FIVE STORIES FROM THE MTST by Jessica Mannix
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he Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust was established in 2013 to offer students who excel against all odds scholarship opportunities to shape this world for the better. In 2016, thanks to the extraordinary support of our donors, we welcomed our first generation of scholars. Now, as the MTST enters its fifth year, we take a moment to look back on five stories that embody this remarkable programme.
A voice where it matters Among the first postgraduate Thatcher Scholars, Sean Butler gained his Bachelor of Civil Law from Somerville in 2017. On graduating, Sean took up a summer fellowship at the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, where he co-authored an analysis of the EU Withdrawal Agreement which has since been used as a basis for questions to the Government. Sean next spent a year as judicial assistant to the Master of the Rolls in the Court of Appeal, where he worked on high-profile cases such as Campaign Against Arms Trade v Secretary of State for International Trade. In the past year, Sean taught contract law at UCL while doing his Bar Professional Training Course under a Wilfred Watson Scholarship. He is now undertaking a pupillage at Blackstone Chambers. “The financial security provided by the MTST let me pursue opportunities that would have been impossible had I needed to work alongside my studies.”
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An advocate for the natural world Anna Gee graduated in 2020 with first-class honours in all three years of her Biological Sciences degree. Thanks to the support of the Thatcher Scholarship, Anna was also able to work with organisations promoting sustainability and the environment, such as Echo Bonaire, an NGO working to save the endangered Yellow-Shouldered Amazon Parrot. Passionate about the role of plant science in reversing biodiversity decline, Anna is now building a career at the research-implementation interface of conservation biology, starting shortly with an internship at a marine conservation charity in Indonesia. “I’m incredibly grateful for the Thatcher Scholarship and feel privileged to be a part of a community that contains such interesting, intelligent people!”
A compassion against all odds Malak Al-Shaikhali became a doctor in Gaza in 2016, in spite of rolling blackouts, movement restrictions and security fears. Shortly after, she met a group of Oxford University doctors while volunteering with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, who encouraged her to consider Oxford. She duly won a scholarship to Somerville as an Oxford Qatar Scholar – but her journey wasn’t over. Denied permission to travel through Israel, Malak had to cross the Sinai Desert by car, a journey which took 4 days through innumerable military checkpoints and terrorist strongholds. Not long after, Malak finally began her MSc in Immunology. With it, she
