Linda Maat is the Director of the Hanze University Foundation. She has been working at Hanze UAS since 1993 and was co-founder of the Hanze University Foundation in 2009.
“When we started the Hanze University Foundation in 2009, I did not foresee the enormous success we are experiencing today. We were able to change the lives of many young people by providing them with a scholarship or by improving their learning environment.
One great example is the North Coast Medical Training College. Without the Foundation, many of their students would not have the means to study and would have stayed in poverty for the rest of their lives. With a scholarship of the Foundation, they became clinical officers and nurses and started serving the community. Right now, they earn a stable income and can support their parents and other members of their extended families. This is what a scholarship of a couple of thousand euros can do.
I am also impressed by the impact of the scholarships we provide to lecturers. Many of them told us that based on a three-week training at Hanze UAS they changed their teaching style and are now able to prepare their students much better for a job after graduation. I was recently in Kampala, Uganda and met some of them. They told me that the input from Hanze UAS had such a positive effect on their classes. I could not have been more proud than that!
After 10 years of working for the Foundation I am still as enthusiastic as the day I started. When I hear the life-changing stories from the young people who received a scholarship it really touches my heart. This is the kind of work I already dreamed of when I was just a child and this is the kind of work I would like to continue until the day I die.”