Scholarship donors meet scholarship recipients

DAAD/Michael Jordan

The DAAD scholarship holder meeting was opened by DAAD Vice President Prof. Dr. Joybrato Mukherjee, who extended a warm welcome to the scholarship donors of the DAAD-Stiftung at the University of Bonn.

In March 2014, two scholarship donors of the DAAD-Stiftung met the scholarship recipients whom they are supporting. The DAAD-Stiftung arranged this “meeting of the generations” during the DAAD scholarship holder meeting in Bonn.

One of the policies of the DAAD-Stiftung is to establish personal contact and organise regular meetings between scholarship donors and their beneficiaries.

The most recent opportunity for such a meeting presented itself at a DAAD scholarship holder meeting, attended by 532 DAAD scholarship holders from 98 different nations. The two DAAD-Stiftung scholarship recipients were also invited to the event.

During the gathering at the University of Bonn, Dr. Maria Trumpf-Lyritzaki and Prof. Ulla Johansen were able to meet with the researchers whom they are supporting. Dimitrios Tsiafis, a PhD student in Classical Archaeology and Dr. Galina Belolyubskaja, a specialist in Ethnological Studies, were delighted to meet with their scholarship donors, whom they had already had the pleasure of meeting on an earlier occasion.

For Prof. Dr. Ulla C. Johansen, her interest in other people and cultures has become a life-long occupation. In younger years, the trained ethnologist was committed to promoting international understanding. Now the 87-year-old supports the DAAD-Stiftung by sponsoring research grants for young researchers from Yakutia (Sakha Republic, Russian Federation). She herself was a DAAD scholarship recipient from 1956 to 1957 and later worked on numerous DAAD scholarship selection committees. For this reason, Prof. Johansen is grateful to the DAAD-Stiftung for enabling her to help young researchers from Yakutia advance their studies in Germany. When she signed the grant agreement in 2012, she emphasised how happy she was that her funding was in good hands with the DAAD-Stiftung.

Prof. Johansen and Dr. Belolyubskaja spent their time in lively conversation. (photo: DAAD/Michael Jordan)

Ms. Trumpf-Lyritzaki consciously supports researchers from her home country of Greece because she feels a deep wish to promote German-Greek academic exchange and to generate stronger awareness of German archaeology among Greek students. As her experiences in Germany played such a decisive role in her own life, it is important to her that young Greek students have the same opportunity to conduct research in Germany. The first official presentation of a Trumpf-Lyritzaki scholarship took place in 2010 at the residence of the German ambassador in Athens.

Dimitrios Tsiafis (centre) travelled to Bonn from Berlin. The young PhD student enthusiastically described his experiences in Germany. (l-r): Dr. Jürgen Trumpf, Dimitrios Tsiafis, Dr. Trumpf-Lyritzaki (photo: DAAD/Michael Jordan)