Sinan Ali - SAF scholar, Maldives

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Testimony Maldives - 11th April 2003

Dear Sir,

I have heard that the SAF has decided to award 100 scholarships from next year. I am so happy to know this and I feel it is a very great decision taken by SAF.
I and my country girl who are studying here will complete our course in mid June. As you know our convocation is on the 16th June.

We are very happy to have this great chance, it is really worthwhile and we are so thankful to you. We assure you that we will try to achieve the goals of the SAF in terms of reaching better regional cooperation.

The SAF scholars have been discussing creating a kind of a network so that we can stay in touch and work for the above-mentioned cooperation.

Meanwhile, my country mate and I were thinking of creating a network of SAF scholars in the Maldives. This is mainly because from next year there will be more students. Since we are the first batch, we feel that we should take this initiative.

We have also mentioned this to our chairperson. He feels that it would be a great idea to keep in touch and to work for the good of the country as well as for regional cooperation.

I would like to put this idea to you as we are thinking about this and have not yet come to a conclusion on how to go about it. I would be very happy to know your view and opinion on this subject as we all come under your scholarship scheme, so it would be much better to work according to your ideas.

 

Our studies are going fine. We have been trying our best to achieve good results as well as to reach the objectives of the SAF.

Internships are not applicable to SAF scholars as most of them are already experienced or working journalists. But we SAF scholars personally feel that since we are from outside India, it would be great to have the chance to visit the news organizations in India. Again this is very important for all of us, but we have discovered that the costs are not covered by the SAF.

So, if we wanted to do this internship we would all have to pay for it from our own pockets. It would be a great chance if we could visit some of the organizations within India, and also the diplomatic offices because we won't be able to get a chance like this afterwards. Mr. Shashi Kumar also said that the college will put this to you for the batch of next year. I felt that as there are some days left, there was nothing wrong in informing you about this as we are all doing this course under the SAF.

The facilities are very good and everyone in the college is very nice to us. We feel that it has been a good chance to learn about India and its culture. We have also had a great chance to learn about all the SAF countries since we have students from all the SAARC. In fact, in this short period of time we have come to know so much about all the SAARC countries and that will help us in our future careers too.

I will end my email here and hope to hear from you soon.

Thanking you, best regards
Sinan