Empowering
A Thousand Hopes
Building brighter futures through education and opportunities
What we aspire to do
A Thousand Hopes is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing positive change to the lives of needy children and youths in rural areas of developing world. Join us in our mission to support communities, and schools libraries, provide scholarships, creating opportunities for education and empowerment. Your support and beyond will help us light up a thousand hopes for a brighter future.
THE NEED
The Need: Bridging Educational Gaps in Vietnam’s Underserved Communities
In many rural areas of Vietnam, children from low-income families face severe educational disparities. While school enrolment is high, about 21% of children still lack access to quality education and necessary learning resources. Rural schools often rely on outdated, second-hand books, leading to poor literacy rates and missed opportunities.
Without the right support, many bright students are forced to drop out, perpetuating the cycle of poverty.
THE SOLUTION
The Solution: Empowering Education
At A Thousand Hopes, we address educational barriers through two core programs: Adopt a Book and Sponsor a Student.
Adopt a Book: Provides age-appropriate, high-quality books to rural school libraries, reigniting students’ love for reading.
Sponsor a Student: Offers scholarships to bright students from low-income families, enabling them to afford essential school materials and continue their education.
The Focus of our Efforts
Promoting Reading Cultures
Our fundraising initiative and books/libraries adoption programs aim to contribute to the construction of libraries, fostering knowledge hubs that empower communities with valuable resources and opportunities for growth.
Educational Support
Through our fundraising efforts and student sponsorship programs, we aim to provide monetary support that recognize those individuals who, despite financial challenges, demonstrate outstanding academic achievements.
Our Team
A Thousand Hopes is driven by a very small, dedicated team working to improve education, one book, one student at a time. Being new, and with almost no external fundings, our two team members in Sweden volunteer part-time, covering everything from program, partnerships development, compliance, system development, content management, translations, SEO to fundraising, donors engagement and finance. We’re supported by a wonderful advisor, also another board member, based in Denmark, a retired librarian, who certainly believes deeply in the power of books through entire amazing career.
On the ground in Vietnam, our wonderful local coordinator (also working on volunteer basis) manages operations and connects with schools to ensure every donation has the greatest impact. Together, we work tirelessly to reach more schools in need, creating solutions to bring the joy of reading to students, one book and one student at a time.
A Dedicated Focus on Impact
We’re committed to maximizing impact in every project we undertake and every community we serve. Through honest assessments, we openly share results—positive or challenging—with our donors. We also recognize that educators should always focus on teaching, so we’re developing a streamlined system to make updates and impact assessments easier for schools, educators and librarians. Stay tuned as we work to build a more efficient follow-up process that empowers both donors and educators.
Our Journey
A Thousand Hopes began with our founder, Hong, whose passion for community service and education has taken her across Vietnam, Singapore, the US, and Sweden. Since 2012, she has volunteered in impactful projects in Indonesia, Nepal, Singapore, and Vietnam, where she saw firsthand the power of education and the barriers faced by underserved communities.
Together with two like-minded co-founders who share her belief in the transformative power of books and learning, A Thousand Hopes idea started. We may be new, but from day one, we’ve been committed to doing things right. Our focus is 100% on meaningful impact and quality in each project, rather than rapid scale.
Here’s a look at our humble journey so far.
Registration
To establish a strong and official base, we registered A Thousand Hopes as a Non-Profit Association (Ideell Förening) in Sweden from the very start. We're located in Älmhult.
Partnerships & Program Development
We secured our first partnerships with book publishers and began gathering specific needs from local schools to provide targeted support.
System Development
We envisioned a donation system that’s simple, cost-effective, and engaging. Built entirely in-house, our website and book adoption platform were created at no cost. We are also accepted in nonprofit programs with Microsoft, Google, Canva, and Adobe for added resources.
Fundraising
We are now launching our live website and running our first fundraising campaign to adopt 186 books for 2 secondary schools in Vinh Long province, Vietnam