NOBLE GOALS: Malaysian among six Global Study Award winners
Miriam Omar loves drawing and designing, and could not wait to leave behind her miserable time at high school.
After SPM, she studied fashion marketing and retail management at Raffles Design Institute before going on to work in a creative agency first and then in e-commerce.
During that time, she posted some of her illustrations on Facebook and received positive responses which then led to projects and commissioned work.
“Although I’ve always had a passion for art and designing, I did not take them seriously at first,” she said.
When Miriam was an e-commerce manager dealing with furniture and textiles, she fell in love with the products she was promoting and decided to further her studies in textile design.
For this, she will attend the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London, reputed to be one of the best schools in the world for textile design.
Now 28, the Malaysian is one of six students from around the world who will get to further their studies abroad, courtesy of the Global Study Award.
Miriam, along with Aparajeeta Ghosh from India, Ho Wing Yu from Hong Kong, Jieh-hen Tsung from Taiwan, Jürgen Stolzlechner from Austria and Rana Burqan from Palestinian Territories, were selected from more than 100,000 applicants in Round 2 of the Global Study Awards by partnering organisations British Council IELTS, the International Student Identity Card (ISIC) and StudyPortals.
Their destinations? Miriam, Stolzlechner and Ho will go to the UK, Burqan to Greece, Ghosh to Germany and Tsung to The Netherlands.
The winners had demonstrated outstanding achievements in the three pillars of the selection process, which were: to contribute to society through their studies, a strong commitment to developing their career, and sincere interest in increasing intercultural understanding and exchange.
Each award of approximately £10,000 (about RM52,000) is merit-based and aimed at students aged above 18 who plan to enrol in a full-time undergraduate or postgraduate programme in 2016, in any country worldwide.
The £10,000 available for each of the six students will be primarily used to cover tuition fees, and will be directly provided to the students’ university of choice.
Miriam wants to make the world a better place through art by opening her own eco-friendly Textile Design House and selling biodegradable fabric online.
“Chelsea’s curriculum has a very experimental, fine-art approach to textile design, and that to me is more important than a technical one,” she said.
“This is where I can expose myself to new materials and methods.”
Besides starting her own textile design business after graduation, Miriam also hopes to develop affordable, eco-friendly and biodegradable fabric for mass production to check the growing pollution from textile waste.
“I believe that with enough research, development and marketing, biodegradable and recycled fabrics will be the norm in the future,” she said.
“This in turn will result in a decrease in pollution and release of harmful gasses and toxic waste.”
Stolzlechner, who will enrol as a master student in Social Sciences at the London School of Economics and Political Science, realised what he wanted to do with his life while in a remote Buddhist temple in China.
The 27-year-old wants to focus on helping people, and he has so far worked in a home for disabled people, a Romanian orphanage and also taught English to Chinese children.
All three partnering organisations strongly believe that international education contributes to a more equal and tolerant global society.
Through the Global Study Awards, they want to encourage more students to study abroad and to expand their horizons.
“The flow of education and information are essential building blocks to creating cultural understanding and acceptance,” said Todd Almeida, managing director at ISIC (International Student Identity Card).
“The Global Study Awards is a fantastic opportunity for international students across the world to broaden their perspectives and build on shared experiences that can positively shape their future.”
StudyPortals CEO Edwin van Rest said that studying in Japan proved to be a life-changing experience.
“I am convinced it not only grew my career prospects, it made me a better person as well as the people around me,” he said.
“Studying abroad does not only contribute to our economies, but also to the tolerance and depth of our society.”
The partnering organisations hope to promote international diversity and mobility so these students will also be enriching the educational experience in different countries.
IELTS is the International English Language Testing System, the world’s proven English language test.
It was one of the pioneers of four skills English language testing over 25 years ago, and continues to set the standard for English language testing today, trusted and accepted by more than 9,000 institutions worldwide.