Lasallian entrepreneur sponsors first batch of Ysrael Scholars

The first batch of Lasallians of the Ysrael Scholarship met with their sponsor, Lasallian graduate Alfred Ysrael, in a meet and greet held last December 4 at the Andrew Cafe. During the event, there was an exchange of tokens and sentiments between Ysrael and his scholars, mainly about how being a scholar entails high expectations and responsibilities.

Ysrael is the founder and chairman of the Tanota Partners in Guam, a company involved in real estate development. He is also the owner of several hotels in Guam such as the Sunroute Hotel, Guam Regency Hotel and Fujita Hotel, among others. Later on in his career, he was awarded the Guam Business Executive of the Year in 2006, and Guam Business Executive and Entrepreneur of the Year in 2009.

He graduated from DLSU in 1952 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce. Being a Lasallian graduate, he was indebted to the education he received, and believes that one way he can give back is by sponsoring scholars from Lasallian tertiary institutions. Back in 2011, he donated $400,000 to support the One La Salle Centennial Scholarship Fund. In the same year, he was awarded the Distinguished Lasallian Award, which is considered one of the highest awards given by the De La Salle Alumni Association.

As part of his continuing efforts to support DLSU’s scholarship programs, he formed the Ysrael Scholarship, with the first batch of 24 Lasallians gathered this year. He says that students with business and science degree programs would be ideal for the scholarship, since after graduating they would be hands-on in serving their respective communities.

Like the international Rhodes Scholarship in the University of Oxford, which has supported some of the brightest students worldwide, Ysrael envisioned the same for the Ysrael scholars. “I wanted to establish the same tradition for the Ysrael Scholars by making them one of the smartest in the Philippines. I want their talents to contribute to the betterment of our nation,” he furthers.

“The Ysrael Scholarships will be available perpetually. As long as there are La Salle schools in the Philippines, they will have 24 fully paid Ysrael Scholars every year,” Ysrael says. If the first batch of Ysrael scholars do well in their academics and in serving the Lasallian community, Ysrael says that increasing the number of Ysrael Scholarships to 50 a year can be considered.

Given the many scholarship grants in DLSU, such as the Vaugirard , St. La Salle, Star, and the new Ysrael Scholarship, these serve as a continuing mission of DLSU to make education accessible to the Filipino youth of today.