Philip
Schambach
Motivation
April 2001
I have been a member of the boy scouts since I was nine years old. From that time on I spent many holydays hiking, cycling and camping in Germany and in many other European countries with my scout group. When I was sixteen, I participated in an exchange for three months between my school and the Colegio Aleman of Quito, Ecuador. This was my first significant amount of time spent away from home. I saw a lot of the country, learned a lot about the Ecuadorian way of life and gained many impressions of a different culture. A few months later I went to the amboree, the world meeting of scouts in the Netherlands. There where twenty eight thousend scouts from ninety nations. It was beautifull to get to know a little bit how scouting and life is like in different countries. In the summer of 1997, two friends of mine and I flew to Harare to travel to Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. After I had passed my final school exams in 1998, I moved to Mainz to do my obligatory community service at the university hospital. In the first three months, I worked in a medical laboratory, followed by five months on a cardiac surgery ward and the remaining time on a neurosurgical ward caring for patients. In October 1999, I started my physics studies in Karlsruhe. Two semesters later, I moved to Berlin to continue my studies at the Freie Universität Berlin.
During my holiday in Africa, I gained many experiences. I was shocked to see the extent of poverty people have to endure and at the same time I was impressed by the richness and depth of culture that is so different from any I have experienced before. I was amazed by the beautiful landscape and wild animals which you can only see in the zoo in Germany. But four weeks spent in three African countries was by far not enough to see as much as I wanted to. It was hardly possible to come into real contact with people who are living there.
I therefore always wanted to go back to Eastern Africa, but until now it wasn't possible for me to go there with the real hope of coming into contact with people. There was always the lack of a framework which this programme is able to provide. A one year study in Nairobi offers me the opportunity to broaden my horizon, to gain insight into the Kenyan culture and everyday life which I could never do as a tourist. I will have enough time to talk to people to get to know their hopes, problems and opinions. I will not just see but share student life and I'm looking forward to making friends.
Coming into contact with people is very important for me, because only in that way I believe we can on the one hand understand their way of thinking and seeing and the world and on the other hand make them understand ours. In the end, international understanding and friendship among nations is a result of personal friendship and understanding.
What I like about the Berlin-Nairobi Exchange is that it is not one of those anonymous programmes sending hundreds of people to the same country, but instead offers just three students per year the opportunity to go to Kenya. I like the thought that I will do something that not everyone does, not even everyone would do if he or she could - to study physics in Africa. For me it is a special appeal that I do not exactly know what awaits me there.
In addition, I can make my personal contribution to the success of the campaign by helping to make some Kenyan physics students come to Berlin for one year so that a real exchange will be established between the physics departments of two very different universities and countries, both benefitting equally. In the case that I should be accepted and then once I am in Kenya, I would like to find out why it is, that no student from Nairobi has so far taken part in the exchange. Maybe I can be of help in trying to persuade somebody to come to Germany. If language should be one reason maybe some lecturers at the Freie Universität Berlin could be persuaded to hold some lectures or tutorials in English, from which, of course, German students would also hugely profit. And we could help to find German courses in Nairobi and maybe give some small tutorials to interested students, so that they are at least able to ask for the way or go shopping in Germany. What is really needed to make Kenyans take part in the exchange can only be said when we are there and have talked to some people.Philip
Schambach, April 2001