Monday 28 November 2016

Philanthropist Roys Poyiadjis establishes €150,000 scholarship fund at University of Cyprus

In a ceremony held September 3, philanthropist Roys Poyiadjis, in the presence of the media, Rector, Vice Rector, and faculty heads, formally established a €150,000 scholarship fund at the University of Cyprus in honor of his late brother, Alkis. The memorial fund will provide three annual €5,000 scholarships for the next 10 years to be awarded to three students at the University of Cyprus who demonstrate academic excellence and financial need. Funding will be open to students in humanities, pure and applied science and engineering.

As children, the Poyiadjis brothers were refugees from Cyprus, and both were able to attend elite universities with the financial support of scholarship funding.

"Cyprus is in crisis right now. More students need financial help, and our nation needs the skills they will offer when they complete their studies,” adds Poyiadjis.

Alkis Poyiadjis was born in Nicosia in 1957 but spent most of his childhood in Famagusta. After the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, he attended a public School in England on a scholarship. In 1986 he acquired the Cambridge Diploma of English Studies and taught English at the State Institute of Foreign Languages in Larnaca. He went on to study Pure and Applied linguistics, English and American literature as well as French language at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Alkis’ first Greek poetry collection, “Rifts and Rivulets was published in 1995. A second collection, “Homecoming Ripples,” was published in 1996.

"Alkis always pushed me to achieve academic success and he was instrumental in guiding me academically,” says Poyiadjis. “Alkis devoted most of his life to education, becoming fluent in multiple languages and expressing his emotions through language and his published poetry – I know he would be proud of what we’re doing in his name."