A Message from the President
Hello, my name is Masahito Yamaguchi, the founder of WSO. I want to share my experiences to explain how we founded WSO.
When I first visited New Delhi, India, in 1978, I was confronted with the appalling living conditions of the destitute, which were far beyond the imagination of people in developed countries. Since then, I have wanted to do something meaningful to help these people.
In 1998, I had the honour of meeting Mother Teresa, for whom I held the greatest respect, and had an opportunity to volunteer at “Home for the Dying” in Kolkata (formally Calcutta). While caring for the dying people who had suffered unthinkable poverty all their lives, I decided that one day I would follow Mother Teresa’s footsteps and set up a charity to help the destitute.
In December 2012, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, I had the privilege of meeting with Prof. Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel laureate who founded the Grameen Bank and pioneered the concept of microfinance and microcredit. He taught me that poverty couldn’t be eradicated by providing microfinance alone but that education was another key to addressing poverty. In 2013, I founded WSO with my Japanese friends in Sydney, and the “provision of education through scholarships” has become the key guiding principle of our activities.
WSO’s mission is to empower underprivileged youths in developing countries through education by providing scholarships for vocational training/higher education and living costs so that they can gain financial independence and become valued members of their communities.