We are pleased to announce today the launch of the Hilary Thompson Scholarship Fund.

As described in the attached note describing the fund, the Hilary Thompson Scholarship Fund will focus on supporting women who want to gain practical and commercial experience and pursue a career in the field of human and workers’ rights. The nature of the projects supported should be focused on building solutions that work in the human and workers’ rights field

“One year after Hilary passed away, we want to honour her memory and ensure that her great values continue to stay alive by being passed on to younger generations,” said Scott Poynton, Founder of Earthworm, and Hilary’s colleague and friend.

During this first year of operation, the Hilary Thompson Scholarship Fund will support two candidates, one in Africa and one in Indonesia. We aim to then broaden the support and increase the number of candidates in subsequent years.

To ensure a rapid start, we have decided to support projects that are leveraging an existing infrastructure able to host the candidates. To that purpose, we will add two candidates to our Centre of Social Excellence’s (CSE) existing training program.

The CSE is a training centre operated by Earthworm Foundation that trains young social leaders and prepares them to become champions of best in class management of human rights in companies, governments, NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations), etc.

The tuition and training cost of the two additional candidates will be supported by the Hilary Thompson Scholarship Fund. We plan to finalise the selection of candidates before the end of August 2020.

In the meantime, we welcome any voluntary contributions from people and partners who knew Hilary and who would like to financially support the Hilary Thompson Scholarship Fund. Those who would like to get in touch with us about this can do so at info@earthworm.org.