Vilnius University has begun raising funds to support Belarusian students and scholars persecuted by the regime of the former authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
According to the university, which has established scholarships for Belarusian students and has already enrolled about 90 citizens of neighboring countries in bachelor’s and master’s programs, it wants to give this opportunity to even more students and also to help scientists persecuted by the Minsk regime.
“The campaign was announced in the wake of the intensification of repression by the official Belarusian state authorities against its country’s academic community, and the mass expulsion of students, lecturers and researchers from universities for their civic or political activities,” the statement said.
In response to the repression, Vilnius University has already enrolled more than half a hundred students in bachelor’s degree programs and over thirty students in master’s degree programs.
To support Belarusian students, the university has created a so-called Lithuanian Grand Duchy scholarship program, which allows them to study in Vilnius free of charge, but the most capable, as well as those who have experienced repression or expelled from Belarusian universities, also have a scholarship of 200 euros per month.
As the rector of Vilnius University Rimvīds Petrausks has previously emphasized, the history of this university, founded in 1579, is closely connected with the formation of the Belarusian identity and the unity of the Lithuanian and Belarusian nations. According to him, both the common history and the awareness that political repression must not prevent Belarusians from pursuing education and developing their talents in academia help their neighbors.
–
