Dear members of the scholarship committee, I am writing this letter to express a request for financial assistance, to help me pursue a Master in Development Studies at the Graduate Institute of Geneva, for the 2017-2018 academic year.
I'm a graduate student from Senegal, West Africa, and I am in dire need of financial assistance to help me further my education through graduate school. My only potential financial support is my father, and it becomes harder and harder for him to keep sustaining my education. It is under those circumstances that I come to you to demand a scholarship.
As I mentioned above, my father is my is my only source of financial assistance, my mother being a housewife. He is sixty years old and will go to retirement soon. I am the oldest child of a family of five. My young brother and my young sister are both in college now, and they are both being assisted by my father, though they are still beneficiating from partial scholarships, as I did myself in college. My father did also sustain me in college, but it was not easy all.
For example, I was lucky to for doing my undergraduate studies at Suffolk University, an American institute. I graduated high school with honors and received a partial scholarship from Suffolk. However, my first two years of college in America were extremely hard, because my father was going through difficult financial problems at the time. Therefore, it was already expensive enough to pay my school tuition, and he could not provide money for anything more. I was forced to work two to three jobs sometimes (a bar waiter some nights, a store clerk during daytime, and manual construction on weekends) so I could pay my rent and have enough money to feed myself every day. This even impeded on my studies because I wouldn't be able to study as much as I needed to, but there was no other choice. Thankfully, things eventually returned to normal and my father was able to assist me again after the second year. I could finally work less and study more, and though my grades were not the best at first, I managed to graduate with a 3.4 GPA.
Now I want to go to graduate school at the Graduate Institute of Geneva, and it would not be easy to get financial assistance from my father, who is close to retirement, and is still assisting my two younger siblings. Every time I look at him, when he comes back from work, I see him getting more and more tired, his muscles getting weaker, and on his face I can read that he is the one that needs assistance now. I understand that he cannot keep being here for me for much longer, and being the oldest, it is my duty to help him take care of the family. Getting a scholarship from the Institute would really help me alleviate all the burden of financing my studies for my whole family.
As of me, I have a small job as a starter in a local company that works with the UNDP to build schools and infrastructure in rural areas. However, in Africa, jobs usually do not pay so well until you reach a certain level, or you have a master's degree and some international experience that can make you more valuable. Moreover, the informal sector is so strong in here that my job pays me just a little and keeps me from paying taxes. I receive 350,000 CFA a month, about 700 Swiss Francs, which makes it near impossible for me to save for graduate school. But I'm still part of the lucky ones to have a job in here.
After graduation, I was not able to stay in America. I couldn't find sponsorship for a visa and I couldn't afford graduate school either. However, I still wished to go to graduate school to augment my probabilities to find a good job in the field where I have always wanted to work. And since American graduate schools were too expensive for me, I decided to come back home, and to try my luck somewhere else. I didn't want to give up on the prospects of furthering my education, and working the career of my dreams in the field of International Relations and Development. Therefore, I view the Master in Development as a chance of escaping a life with no prospects of a bright future, a life with no happiness in my work because otherwise I will not be doing what I love, a chance of working the career of my choice, with more secured ways of success. With the Master in Development studies, I plan to get some experience working in the UN or the NGOs located in Geneva, in the humanitarian and development field. That experience will be useful when I decide to go back to my country to work in government programs tailored to fix the issues we are encountering. The scholarship would help reach my dreams and achieve my professional ambitions.
I am also involved in an important humanitarian program in my home city. There is a huge problem of street children begging in the streets of Senegal, and when we were primary school, we decided to act upon it. We started a little association to help those children by providing them with clothes and soaps, and facilities where to shower, years ago, thanks to the help of parents and school officials. Today, the association has evolved, and we are managing more than a hundred children, assuring them frequent meals, clothing and providing education for some. Our objective in the next five years is to open a housing center in where we can house and take care of all those children, and provide education for each one of them. As one of the founding members of this association, the scholarship from the Graduate Institute of Geneva would help me help all those children by giving me the power to do more for them now and in the future, the power to be an international representative and an ambassador for those children.
The scholarship would also translate in a help to my country, which is an undeveloped nation, and which could use one more successful international representative dedicated to working for the development of his nation and for the undeveloped nations around the world.
Thank you for considering my request. I really hope I can win this scholarship that will help me continue my studies at the Graduate Institute of Geneva and pursue the career of my dreams.
Best Regards,
