‘Can’t believe it!’: Lethbridge student beats out thousands to win $70K scholarship – Lethbridge | 24CA News
Contributing to her neighborhood has all the time been on Hayat Makwik’s agenda. Now, it’s helped her land as much as $70,000 in scholarship funds.
The Grade 12 scholar from Chinook High School in Lethbridge, Alta., instructed Global News she’s nonetheless in disbelief she was chosen as one in every of solely 20 college students throughout Canada to be awarded a TD Scholarship for Community Leadership.
Only two college students from Alberta made the minimize, with round 2,700 hopefuls submitting purposes.
The group supplies the scholars with $10,000 towards tuition yearly and a stipend of $7,500 for as much as 4 years. They additionally present summer season job alternatives to recipients.
“It just passes over me in waves … because I just can’t believe it,” she stated.
When in Grade 11, she wrote and carried out a speech about Sudan’s highway to democracy with the Odd Fellows, successful a visit to New York, N.Y.
She has volunteered extensively with Big Brothers Big Sisters and round the area people.
Hayat additionally performed a necessary function in getting her college’s Culture Club up and working.
“I always grew up being one of the few minority students in the class, so when I got (to Chinook) I was kind of like ‘OK, what can we do to combat this? Because surely I can’t be the only one feeling this way,’” she defined.
Hayat Makwik is at present in her senior yr of highschool, and plans to attend the University of Lethbridge to kick off her post-secondary research.
Eloise Therien / Global News
“The goal of the club is to advocate for any issues or anything that they wanted to talk about going on back home,” she stated. “It was a way for students and teachers alike to come together, celebrate, talk about their cultures. You know, any differences they want to share.”
She hung out calling native companies for assist, and helped run occasions for Black History Month and Indigenous consciousness.
As a part of her scholarship utility, she needed to write two papers. In one, she shared a few of her household historical past.
“I wrote an essay about how I’m the daughter of a first-generation Sudanese immigrant family,” she stated. “I’ll be the first one in my family to go to university, and how I want to create that legacy for me and my future family moving forward.”
Makwik attributed her dedication to neighborhood work to her father.
“He’s been a part of the Red Cross for over a decade now, and he’s just been my motivation and my light.”
Jane Thompson, government director for the TD Scholarships for Community Leadership, stated they search for qualities of these desirous to make a distinction.
“These are students who see a problem, and they think: ‘I am the person who’s going to step up,’” Thompson stated.
“She has made us better. She has made us more aware, she has made us look at issues in different ways,” added Chinook’s principal Bill Forster.
“I would say that there’s very few students that have had the impact on our school, and the community, that Hayat has.”
“We’re going to miss her when she goes, for sure.”
Hayat plans to attend the University of Lethbridge within the fall and is contemplating medical college down the highway.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
