Hi! My name is Haykuhi and I am actually from Armenia! I feel a little bit bad because I could not find Armenia in the list of the countries, so I had to choose the country the closest to mine. I am a soon-to-be 20 year old student at the American University of Armenia, junior in the Bachelor of Arts in Business. I like studying about startups and entrepreneurship, as well as analytics and statistics. But my passion from my young days was connected more with culture, arts, languages and writing. In my 3 years at the University I took courses such as Business Communications (basicly was about general communications, writing and public speaking), French language and culture (I didn't learn the language, but ABOUT the language) and Korean language and culture (here I DID learn the language). Now I am already thinking about continuing my education in South Korea, as I find Korea, as well as the people there pretty similar to my country and people. I want to understand them deeply and apply with their example help my country to develop itself economically and "personally". Besides, I really enjoy the process of learning Korean language, which I continue doing after the course, as the latter just gave some basic knowledge. 

Now, several days ago my instructor of Korean language and culture course emailed me and my friends saying that she arranged a trip to South Korea, which will include a weeklong intensive language school  and also cultural exchange. I was happy and sad at the same time because I finally had the chance to realise my dream of going there and actually seeing some universities to decide which to apply to, but I also don't have the money. The instructor said that she found some funds that will help us with the summer school fees and acommodation, however, the meals (except for breakfast) and the tickets should be paid by us. All that she calculated somewhere between $1000-$1200. I found a part-time job 2 months before, so I have 2 month salary and some savings, that together with my forecasted salary of this month will be $500. But I need $500-$700 more in order to buy the tickets and be able to confirm my teacher. I would ask my parents if this was a year before, but lately there were some problems with my family. My father lost his job, my brother got married and has to cover his own family expenses, and my grandfather died (we spent a lot of money for the funeral). I am even ashamed to ask my parents for the money, because I know they might even go borrow from people but they will not feel good.

The reason I am not ashamed to ask it from strangers is the following: I always was an active citizen and voluntarly worked for numerous youth organizations and organized a lot of projects to help people.  I am still doing that being a volunteer youth voice at the UN Armenia and organizing fundrasing concerts with my University music group to help unhealthy kids. Me and my family helped a lot of people who needed help when we had the money. Now I think there would be people to help me when I am in need.

Why is this travel important for me: As I said, languages, especially Korean language became my passion for the last 3 years and it was my goal to travel and do a cultural exchange there. I applied for 2 language courses, but got rejected because I ddidn't have the proof of the level of my language skills. I also think that would be very helpful to go see it myself , without believing in some myths , and udnerstand wether that's the country I want to study in for the following 2-3 years or not. 

I will be very thankful if you could help me, and will not forget single one of you! Thank you in advance! 

P.S. attaching the link to the language school my instructor sent us.