My name is Janelle Jawahir, and I am a deaf student from the Arima. I spent years after high school trying to raise funding to go to university and received a full scholarship to Rochester Institute of Technology in 2015. I graduated in May of 2020 with a double degree in Museum Studies & Archaeology and Sociology and Anthropology.

I was then accepted to Friedrich-Alexander University in Germany, but have been unable to procure the funds required by the German embassy for a student visa. They require applicants to have €10,000 in a blocked account, which is TT$80,300- an amount I absolutely do not have.

Due to COVID, the semesters have been online thus far, but they still require me to be in the country and have allowed me to start my degree from home, but I do have a time limit on how long this can be acceptable. I should have until the beginning of my second year in November at the latest. I am asking for any help anyone can give. Becoming a paleontologist has been my dream since I was four, and I have worked extremely hard to get as far as I have despite my disability and the lack of money. I do not want to have to stop now.

I will be extremely and eternally grateful. I was told as a child that becoming a paleontologist would be a pipe dream. Help me continue to prove them wrong. I want to make a difference in science.