Studierendenwerk Hamburg awards the Hamburg Stipendium for fifth time

• More equal opportunities for students from refugee and migrant backgrounds
• Thanks to new sponsors, number of scholarship holders rises to 30 for first time
• In 2022-2025, Wintershall Dea is supporting the Hamburg Stipendium with a total of 30,000 euros.

It is good to sponsor highly capable young people, as it enables them to develop their talents and abilities. Such sponsorships are also an important investment in the future of our country. However, government funding only reaches about one per cent of all students.¹ The Hamburg Stipendium is intended to remedy this situation by providing local support within Hamburg. Since 2018, it has been sponsoring students from refugee and migrant backgrounds whose life circumstances are exceptional and who have been doing well in their studies.  Since 2022, Wintershall Dea has been one of the sponsors of the scholarship that is supported by the Hamburger Studierendenwerk and which funds future professionals at an early stage while still studying at university.

In the new funding year, 2023/2024, the number of funded students has risen: For the first time, scholarships are being awarded to 30 students from refugee and migrant backgrounds, compared with 27 a year earlier. They are students at the University of Hamburg, the University of Applied Sciences, HafenCity University, the Technical University and the University of Music and Theatre. Their subjects range from engineering to medicine, law, economics, sociology and science subjects to instrumental music. The scholarship holders of the 2023/24 funding year originally come from Afghanistan, Togo, Estonia, Iran, Turkey, Ukraine, Columbia and Russia. In addition to their demanding degree courses, many of them are also actively involved in voluntary work. For them, the Hamburg Stipendium means not only financial support, but also recognition of their social engagement.

“I am hoping that my Hamburg Stipendium will give me an opportunity to develop valuable contacts with institutions and companies. As a student teacher from a migrant background, I’d like to create a network that effectively supports children from migrant backgrounds in school projects which otherwise often fail due to financial hurdles,” says Mari Scholz, a German-Iranian student who has held a scholarship since the beginning of this funding year and is studying for a Master’s degree in primary and lower secondary education at the University of Hamburg.

At the official scholarship award presentation in Hamburg on 10 October, the focus was not only on introducing the new scholarship holders, but also on networking. “What’s so special about the Hamburg Stipendium is that there’s close interaction between the students and their sponsor companies. It means that the programme is contributing to a diverse and democratic society by connecting well-educated students from migrant backgrounds with various companies while also giving them opportunities to benefit from further programmes, such as internships,” says Sven Lorenz, Managing Director of Studierendenwerk Hamburg.

For the sponsors, the Hamburg Stipendium is an opportunity to combine social engagement with an opportunity to find talented young professionals. “So we’re on the right track, attracting skilled professionals to ourselves and gaining them for the long term. We don’t have to look for people with special skills and ideas. They’re here already, and they need to be given a fair chance to contribute their talents. We support young people in making a commitment, and we meet them on an equal footing, so that they feel a sense of belonging. After all, the development of one’s own personality is a basic requirement for inclusion in society and for a robust democracy,” says Michael Sasse, board member of the Wintershall Dea Foundation for Democracy and Diversity and Head of Communications at the company. Wintershall Dea is now planning to organise a visit to its head office in Kassel for the 2023/24 scholarship holders, so that they can see how a smooth transition from university to professional life can work, using an international energy company as an example.

_{⁽¹⁾More than scholarships – support programmes from sponsorship organisations for highly talented students, both for undergraduates and doctoral students (bmbf.de)}