Bursary Grant Cases

Anna's Story

My name is Anna and I am a refugee. I was persecuted by the government of my country for my political beliefs.  I come from a family of doctors and my education was always important for me; since I was a child I knew I wanted to go to university. I graduated from a university in 2006 with a Bachelor’s degree. Throughout my studies my parents were supporting me financially and emotionally. During my studies I was persecuted for my involvement in NGOs and Presidential Elections campaign. I got threatened and harassed and had to flee the country. My father lost his job as a result.

I was granted Refugee status in the UK in January 2007. I felt like everything I had was taken away from me: I was alone in a foreign country, upset and scared, without the support of my family and friends, and my degree I worked so hard for was not recognized in the UK: in order to find relevant employment I would have had to have my degree converted to a UK recognized one. At the time I was receiving a Jobseeker’s allowance, looking for a job and in no position to afford to study. Because my degree was not recognized, I had to look for job that did not require a qualification. I worked as a receptionist before I was able to find an office based job. The job was not in my chosen field, and it was low paid (slightly above the national minimum wage), but I could not be too choosy at the time. I was saving a bit every month towards the costs of my postgraduate studies, by renting a cheap room and buying cheap food and hardly spending anything beyond the bare minimum.

Soon after I arrived, I started looking into courses I could do. I decided to do an MSc in International Relations because I had always been interested in politics and my native country’s relations with other countries. I applied to a couple of universities, and received offers for MSc in International Relations from a very prestigious school to study the subject.

Saving as much as I could I still would have not been able to fund the course myself, even if I had a part time job during my studies. My family cannot help me financially as my father is still out of work. I did not approach my employer about funding my studies as clearly they would not be interested in me retraining in International Relations. I could not get a loan because I did not satisfy the residency requirement (I would not have been living in the UK for less than 3 years before my course started).

I started exploring other sources of funding for a postgraduate degree. I applied to my school for an award but unfortunately was not successful. I also apply to a lot of charities, councils and other grant-giving organisations, but almost all of them declined my application for various reasons, most of them being limited funds. Out of about 35 charities I wrote to, only 3 gave me an award: 2 charities gave me grants of a thousand pounds each towards living costs, and the Prisoners of Conscience Appeal Fund granted me the full amount of the course fees - £14,000. Combining these awards with my savings, I was able to afford to do my full-time 1 year long course.

I finished my course recently and I can say that it has been a life-changing experience. Now that I have a degree from a UK university I can apply for jobs that I will enjoy doing, and build up experience for my dream career: to work for the EU improving relations with my native country, or for UN promoting human rights and democratic freedoms in my native country. The course has helped me to integrate in the society; I made a lot of friends while studying and built a network of like-minded people around me. I feel so much more confident and happy and optimistic about my future.

I am so grateful to the Prisoners of Conscience for giving me this opportunity, and I firmly believe that without their help I would not have been able to do the course in the foreseeable future; I would be stuck in a low-paid job, struggling to get my life back. I admire the excellent work the charity is doing. PoC help not just poor people, but those who were mistreated, often tortured, and misplaced. Although on paper they are eligible to apply to a few sources of help, their circumstances often mean they miss out on a lot of funding opportunities. Lots of people who were persecuted and tortured suffer physical and psychological problems and that makes employment difficult or impossible. Lots of them have dependants with them, and, working low-paid jobs, cannot make any savings of their own, as I was able to. They have no supporting network of family and friends as most of the UK people do. Unless they are the brightest person in the course, they are unlikely to receive a bursary. Often they have not lived in the UK for long enough to get a loan. In such cases the PoC is one of the very few charities that can help them to get their life rebuilt and have a faith in people again.