Our Foundation has much to celebrate this year. As Trustees, we do take joy from the achievements of each Noon Scholar whom we are able to support. We enjoy hearing how they have used their time at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge to develop and deliver their potential.
We hear how it was a ‘life-changing’ moment; how ‘it opened a whole new world’; how it enabled them ‘to realise my dream’. You can now read some of these personal statements on our website – and we want to add many more.
And, as we mark this 30th anniversary year since we awarded our very first Noon Scholarship, the Trustees are especially keen to hear more of these stories. We have supported more than 220 of you already, and you are now scattered all over the globe and in a wide variety of professions, business and governmental jobs, as well as academia. As we look forward to our fourth decade, we want to try to take stock, to listen to your stories, and, as I say, celebrate together, as we all must.
It was the dream and vision of our founder, the inestimable Lady ‘Vicky’ Noon, to enable and support the brightest from Pakistan to study at the best universities in the UK – thus building what I envisage as a continuing living bridge between two countries she knew well and loved. All the more remarkable, as she was of course born and brought up in Austria originally. Vicky could not have anticipated quite how successful her generosity would turn out.
We, as Trustees, feel honoured to be working on this project and duty bound to continue to deliver on it. So, please get in touch if you are not already, and respond to our letters, now going out to each past Noon Scholar.
We are trying to put together plans to bring you all together for a joint celebration - perhaps in Lahore next February (if you want to make a note) - and to seek your support and advice in taking the VNEF Foundation forward.