HAInews 2023/01 Amirana Scholarships 2023 for five medical students from four countries
In 2023, medical students at Heidelberg University can once again look forward to financial support with the Amirana Scholarship:
This year, five students from Cameroon, Syria, Ecuador and Iran will be supported with a total of 18,000 euros. The scholarship is aimed at Heidelberg students of medicine and dentistry from countries in the global south who are in financial need or require special support in the final phase of their studies.
The scholarship holders receive a monthly allowance for living expenses or tuition fees. The scholarship fund was established in 2016 with a generous donation from Dr Mahomed T. Amirana and Dr Annelene J. Amirana, a married couple living in the USA who met in the 1950s while studying medicine in Heidelberg. In recent years, further donations have been received for the scholarship – not only has the Amirana couple donated several times and again in 2022, but the US alumnus Richard Anderson is also a very generous regular donor. In addition, the scholarship is fed by donations from several other alumni from the European region. In order to be able to support students in need in the future, we continue to ask for donations for the Amirana Scholarship.
“This support helps us to realise our dream. In my case, for example, it is to get the best possible education to become a good doctor,” says Nicole Delgado, a scholarship holder from Ecuador who is studying in her ninth semester. Kleber Tiomo Demanou from Cameroon is happy that he can now continue his studies despite a sudden financial emergency: “Today I can prepare myself optimally for the many seminars, internships and exams – in fact, I have now passed all my exams and have not had to rewrite any, which would have been impossible without your support,” he writes in a letter of thanks. In addition, thanks to the scholarship, he can also do voluntary work in his free time and thus immediately put into practice what he has learned during his studies: The 23-year-old is involved in a campaign for the realisation of the second global sustainability goal "Health and Wellbeing".
Three current scholarship holders are enrolled at the Medical Faculty Mannheim and are being supported for the first time; while one of them has only just begun his studies, the other two are already well advanced and will also be supported until 2024 while they complete their practical year. Another scholarship holder and one female scholarship holder are studying at the Medical Faculty Heidelberg; they are in the final phase of their studies before the second state examination and have already received the scholarship.
