Bard College Berlin News
Christin Alhalabi ‘24 and Precious Chukwukezie ‘26 selected for The Alpine Fellowship Refugee Scholar Prize
The fellowship was announced as part of Bard College Berlin’s pledges for the Global Refugee Forum, held by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in late 2023. The pledges reflect BCB’s ongoing commitment to creating pathways to tertiary education for students whose education has been interrupted by displacement or conflict. Co-organized with the Hannah Arendt Humanities Network, the Alpine Fellowship symposium is intended as an opportunity for intellectual exploration and career networking. Both Christin and Precious will draw on their unique refugee experiences to present on the theme of this year’s symposium: “Language.”
Christin, who has recently graduated from the Ethics and Politics program this May, will explore sacred communication and how it relates to spirituality, women’s circles, and the human relationship with nature. She will draw on her childhood experiences of spirituality and storytelling inspired by her family upbringing in south Syria, where reincarnation and magic are parts of everyday life. Christin says, "I am interested in everything vibration, from the spiritual nature of drumming I witnessed during my independent travel in Brazil while on an exchange to the magnetic charge of flowers inviting bees to draw up their nectar. Sacred communication is a way for me to engage with the culture of orality I grew up in—in its music, tales, esoteric stories about past lives, and intimate bonds between women and the nature of my idyllic home village that still frequents my dreams."
Precious began studying Ethics and Politics at Bard College Berlin after fleeing Ukraine in 2021, where she was pursuing higher education opportunities not available in her home community of Nigeria. She will explore how internal dialogue, alongside other emotional languages, shapes unique responses to loss and grief. Drawing from firsthand experience, she has come to recognize the deeply personal nature of grief and the diverse "languages" we use to process it.
The £2,500 grant awarded to the winners is a United Nations Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) approved pledge towards the goal of expanding refugee access to higher education. The Alpine Fellowship says, “We look forward to welcoming the two winners to our symposium and to giving them the opportunity to speak and present their work and experience.” Following this year’s pilot program, the Alpine Fellowship will explore extending the grant through 2028.
Post Date: 05-22-2024