The RVI scholarship fund is relaunched this month as the RVI Shading Tree Fund. This follows a generous donation from the family of Ranald Boyle, a former District Commissioner in South Sudan.

Since the Institute was founded, the scholarship fund has enabled young scholars and activists from Eastern and Central Africa to participate in RVI annual field courses and attend classes at universities in the region. Over thirty such scholars have participated in the Sudan and South Sudan Course, the Horn of Africa Course or the Great Lakes Course. 

Some former scholarship students have gone on to teach on RVI courses, and many have achieved success in their respective fields in academia, civil society and the media. 

One student wrote: ‘I feel privileged to have participated in the RVI Horn of Africa Course. I benefited from the program in many ways. It helped me understand the sub-region as I pursue my own research and provided the opportunity for personal interaction with distinguished professors.‘

To date, RVI scholarships have been funded through a combination of grants, gifts, income from hard-copy sales of Institute publications and RVI’s own funds. 

The fund recently received a donation from the Shading Tree Trust, established by the family of Ranald Boyle in memory of his lifelong commitment to southern Sudan, where he worked as a District Commissioner in the 1940s and 1950s. Taking its name from the translation of Ranald Boyle’s Dinka cattle name, Timatiep, the Shading Tree provided funds to support a range of projects in Bahr el-Ghazal. 

In recognition of this donation the RVI scholarship programme has been renamed the Shading Tree Fund. The new fund will provide educational support to students and activists from all the regions where RVI works, including South Sudan, and will continue to raise further funds for this purpose.

If you would like to make a donation, please contact the RVI Education Manager.