✨”Karma takes all my friends to the (Global) Summit!”✨ Taylor Swift - ‘Karma’

Hello,

I hope you’re well,

I’m a recent graduate (2025) from Durham University who studied Combined Honours in Social Sciences (Politics and Sociology), and I’m trying to raise money to attend a Global Summit in Dublin, Ireland after winning an international award with my undergraduate dissertation.

My dissertation is a qualitative study exploring black students’ sense of belonging at elite UK universities. I have attached my abstract as one of the images above.

If you would like to know more about my dissertation findings, the work I have been doing with it at Durham University and beyond, the fundraiser itself, or just to keep in touch, you can find me on Linkedln (Sharon Berhane), or you can contact me through this website.

The organisation is called The Global Undergraduate Awards (GUA), and they are the most prestigious awarding body for undergraduate research in the world. My dissertation scored in the top 10% of thousands of entires worldwide to become a Junior Nobel Prize winner, ultimately, winning the bronze award for being ‘Highly Commended’ in the Social Sciences category.

I have been invited to attend their 3-day Global Summit in November (2025) to present my research, attend workshops, networking opportunities, social events and addresses from world-renowned speakers.

This fundraiser is to help me raise the price of the conference ticket (£500) and hotel (£500 on average) to attend the event. The School of Government and International Affairs (SGIA) has kindly offered me £300 to help offset the total price. Therefore, I’m hoping to raise £700 to fund the rest as I will cover the travel expenses, food etc for it. I have until November 5th to pay for my conference ticket.

If you had the means to donate, I would really appreciate it as the event is too expensive for me to afford on my own. Otherwise, if you could share this fundraiser with people you know who might be interested in helping, that would be great as well. Thank you so much for your time and have a good day :)

Image description:

Cover image is a photo of the awarding body’s logo with a white background and green text that reads ‘The Global Undergraduate Awards (GUA)’

There is a picture of my certificate which has my name, university, award, category and some text about the GUA included.

There is a photo of me at the British Conference of Undergraduate Research (2025) after I gave a presentation on my dissertation findings. The BCUR is the largest conference in the UK exclusively for undergraduate research. There is a sign behind me that has the name of the conference and me smiling in the middle of the frame.

There is another photo after I had won ‘best talk’ (89.25%) at the annual Wolfson Research Institute’s ‘Early Career Researcher’ Conference with a presentation on my dissertation findings. I am smiling in the middle with 5 of the panel members next to me and a projected image of Durham’s Castle behind us.

I attached the abstract to my dissertation as a photo above.

There is an image of the Palatinate article titled ‘Investigation: race and belonging at Durham University’ that incorporates some of my dissertation findings.