Advice for members seeking human rights scholarships

I am looking on a Master scholarship in Human Rights Defense. Your help

Hello Fabrice! Thank you for the reply. I am glad to meet you. There are many people in eastern DRC who are joining our network and we are glad to welcome you. We are a friendly, open community filled with people who share your vision. As an active, contributing member of our community you can hopefully fulfill your dreams to make the connections to advance your career as a human rights activist.

Feel free to write in French. We can all use the translation feature (the globe on the post menu) to automatically translate posts into our language.

cc @jpttony

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Hi Fabrice! Thanks for your reply, and thanks also for posting a topic in the forum. I can understand that you are very keen to find a master’s study program and am full of sympathy and understanding. I will try to guide you.

In our community, we get to know each other and help each other by talking on the forum. I think you will have more success if you spend time reading what others have written so you can get to know other members, their challenges and what they are working on. You can add a reply to topics where you can help, say by providing insight from your experience or linking to a useful website or publication. I suggest you reserve time each week (Fridays are a good day when many members are logged in) to read and reply to discussions.

As regards your search for a master’s program, my advice to you would be to create impressive profiles online, including here in the Global Legal Empowerment Network of course but also on LinkedIn which is used by universities to help evaluate potential applicants. You may also know other online networks relevant to your line of work. If you have published articles, you can upload them to the resource library and tell fellow network members about them in the forum. By being a model citizen here, you will make many friends – and impress any recruiter. Any time you spend helping others here will not be wasted as you seek to advance your career.

The other advice I would have is for you to gain as much experience as you can working in human rights organizations while you wait for the academic opportunity to arise. I know it is not easy, but if paid jobs are not available you can get another job while making time to volunteer for a local organization. You can also use your job as a channel for providing legal empowerment. Many paralegals also have other jobs as teacher, nurse or some other community role.

Whatever you do, try your best to document your human rights work experience as best you can. One easy way to do that would be to report here regularly to the community - we’d love to hear about your successes and challenges, and fellow members may have suggestions. You can also share photos. But be careful to respect the privacy and security of the people you are working with.

And finally, when it comes time to apply for master’s programs, you will want to research the websites of academic programs directly. You can always contact them by email to ask questions to help you figure out which ones you are eligible for now, or to find out what more you might be able to do to become eligible. There are scholarship opportunities you can look for as well.

Members share links and ideas here in the forum on a regular basis - so keep an eye on the Opportunities category. Here’s a good topic with a list of potential scholarship opportunities you can take a look at:

Good luck and keep us posted! We all are standing with you and hope you find success. :seedling:

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Brother Tobias, I do appreciate the kind way you deal with people and am glad to know you. So I would be the gladiest in our forum in case I gain Brother Tobias’s guidance for searching a master scholarship. Kind regards.

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Thank you Tobias for your kindness. How can your community help me to attend my day-nightdream to continue my master studies in Human Rights Defense so as I may help all my community in the East of Congo? Please your guidance is of great importance for me.

Wonderful. thanks, Fabrice! At this point I suggest you take some time to think about the message I sent you and make a plan for yourself that works for you so you can make some progress over the next few weeks. I know it seems urgent and pressing to make progress immediately, but it will take time for you to reach your goal. Good luck! :sunflower:

Hello Brother Tobias. Is there any master’s scholarship yet? Send any link you’ve for that.

Regards.

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Hi Fabrice! Great to see you. Did you have any luck with the scholarships list topic? Take a look again and let me know if you found any good leads.

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Thank you Tobias. I tried but I couldn’t find any. Let’s try again.

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Hi Fabrice! I thought this post in the scholarships topic was really promising. Take a closer look at this post by @stellaobita - it has some solid leads. Follow some of those links to learn about those opportunities. Let us know how it goes!

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Hi Fabrice.

Tobias Elgen gave very useful tips. I hope my addition will be helpful. Here are some pragmatic steps you can consider:

I must say the best way forward is to send out as many applications to different human rights master`s programs as possible. Some universities give need based or merit based scholarships. Either way you get something. Once you are admitted, speak to the admission teams about financial aid and scholarships. Remember, its the strength of your application and supporting materials that determine if you are to get a scholarship

If you really want to study, there is always a way. Alternatively you could take the partial scholarship, and then take out a student loan to help you out, get to the campus, and when in school, you can take up work on campus. You could also ask the school to get you on a tuition installment payment plan.

Incase you get to the US, your school can help you get a student work permit based on economic reasons to enable you work and study outside campus, during your course of study.

Note: the British council also provide very generous scholarship packages to study in the UK- the Chevening scholarships. Based on your experience, and human rights work you are engaged in , you have very high chances of getting the scholarship.

Please also take into account the cost of education, where you wish to study. UK and European universities are much cheaper than US institutions.The cost of living is also quite low.

Consider also distance education, as an alternative. London School of Economics has a good human rights program, via distance education, and it has a flexible payment scheme.

Regards

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Thank you Stella! I love everything you said, especially the following. Can you tell us some more and maybe share a link?

The London School of Economics link with Distance Learning information is Independent learning

Aberystwyth University, Distance Learning link for the law school is Aberystwyth University - LLM Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (DL)

I actually did the program at Aberystwyth University, its of high quality.

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Hello Tobias.Till now no sholarship opportunity?

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Nice to hear from you, Fabrice! How are you getting on with finding and applying for scholarships?

If you recall, I shared some advice above on steps you can take to set yourself up for success in your quest.

Do log in here to participate in discussions so we can get to know you better, and report back in this topic on your progress and community members will be happy to give feedback and further advice. :seedling:

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Hello Tobias.aNY NEWS?

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Thank you so much we have many girls who could be assisted on furthering their studies but have no funding to do so

More is needed to help these young women and girl’s

Thank you

Nathan nyagato