Published by: THE WORLD UYGHUR NETWORK NEWS July 23,1997

Eastern Turkistan Information Center, 7/23/97

[ETIC, 7/23/97]] The Tangritagh Overseas Students and Scholar Association (TOSSA) was recently registered by the US authorities as a non profit organization. TOSSA is a non-political organization established in 1992 to enhance communication and information exchange between students and scholars from Eastern Turkistan. One of the priority activities of the TOSSA is to assist young people in Eastern Turkistan in coming to the USA for study and research.

In the association's bi-monthly newsletter, the president of the TOSSA recently wrote that there is a great interest from the young students in the Uyghur Autonomous Region to receive a good education in the western countries, and especially in the US; but, financial and other problems make it virtually impossible for them to realize their dreams. He informed that the TOSSA council is regularly contacted by such students asking for help; unfortunately, because of the organization's low fund, the TOSSA is not capable to offer according

assistance to those people.

Currently, there are about 50 Uyghur students studying in the US universities. Only few of them, if any, are state funded.

[Abdulrakhim Aitbayev, Denver]