to help his students. Upon returning to the United States he decided to fund 10 additional college scholarships to be offered through the Wilson Exchange Program, beginning in Summer 2008. Today Javier continues to fund scholarships through the Wilson's Fellowship for students at the Royal University of Phnom Penh in Cambodia. 

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