LUC The Hague receives support Mandela Scholarship Foundation

LUC The Hague is proud and honoured to receive support from the Mandela Scholarship Foundation. Nelson Mandela received an honorary PhD from Leiden University in 1999, and since that time the Mandela Foundation has supported South African students to study at Leiden.

In his acceptance speech, Nelson Mandela spoke of his own values and his hopes for their realization through his association with Leiden. 
His ideas speak to the heart of LUC's enterprise:

"Fortunately we live in an age where the ivory towers that universities once were, are being transformed into vantage posts for looking into the future. Science and technology are critical to development and industrialisation...  There is a long tradition of South African students studying in the Netherlands, and especially here at the University of Leiden. Though once it included those who used their newly-gained knowledge in the service of apartheid, that era is behind us. Those who must build the new South Africa, and who were previously excluded from the pastures of knowledge, have begun to draw from the well of learning vested here.

But we would like to see a great expansion in this process... A greater exchange of students will be enriching for both our nations. On the one hand it will contribute to the development of our country and the rebirth of our continent. And on the other, we do believe, contact with the young people of my country will enrich and enlarge the insight that your youth has of your history and I dare say the multi-cultural character of your society."