Tom Leggat Opportunities Fellowship Award Connects Local Youth Back to Nepal
Lowell, MA – Ashik Tamang is a young man who believes in giving back. Since arriving in the United States, Tamang has dreamed of returning to Nepal to give back to the children in the refugee camp where he lived from age 12 until he resettled in Lowell, Mass. in April of 2016. His dream was fast tracked this month when he received the Tom Leggat Opportunities Fellowship that will provide $5,000 to support his efforts to distribute educational supplies and hygiene kits to children within the refugee camp.
In fact, as a dean’s list student at Middlesex Community College, it was his mentor Maria Cunha, the Director of Out of School Youth Development Center and English Learner Institute who nominated Tamang for the Tom Leggat Opportunities Fellowship to support his dream of assisting children in Nepal. As Cunha noted, “I have been in my position for over 20 years and have worked with hundreds of young people but not too many have shown the compassion, determination and desire to learn and help others as Ashik.”
Ashik Tamang is extremely appreciative for the opportunity. “My project for helping refugee children in Nepal is not just a project for me, but a dream that I have been dreaming about since the time I myself spent in a refugee camp. I am lost for words to have received the 2019 Tom Leggat Opportunities Fellowship award. I can only picture the precious smiles that this project will bring to these children’s faces,” he shared.
In 2015, the Trustees of the Theodore Edson Parker Foundation established the fellowship award at the Greater Lowell Community Foundation in honor of a former Trustee, Tom Leggat. The fellowship award recognizes Leggat’s interest in the advancement of youth as well as his dedication to the betterment of Lowell. The fund will allow the Greater Lowell Community Foundation to grant annually a fellowship award of up to $5,000 to at least one young promising Lowellian. The intent of the fellowship award is to provide an opportunity that may transform the recipient’s outlook on life, and encourage them to make positive life-altering choices. Past fellowships have included a summer music program at Berkley College of Music, travel to Cambodia to study traditional dance, and an intensive language program in China.
On October 22, the award was presented to Ashik Tamang at a luncheon hosted by the Greater Lowell Community Foundation and the Theodore Edson Parker Foundation at Cobblestone’s Restaurant in Lowell. Members of the Leggat family were in attendance as well as members of the Leggat Opportunities Fellowship Selection Committee. The Tom Leggat Opportunities Fellowship will cover the cost of Tamang’s travel to Nepal as well as supplies to distribute. Tamang plans to travel to Nepal in the spring of 2020.
