This year's theme for SM scholar-graduates' presentation  Giving dignity to oneself – rising from poverty, putting food on the table and sending siblings to school – is the main goal of every ‘poor’ student who graduates from college. Among other circumstances, a poor student is one whose family does not have funding for his or her education, who lives in a place of conflict or is at risk of conflict or who may be vulnerable to violence on his long and hazardous journeys to and from school and one who suffers hunger and malnutrition – all because of poverty. Most of the 225 scholars of the SM Foundation, Inc. (SMFI) who graduated this year knew this, having grew up in situations like these, and at one point in their lives had gave up hope for a brighter future. Indeed, the road to success is bumpy but they persevere with the help of SMFI who shouldered their tuition fees and miscellaneous expenses upon enrollment and afforded them with monthly stipend all throughou