Dylan Kawende was delighted to be offered a chance to study at Cambridge University.
The 23-year-old from West London aspires to become a lawyer, however his offer to read law is based on his financial position.
Dedicated student Dylan, a former Stephen Lawrence scholar and the son of Rwandan genocide refugees – is asking for help to raise funds for his GDL – a one-year law conversion course for students who what to become lawyers but have an undergraduate degree in another subject.
Unlike with an undergraduate or master’s degree, you can’t use student finance for this type of course.
Unless he can provide financial guarantees to St Edmund’s College at Cambridge, Dylan’s offer is precarious.
Unfortunately, if he can’t meet the targets, he may be forced to turn down the offer, as his dad did when he was accepted into the prestigious university but could not raise the funds.
Dylan, who is self-employed, has been crowdfunding to be able to meet the financial requirements of the university.
So far he has managed to raise £40,000 to pay for the tuition costs but his target is £60k to be able to afford accommodation and living costs.
Dylan tells Metro.co.uk how his parents escaped a hard life to make better opportunities for their children.
He said: ‘My parents together with my siblings fled from Shangugu (the western province of Rwanda) to Kigali (the capital of Rwanda) in April 1994 with the intention of escaping the country. They eventually sought refuge in the UK in December 1994.
‘From a young age, my parents inculcated in me the values of resilience and ambition. My father, who was offered a place at Cambridge University to read Electrical Engineering but did not have sufficient funds to accept the offer, fostered my intellectual appetite by encouraging me to read widely.
‘My mother – who lost many family members in the genocide – has always been a wellspring of inspiration, comfort, and love, in spite of all of the adversities she has faced.
‘I grew up in a low-income household on Harrow Road: a deprived part of inner-city London.’
Dylan has until next month to prove his financial guarantees – evidence that shows you have the necessary funds to afford living and studying at a university.
He wants to read law because he says he is excited by the lawyer’s capacity to be a steward for positive social change.
Dylan also encourages greater diversity in the law sector.
‘In terms of representation at the bar, the legal profession could be a lot better,’ he says.
‘If the law is meant to help govern society in all of its diversity then it is important to have legal professionals who come from different backgrounds.’
As a young Black man, Dylan also hopes to use his experiences to make the journey to Oxbridge unis more accessible to other Black and ethnic minorities.
‘I hope to inspire more applications among underrepresented groups in higher education and the professions by highlighting some of the challenges we face and the corresponding countermeasures available to us.
‘There’s an urgent need for us to shape the conversation around, for example, Black history, hyphenated-identities, and the mythologies of former empires.’
You can donate to Dylan’s GoFundMe page online.
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MORE: Cambridge University moves all lectures online until summer 2021
source https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/22/student-crowdfunding-degree-doesnt-want-give-cambridge-offer-due-money-dad-did-12885772/
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