Mercator Foundation honors Jacobs students for outstanding social commitment

The laureates of the Mercator Award 2009 are 19-year-old Tariq Tobias Omarshah from Zimbabwe and the 21-year-old German Turk Suna Turhan, who have distinguished themselves through outstanding social commitment and excellent academic achievements. Endowed with 5,000 Euros each, the prize is awarded annually to one 2nd year and one 3rd year undergraduate student resident at Mercator College. This year’s Mercator Awards were bestowed on December 2, 2009.

December 3, 2009

"We are happy, to again be able to bestow the Mercator Award to two outstanding Jacobs students, who impressively demonstrate that it is possible to achieve excellent academic performance while still committing themselves to social and intercultural responsibility. We hope, today’s laureates will encourage others to follow their example,” Dr. Bernhard Lorentz, the foundation’s CEO, said on the occasion of the bestowal of the Mercator Award, which had been awarded for the first time in 2008. The Mercator Foundation, as one of the university’s first main donors, in 2002 already supported the conversion of the second on-campus college with 6.5 Mio. Euros. Mercator College, as it was named in honor of the benefactors, houses 200 students from more than 40 nations.

“My heartfelt congratulations go to Tariq and Suna for this well deserved recognition of their remarkable extracurricular social commitment. I also want to thank the Mercator Foundation for giving our “Mercatorians” such an extra motivation to take up responsibility within our campus community and beyond,” Jacobs University President Joachim Treusch commented on this year’s Mercator Award.

Awardee Tariq Tobias Omarshah, now in his second study year of International Politics and History, has been a student representative of Mercator College in Jacobs University’s undergraduate student parliament ever since he started his studies, currently as chair of the environmental committee. He also is active in neighbourhood support, for instance by giving free English lessons to nursery school children or by visiting elderly people in residential homes. He also initiated many other social projects on-campus, for instance mobilizing college sponsorships for children in Africa. Whether in his social work, in his commitment for “Bremen International Model United Nations“ or in his studies, Tariq distinguishes himself through a high level of professionalism.

Suna Turhan is a third year Literature and New Media major, who is highly versatile in her interests and very active. She has been supporting many different student initiatives, amongst them the Amnesty International Club, the newspaper “Pulse of the World”, and the on-campus radio. She has been playing in various theatre productions, for instance in the Schauspielhaus Bremen. Personal and active commitment to integration and interculturality as well as outspoken protest against any form of racism is of foremost importance to the Vodafone Foundation fellow. This is why Suna has been active in various immigrant initiatives, such as the TV program “Talk with immigrant background” of the Turkish broadcaster Yol in Cologne, which is supported by Germany’s Federal Center for Political Education, or the initiative “Save Radio Multi-Kulti” in Berlin. Already in high school she has been giving coaching lessons to socially disadvantaged school children.