Southeast Asia Scholarship Fund

Welcome to the home page of the Southeast Asia Scholarship Fund. We are an IRS Section 501(c)(3) exempt private foundation, registered with the State of Oregon. We provide scholarships to select public schools in Southeast Asia. All contributions are fully tax deductible. Our contact address is

                    Southeast Asia Scholarship Fund
                    Attn: Dr Tran Thong
                    8780 SW Pacer Drive
                    Beaverton OR 97008
                    e-mail : seasf@comcast.net
                    web: http://seasf.systolicvn.com

The board of directors of the Southeast Asia Scholarship fund is headed by Dr. Tran Thong, Director, SEASF.

Southeast Asia Scholarship Fund was established in 1993 as an Oregon (USA) non-profit organization following a visit to Vietnam by one of our founders. SEASF was recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) organization in 1995. The first set of 5 scholarships was awarded to students of Hochiminh City Medical Training School (now Pham Ngoc Thach Medical University) in October 1995. In 1996 we started a long term scholarship program with the University of Hue, in central Vietnam that lasted until 2002. In 2003 we switched our scholarship program to the Phu Xuan Community College, also in Hue, until 2008.

In November 2009, we awarded 9 scholarships to the University of Tra Vinh (Dai Hoc Tra Vinh), a university in the province of Tra Vinh in the Mekong delta, south of Saigon. We chose the university since it is in one of the poorer provinces in the South. We were introduced to the University through the Vietnam Heritage Institute (http://www.thevhi.org) that has an ongoing agricultural research program at the University. Tra Vinh University has 3 schools. There is a Truong Trung Cap (academy for the lack of a better description) for technical education at the high school level. Then there is the Truong Cao Dang (first 2 years of university, equivalent to US Community College) and finally the Truong Dai Hoc (the last 2 years of university). We chose to award 3 levels of scholarship to provide full tuition at each of the 3 levels: 1.6 MVND (USD 54), 2 MVND (USD 108), 2.4 MVND (USD 130). Since this is our first year with Tra Vinh University, we awarded only a total of 9 scholarships to needy students, 3 at each of the levels. The University was asked to select the students for the awards.

In 2010 we started a cooperation with Ms Ly Thu Linh from Choice Humanitarian to expand our scholarship program to high school, middle school, primary school in the provinces of Long An (Tan An), Dong Thap (Cao Lanh), Dong Nai (Dinh Quan, the northernmost arrow), in addition to our on going scholarship program at Tra Vinh University.

In 2012 in addition to our cooperation with Choice Humanitarian at the Primary/Middle/High school level, we provided scholarships to female college students in support of the Room-To-Read Vietnam (based in San Francisco) program. We stopped our program with the University of Tra Vinh.

In 2013, following the lead of Choice Humanitarian we supported scholarships in Central Vietnam in Thua Thien and Quang Nam provinces following major flooding due to the hurricane.

In 2014 we decided to concentrate on supporting students at Primary/Middle/High schools. We returned to Long An province in the South with Choice Humanitarian and awarded scholarships to P/M/H schools in My Thanh and Thu Thua districts.

In 2015-2017 we awarded scholarships in Thu Thua, Long An province working together with Choice Humanitarian.

In 2019, due to the declining health of the principal of Choice Humanitarian, we struck out on our own and worked directly with the Scholarship Fund (Hội khuyến học) of Long An province, Thu Thua district to award 21 scholarships on November 4, 2019 at the headquarter of the Scholarship Fund located at the school board of Thu Thua district. We have worked with them through Choice Humanitarian since 2010.

The message on the red poster: Award of scholarships, "Support for the schools" for financially challenged student from the Southeast Asia Scholarship Fund. Thu Thua, November 4, 2019.

Our income tax returns are public. The .pdf document of the edited (certain confidential information such as Federal ID and addresses of directors have been deleted, all the accounting information are fully disclosed and accurate) 2019 Federal and Oregon tax returns (9.2MB) is available from the link shown. However it is password protected. If you want to review it please e-mail us your name, street address and e-mail for our records and we will send you back by US Mail (to validate the street addess) the password to open it. If you would like to receive the full set of information, please send us a request by US Mail.