Posted Monday 4 June 2018
This May saw the end of our springtime Inspire the Future campaign, where a team of 30 current students had more than 5,000 conversations with our alumni. Over the course of 9 weeks our alumni gave an incredible £124,610 to support some of our most talented students – £30,000 more than ever before. This generosity will change the futures of some of our brightest students.
100 is the magic number
From March to May this year, 107 alumni gave to the Inspire the Future campaign for the very first time, joining the nearly 4,500 all over the world who already do so. This will mean that nearly 100 students here at Kingston will receive life-changing support that wouldn't otherwise be possible. This will transform the futures of our brightest students.
Our students also shared developments at the University and gained some really excellent career and life advice, for which they were extremely grateful. One of our students was even lucky enough to be offered paid work experience at the world-famous Pinewood Studios – he even saw Robert Downey Jr!
Changing futures at Kingston
Alumni contributions to the Inspire the Future campaign allow us to support students who have left local authority care (only 6% of whom typically go on to Higher Education compared to 40% of the general population), students facing unexpected and blameless financial crisis, and allow the brightest and best to further their education through scholarships for their postgraduate studies. This would not be possible without our alumni who choose to support our most disadvantaged students. Thank you!
A new area of our work is the StandAlone scheme, which provides emotional and financial support for students who are estranged from, or have been disowned by, their families. This ensures that although they may have to manage work, study and life alone, a University education is still within their reach. We are proud to have been one of the first 16 universities in the UK to sign the StandAlone pledge.
No longer standing alone
Taleb came to the UK as a refugee aged 17 and receives no emotional or financial support from his family. Despite this initially difficult start, Taleb threw himself into life at Kingston – he became a Senior Course Representative, a Student Ambassador, and joined multiple societies. He was also working four part-time jobs on top of his studies in order to keep himself afloat. Unsurprisingly, this was unsustainable and the stress caused by this intense schedule led to him nearly dropping out in his second year.
Thanks to support from our alumni, we were able to provide him with pastoral support to help him through his mental health crisis and a bursary which allowed him to stop two of his four jobs. He is now set to graduate with a First Class degree this summer, and hopes to go on to work for either the Metropolitan Police or for the London Ambulance Service – options that would not be open to him without his degree. Thank you!
To find out more about the Inspire the Future campaign and other ways to get involved with your University, just email alumni@kingston.ac.uk. We would love to hear from you!
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