CONNECTIONS Student Stipend Programme, Serbia

KEY FACTS

It costs £600 to provide each student with an annual scholarship.

Connections has supported the Jewish Pharmacy in Belgrade which provided free medication to 2,000 clients

Connections has also supplied a 2,000 volume English library for the use of the students and the wider community

This programme currently supports 60 students enabling them to attend university in Serbia, Bosnia and Macedonia.

Students who receive a CONNECTIONS scholarship are required to meet 3 criteria - they must achieve certain academic targets, demonstrate their financial need and also be involved in Jewish communal life. Members of the CONNECTIONS committee visit the communities once a year to interview all applicants. The committee also maintains close contact with the students throughout the year.

It costs £600 to provide each student with an annual scholarship. These scholarships make a huge impact on the lives of each student as well as on their communities. Over the past 16 years the Connections students have had a significant impact on the Jewish communities where they live- helping to rebuild and renew their own lives and those of their communites.

In the words of one of the Connections’ committee members, having come to the UK from Bosnia as a refugee in the 1990s:

“They can take away your home but education is one thing they can never take away from you”

CONNECTIONS has also:

Supported the Jewish Pharmacy in Belgrade which provided free medication to 2,000 clients

Sponsored children to attend the International Jewish Educational Summer Camp in Szarvas, Hungary

Supported a number of inter-communal youth activities, which foster leadership and development

Re-furbished a flat for the Rabbi and his family in Belgrade

Supplied a 2,000 volume English library for the use of the students and the wider community