Envision Life Foundation is a 501(c)3 humanitarian organization based in California, U.S.A. focus on making a long-term impact by helping kids living in poverty through education programs.
What is Envision Life Foundation?
OUR MISSION
Envision Life Foundation is a humanitarian organization that believes every child deserves to live safe and healthy lives. We offer our programs to the poorest of the poor, to the children in greatest need, without ulterior motive. We devote ourselves to helping children of all faiths, cultures, backgrounds, ethnicities, and genders.
Education is to teach children how to conduct themselves in relation to the world. We believe education can ignite children’s passion to learn and their ability to innovate. We encourage our teachers to create curriculum and teaching methods that are fun, engaging, and facilitate teamwork in order to grab children’s attention, and introduce volunteer program and religious/tradition education to inspire love and compassion within the community that is inherent in each and everyone of us.
WHAT WE DO
Our core values based on three old proverbs:
1. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
2. It takes ten years to grow a tree, but it takes a hundred years to bring up a generation of good men.
3. Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
OUR CORE VALUES
Humble beginnings
Richard Lin went on a trip to Cambodia in 2010, where he noticed that majority of the street vendors were children. "Why are all these children in the streets and not in classrooms?" he wondered. After consulting a tour guide, he was informed that the prolonged civil war, shortage of teachers, and low average income across the population had kept these children out of schools.
It awakened the compassion within him and compelled him to act. Where to start in a country so vast, he puzzled. The timely words of the tour guide showed him the way: “Don’t choose big cities like Phnom Penh or Siem Reap (Angkor Wat), go to places where no charity organizations would go and help people who are really poor!”
“Where is that?” Richard asked. “There is a place called Koh Pen, an island surrounded by Mekong River. Because of the wet season, for half a year nothing can be planted. And because you have to pay for boats or take bamboo bridges going to and from the island, the residents on the island are poorer than the rest."
This was when Richard promised to himself: “I will be back when I am prepared."
Milestones
2010
1. Eightfold Lotus Foundation was founded to provide community services to nursing homes and homeless shelters in California, USA.
2. Richard made the first visit to Cambodia.
2011
1. In April, ELF Cambodia Education Program began with 400 plus students from preschooler to college students.
2. In June, ELF Cambodia began child sponsorship program, scholarship program, and distribution program.
3. In July, ELF Nepal began child sponsorship program, scholarship program, and distribution program.
2012
1. Travolunteer Program: the volunteers came to Cambodia for one to two weeks to visit Angkor Wat and interact with the students.
2013
1. First ELF Learning Center was built in Koh Pen, so the students can study without the fear of the rain and able to study with lights in the evening.
2014
1. Internship Program: Volunteers from overseas were able to live in Cambodia to help to manage the school and set up local volunteering programs.
2015
1. The first batch of university scholarship students graduated from university and several returned to work as staffs and teachers.
2016
1. ELF Vocational Center: Many school dropout students and parents were able to study culinary skills, basic bookkeeping skills, and management skills at ELF Vocational Center and Restaurant.
2017
1. ELF's first medical outreach with doctors from Humanitarian with Love. Over 2,500 villagers received medical assistance with dental treatment, eye treatment, general medicine, and Chinese medicine.
2. Eightfold Lotus Foundation was renamed to Envision Life Foundation.
2. ELF Vocation Training Center was renamed to Envision Life Institute (ELI) to open English and Chinese classes and basic computer classes.