Sylff News

The Tokyo Foundation is happy to report updates on the following two Sylff fellows.

The Pillars of Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research (PRIM&R) award was granted to Ms. Amal Matar, a Sylff fellow at the American University in Cairo. Ms. Matar is currently completing her dual Master's in Biotechnology and Mass Communication & Journalism. The award was given for her thesis project titled “Assessment of the Perspectives of Chairs of Research Ethics Committees (REC) in Egypt,” in which Ms. Matar interviews chairs of REC of research institutes and university hospitals in Egypt. She hopes to promote the equitable performance of clinical trials in the developing world by uncovering barriers/obstacles as well as key ethical issues REC chairs encounter when reviewing international protocols, in addition to enhancing the communication process through research between Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), investigators and international sponsors. She will be presenting her project at the international conference held annually by PRIM&R. This year, the conference will be taking place in December in Washington DC, USA. You can learn more about the award via this link www.primr.org/AboutUs.aspx?id=2428 Amal can be reached at mollyzak[at]aucegypt.edu ([at] should be replaced by @)

Ms. Najiyah Martiam is a Sylff fellow of Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia, who has completed her studies on religion and culture at the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies (CRCS). Currently she works as a coordinator of Public Education at the center: http://www.crcs.ugm.ac.id. At the end of 2008 she had an opportunity to visit Ankara University under the Fellow Mobile Program (FMP*) for her thesis research entitled, “Women and Sufism in Java and Turkey.” The period of her visit to Turkey coincided with the celebration of the late great Muslim poet, Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi. Although unexpected, she was greatly influenced by the spirit of this special event.

Also, inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert’s work, “Eat, Pray, Love,” she wrote of her experiences in everyday life during her stay in Turkey, and sent a piece of her work to her campus mailing list daily as well as posting it on her blog. It attracted many people’s attention, which led to an offer by a major publisher for her work to be published as “Finding Rumi: Catatan Petualangan Perempuan Indonesia di Turki (Traveling notes of Indonesian woman in Turkey).” Although the main title is translated into English, this book is only available in Indonesian. In the future, she hopes to organize a performance of spiritual music and dance from Turkey and Indonesia, and to make a documentary film of her journey.

Najiyah can be reach at jiahjim[at]yahoo.com ([at]should be replaced by @)

Please join us in congratulating Ondrej and Richard on their achievements. The Tokyo Foundation wishes them continuous success in their respective areas. Sylff fellows who wish to share their achievements here at "News & Events" are requested to contact the Leadership Development at scholarship[at]tkfd.or.jp ([at] should be replaced by @).

*FMP is replaced by Sylff Research Abroad (SRA).