To mark World Refugee Day, today, NUI Galway has announced the expansion of its University of Sanctuary Scholarship Programme from nine scholarships to 12 for the 2020-2021 academic year. Scholarships will be available for both undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the university, and will be open to asylum seekers, refugees, vulnerable immigrant groups, and Irish Travellers. As a designated University of Sanctuary, NUI Galway is committed to addressing low levels of participation at third level amongst vulnerable groups, and the scholarship programme underpins the pillars of respect, excellence, and openness within its Strategic Plan 2020-2025.
President of NUI Galway, Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh said,“In our recently-launched strategy, Shared Vision, Shaped by Values, we as NUI Galway, and as a recently-designated University of Sanctuary, committed ourselves to the public good and to shared values of respect, openness, excellence and sustainability. We committed ourselves to respect all members of our community and to be open to – to embrace – all of our communities, including and especially those who have not found our context to be their own. We therefore stand with all of those – globally and in our own community – who have felt the pressure of discrimination and dispossession on their necks. We stand and we are not silent. We stand and we stand in solidarity, knowing that we need to do right and that we need to sometimes do better too. Black Lives Matter.”
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.