Post by Dr Galadriel Ravelli (Bath UCU International Members Rep)

Bath UCU members are currently co-funding a postgraduate scholarship for an asylum seeker student here at Bath, the Marie Morley Scholarship (the scholarship is equally funded by UCU – through your local subscriptions – and the University).

The scholarship has now been running for two years, and UCU Committee members have met with this year’s scholarship recipient a couple of times throughout the academic year. We have shared with them our members’ welcome and solidarity message, and we wanted to pass on their positive feedback:

‘I have a firm conviction that without the scholarship program, pursuing higher studies and subsequently chasing my career aspirations would have been nothing but utopia. Finally, I and my family are now living comfortably; I have a little baby boy who was born on 28th February 2022. Life can’t be more beautiful than this. There is just an immense amount of gratitude to all those who have made this possible’.

Asylum seekers in the UK who wish to pursue an academic degree are usually charged international student fees and are not automatically eligible for finance support. In this sense, the Marie Morley Scholarship is a great opportunity, which is made possible by Bath UCU memebers’ monthly local subscriptions.