Alumni and Friends Fund Awards Grants to School and Student Projects

The SOAS IV Debating Tournament aims to be the biggest competition of its kind in the UK.

The School's Alumni and Friends Fund (AFF) has announced beneficiaires of this year's campaign, which raised nearly £80,000 during the 2010-11 academic year. This is an increase of 60% over last year. More than 540 alumni and friends are now donors to the fund.

Five SOAS funds and seven student projects have been awarded grants. These are described below.

SOAS Hardship Fund

Last year’s grant offered vital support to struggling International/EU students. In addition to supporting this area again in 2011-12, AFF has agreed to channel some of its money towards the Childcare Fund. For more information and applications please contact John Hitchman, International Student and Welfare Adviser, at Vernon Square, V301, tel: (0)20 7074 5014/5015, email: welfare@soas.ac.uk

Alumni and Friends Fund Library Acquisitions and Preservation Fund

This fund received another grant to continue its archive conservation work and purchase early or rare books for SOAS Special Collections.

Local Excellence Scholarships

In 2010 the AFF offered scholarships to 12 undergraduates with financial need who showed outstanding academic merit and personal achievement in their community in London. This academic year the fund will extend its support to 10 new students, who will receive grants for up to three years.

Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA) Fellowship Fund

CARA will receive a grant to host an outstanding MA student from Iraq at SOAS.

Student Projects

This year the AFF received 14 applications for support with student projects. The panel selected seven winning projects, described below. The next round of applications for student projects will take place in May and June 2012.

SOAS Beyond Borders: Egypt and Palestine is the next chapter in the development of Football Beyond Borders project started two years ago. In August and September 2011, 18 SOAS students travelled to the Middle East to play football matches with prominent local teams and universities. The team also hosted many cross cultural workshops and made a documentary about their experiences. It will be screened at the London Student Film Festival.

SOAS Cricket Beyond Borders: Sri Lanka is a new SOAS sporting initiative inspired by Football Beyond Borders. As well as playing cricket against university teams in Colombo, Kandy, Jaffna and Galle, the team will also be providing charitable assistance to local cricket clubs and educational institutions.

Veiled and Unveiled Experiences: Strategies and Strengths of Jordanian Women is a film project that aims to document the daily lives of six Jordanian women from different social and religious backgrounds. The film will focus not only on the obstacles they face, but also on their inner strength, and how they use it to deal with issues and contribute to social change.

"Western media and films tend to picture Arab women, and in particular Muslim women, as submissive, weak and completely controlled by male members of the family or community," said Marta Pietrobelli, a PhD candidate at the Centre for Gender Studies, who is coordinating the project. "It is clear that women do face enormous obstacles and see their basic rights violated on a daily basis, but they are not passive victims. Rather [they are] active members of society fighting for their rights and raising their voices whenever they can."

Networking Food is a documentary film project undertaken by postgraduate SOAS Development Studies students and involving the SOAS Food Studies Centre and Food Co-op. It aims to raise awareness of serious food issues in the UK and illustrate food movements in London.

"Our project is up and running, and we have already got a lot of footage and material," said Ben Mann, an MSc student in Development Studies, who is one of the coordinators of the film project. "We are indebted to the SOAS Alumni and Friends Fund for their support. We simply could not undertake this project without their support, and we are immensely grateful to them for backing out project. We hope that the results of the project will go some way to expressing our thanks. We expect to have our project ready in two months, and to have a trailer for the film done by mid-October."

Language Landscape Website is part of an ambitious new initiative from the SOAS Linguistics Department. It seeks to provide a platform for language and cultural exchange at SOAS, and to champion linguistic diversity. The website will contain recordings of SOAS students and alumni speaking in their mother tongues.

The Bunna Bet Network Pilot Programme will be the first step in developing a system to make small-farm agriculture in developing nations sustainable through mobile technology while promoting source transparency to the western world food market.