Oshawa student competing for scholarship worth up to $100,000

By Dave Flaherty/The Oshawa Express

An Oshawa teen will be in the hunt this weekend for a scholarship worth up to $100,000 to support her post-secondary studies.

Mamanar Diasse is a Grade 12 student at Eastdale Collegiate and Vocational Institute.

On Friday, Jan. 31 and Saturday, Feb. 1, Diasse will be one of 88 students participating in the national selections for the Loran Scholars Foundation Awards.

The Loran Award includes annual stipends, tuition waivers from a partner university, mentorship, summer-internship funding, as well as annual retreats and forums.

Founded in 1988, the Loran Scholars Foundation was the first national organization in Canada to grant undergraduate awards based on a mix of academic achievement, extracurricular activity, and leadership potential.

Diasse told The Oshawa Express she has received admission into the University of Ottawa to earn an Honours Bachelor of International Studies in Modern Languages.

She said her ultimate goal is to work for the United Nations in human rights and international development.

“It will help me get a better understanding of the world,” she explains.

The secondary school student also intends on taking classes in communications, as she would also like to work as an international political journalist.

Diasse admits she almost didn’t have the opportunity to apply for the scholarship, but her guidance counsellor advised her of the program shortly before the deadline.

“They thought it was an award I’d be very qualified to apply for, and it kind of came up last minute,” she said.

Students could either be sponsored by their school or submit into a general pool of applications.

“I wasn’t even going to apply, but I thought, ‘Let me just try through the direct application’,” Diasse recalls.

She humorously remembers she was taking a nap when she got a call from one of the organizers telling her she was one of the 88 students selected from a field of nearly 5,200 applications.

“I was shocked, I was happy, I was excited – it was like a roller coaster of emotions,” she said.

To her, even if she is not selected as a finalist for the scholarship, making it this far has been a “great accomplishment.”

“All the hard work I’ve put in through the four years of high school, somebody is recognizing it,” she says.

This upcoming weekend she will join the other finalists in Toronto, where she will participate in a series of interviews, both one-on-one and with panels of foundation members.

While she is focused on walking away with the scholarship, Diasse says it offers an excellent chance for her to meet new people, network and develop her social skills.

In addition to being a strong academic student, she’s committed to numerous extracurricular and community causes as well.

At her previous school, she helped to establish a school newspaper that is still in circulation today.

She’s also involved with student council, peer tutoring, Eastdale’s diversity club, and is a co-founder of the school’s Black Students Association.

Also, she’s lent her time to And Still We Rise, an annual conference hosted by the Durham Black Educators’ Network with support from the Durham District School Board.

Diasse encourages her fellow students to consider applying to the Loran Scholar Foundation as well.

“It values you as someone who is involved in the school community, but also takes time for themselves,” she says. “It’s worth checking the scholarship out.”

Receiving a scholarship of up to $100,000 will definitely “alleviate a lot of costs” heading into university, Diasse says.

“It prevents me from taking a lot of loans, but I do think I’ll need a bit of help here and there,” she said.

For more information on the scholarship, visit https://loranscholar.ca/