Jarai woman turns RMIT scholarship into community impact

Jarai woman turns RMIT scholarship into community impact

From a small village in the former Kon Tum province to RMIT Vietnam, Y Bdao is turning her scholarship into a mission to empower Jarai women through traditional weaving and open doors to opportunities for the next generation.

For Y Bdao, a university degree was once a dream that seemed beyond her family’s financial means. Today, the Jarai woman from the former Kon Tum province is studying Business at RMIT Vietnam on an Opportunity Scholarship, with a bigger ambition: to help others in her community access opportunities she once struggled to find.

Y Bdao is one of six students to receive a fully funded Opportunity Scholarship from RMIT Vietnam this year. (Image: RMIT) Y Bdao is one of six students to receive a fully funded Opportunity Scholarship from RMIT Vietnam this year. (Image: RMIT)

Growing up in the Ro Ngao community in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, Bdao saw how financial hardship and limited access to learning opportunities could shape young people’s futures. While she was able to further her academic pursuit with help from others, many of her peers had fewer options and stopped studying after finishing secondary school.

“I often wondered why I was one of the few children in my village who had the opportunity to continue my education,” she said in her scholarship application. “Many of my friends came from circumstances similar to mine, yet our lives took very different paths.”

Her own journey was made possible by people who stepped in when her family could not afford to meet all the costs of her education. When she was studying far from home, Catholic sisters provided her with accommodation, food, tuition fees and a bicycle so she could stay in school.

At 18, Bdao hoped to attend university, but financial constraints made the prospect seem out of reach. A full scholarship to study Information Technology at Da Nang College of Technology, in partnership with Passerelles Numériques Vietnam, gave her another chance. After completing her vocational training, she got a job in the technology sector and spent more than six years working in software testing and quality control. 

Her career gave her professional skills and a path towards financial stability, but the question of how to help young people in her village remained. After spending two years working as a social worker supporting vulnerable children and families, she decided to take action herself.

In 2023, Bdao founded Kroong - Gateway to the future, a community initiative designed to help children pursue their ambitions and imagine futures beyond the limitations they face today.

A classroom organised by Kroong - Gateway to the future project (Photo courtesy of Y Bdao) A classroom organised by Kroong - Gateway to the future project (Photo courtesy of Y Bdao)

The initiative provides free English lessons and mentorship, operates a community library and offers financial assistance to students who might otherwise have to interrupt their studies. Every weekend, nearly 100 young learners visit the library to read, draw and explore their creativity in a safe, supportive environment.

The results have been tangible. In 2025, Bdao and Catholic sisters helped 15 students pass the entrance examination to grade 10, tripling the success rate compared with previous years. The initiative also provided tuition fees to eight high school students, enabling them to continue their studies.

For Bdao, these achievements are a starting point rather than an endpoint. Having experienced how much difference timely support can make, she wants to find a way to sustain these opportunities for future generations without relying solely on external assistance.

Her commitment to community development has also taken her overseas. She was selected for the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) Professional Fellows Program in the United States in 2024 and the CrossCulture Programme Fellowship in Germany in 2025. These experiences broadened her understanding of social innovation and community-led development.

Y Bdao during the YSEALI Professional Fellows Program in the United States (Photo courtesy of Y Bdao) Y Bdao during the YSEALI Professional Fellows Program in the United States (Photo courtesy of Y Bdao)

During her fellowship in Germany, she came to recognise that initiatives expanding opportunities for young people needed a sustainable financial foundation. This insight helped shape her ambition to establish a social enterprise connecting cultural preservation with economic opportunity.

Her vision is to create new markets for traditional Jarai brocade, helping ethnic minority women earn sustainable livelihoods from their weaving skills while preserving cultural knowledge for future generations. “I want to build a social enterprise that creates economic opportunities for ethnic minority women while reinvesting part of its income into education for children and young people in my community,” she said. 

To turn that vision into reality, Bdao is pursuing a Bachelor of Business at RMIT. She hopes to gain practical knowledge in entrepreneurship, marketing, financial management and sustainable business, enabling her to build an enterprise that can support both the women who make traditional textiles and the young people whose futures she hopes to change.

Y Bdao delivered her speech at the RMIT Vietnam’s Scholarship award ceremony 2026 (Image: RMIT) Y Bdao delivered her speech at the RMIT Vietnam’s Scholarship award ceremony 2026 (Image: RMIT)

For Bdao, the RMIT Opportunity Scholarship is therefore more than financial support for a university degree. It is an investment in the work she has already begun and the community she hopes to serve. 

Her journey has taught her that opportunity often begins with someone willing to help, whether by paying school fees, providing a place to stay or making further study financially possible. She hopes to turn that experience into a model in which community members can create opportunities for one another. Speaking to fellow scholarship recipients at the ceremony, Bdao said: “Someday, I hope a girl from my village will stand where I am standing today and say that someone opened a door for her. And that someone was me." 

That is the future she wants to build: one in which a young person’s prospects are not determined by the financial circumstances into which they are born, and where preserving cultural heritage can also create livelihoods, strengthen communities and help the next generation pursue its ambitions.

Story: June Pham

30 October 2026

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