Funding Support for Oxford

Dear Community,

My name is Almeera and I have been recently accepted to the University of Oxford to pursue an MSc in Forced Migration and Refugee Studies . It has been an honour to have been accepted but sadly due to lack of funding, I will not be able to attend. It has taken a lot of courage and convincing from my friends and mentors to pursue fundraising to make attending Oxford a reality.

When I got the news that I had been accepted, I was elated but the reality sunk in that I will not be able to go unless I receive financial support. Due to the timing of my offer, most scholarship applications were long overdue and the ones that still existed, I didn’t qualify for. I still reached out to them to see if there were other avenues but sadly, it didn’t work out. I have reached out to community organizations that I’ve supported, tried to take on additional short-term work, and have reached out to the University to see if there were supports in place for students like me. Unfortunately I am finding that it is much more difficult to obtain financial support and I have hit a dead end.

I come from a family of immigrants and as a first-generation student, I not only understand the struggle that our families face in supporting our education but also how education can be uplifting and change lives. As a young Pakistani woman that has had a prolonged and difficult migration experience, my lived experiences serve as my motivation to study this topic. As the eldest daughter, taking care of my family has always been the utmost priority and I have balanced that during work and school. Unfortunately, that means not having the same financial support that most of my peers had. Navigating bureaucratic institutions and systemic barriers are not easy either. Spaces of power, like academic institutions, were not designed for people like me--as a result, there are a lot of barriers that come into place which work against students who deserve to be there. But it can be done. I refuse to live in a world where students like me can't break out of the inequitable structures of power designed to break them.

While at the University of Toronto (St. George) I pursued a double major in Ethics, Society &Law and Criminology & Socio-Legal Studies with a minor in Political Science, graduating with High Distinction. During my studies and outside, I continued my passion in social justice through my involvement with the Rights of Non-Status Women, Amnesty International and as the National Engagement Coordinator at G(irls)20.

I have financed myself through undergrad by working many part-time jobs and in my fourth year, working more than 35+ hours a week. I want to attend the University of Oxford because I do not want to just generically make the world a better place, I want to understand why international foreign and domestic policies have gaps, especially around migrants, refugees and detention. I want to pursue that curiosity through my education. Within my studies, I hope to focus on forced displacement due to climate change, refugee protection and disaster risk reduction. Attending Oxford University would allow me to apply both my lived experiences and research background towards challenging migration policy to help vulnerable and adversely impacted people.

Studying Refugee and Forced Migration Studies at Oxford University would open doors to unparalleled opportunities that I otherwise would not have access to. It would change my life.

The total cost of tuition is $49,000 CAD. I would appreciate any support you can give whether it be donating or sharing this with your network.

Sincerely,

Almeera