13 January 2006
Monash University arts/law student Ms Jessie Taylor will spend 16 months in Europe later this year, after being nominated for an Erasmus Mundus scholarship to complete a Master of Humanitarian Action.
The Erasmus Mundus program is an initiative of the European Commission. It encourages European higher education throughout the rest of the world.
This is the first year a Monash student will be able to participate in the program. It has been made possible as a result of the Monash Asia Institute joining NOHA - a European Union consortium of universities - as a 'third country' partner institution. Monash is the only Australian university involved in the consortium.
The scholarships are funded by the EU and one scholarship will be awarded to a Monash student each year for the next three years.
Ms Taylor, who has completed a thesis on the European holocaust as part of her Arts honours degree and is now finishing honours in Law, will travel to Uppsala, Sweden, in September to begin an intensive induction program.
She will then head to one of eight European universities to complete a specialist stream of units.
The final component is a research and fieldwork placement, which could see Ms Taylor travel as far as Afghanistan.
Ms Taylor, 23, has been working with asylum seekers and refugees in Australia for more than three years, and hopes to practice law in this area after completing her studies.
"With the detention regime slowly settling down, recently I've been able to assist people with finding housing and employment, dealing with Centrelink and overcoming other barriers that arise after the ordeal of detention," she said.
"It's been a very defining experience. The way human rights law is bandied around as a political football greatly angers me."
The Erasmus Mundus scholarship is valued at $57,000 (35,600 euro), and is fully funded by the European Union.
Before starting her scholarship Ms Taylor will travel to Switzerland to undertake the Monash Law School's Castan Centre Global Internship to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
Ms Taylor will be offered a full PhD scholarship on her return from the Erasmus Mundus scholarship to complete a doctorate in the Monash Asia Institute. The PhD scholarship is a joint initiative of the institute and the Faculty of Arts.
As part of the Erasmus Mundus program the Monash Asia Institute will also receive four European Union Masters students in July to undertake fieldwork in Australia.
The Director of the Monash Asia Institute, Professor Marika Vicziany, said consortium membership also involved the exchange of senior scholars working on humanitarian issues.
"These collaborations will lead to joint research grants and publishing projects," she said.
Calls for a second round of Erasmus Mundus scholarship applications from Monash students will be made in September. | 
