"Finally, I can make my Igorot community proud," says Raymond Elmo De Guzman Jr. after getting admitted to Wesleyan University with the Freeman Asian Scholarship.
Raymond is an 18 year-old Igorot student hailing from Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya. In March of this year, he was named as the 2024 Filipino Freeman Scholar by Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, United States of America.
"They awarded me with a full-ride scholarship that covers $390,000 or more than 22 MILLION PESOS in college expenses. That includes my tuition fees, meals, housing, books, health insurance, miscellaneous expenses, and my travel to the United States," he added in his Facebook post.
Additionally, he mentioned that his achievement was driven from the long-existing struggle of the Igorot community in terms of agricultural dilemmas such as lack of government support for farmers and the continuous dumping of crops. Raymond is a grandson of an Igorot farmer which became his major inspiration in applying to colleges abroad in pursuit of a better academic career.
To him, this achievement is his way to give back to the communities he has always been part of - the Igorot community being one of them.
At Wesleyan, he plans on pursuing economics and government where he will focus on agri-economic management and public policy which he will later on apply to the country's government landscape.
He also plans on developing a research initiative on agri-economic management of Igorot farmers in Nueva Vizcaya where he aims to develop pro-people and data-driven solutions to relevant problems of our local farmers from the region.
By August of this year, Raymond will fly to the United States to finish his undergraduate degree at Wesleyan University as a Filipino and Igorot Freeman Scholar.
