GEOLOGY student George Wright found himself on a life-changing field trip in Brazil after an opportunity sparked by an education bursary from Wiltshire Community Foundation.

The 21-year-old, who grew up in Westbury, wanted to take up a place at either Southampton or Portsmouth to study geology but the extra burden of paying for accommodation, food and other costs were beyond his family’s budget.

His step-dad had recently been made redundant and the family had three very young children to look after.

He applied for the bursary and was awarded £1,500 a year for three years. After leaving Matravers School his A-levels weren’t quite good enough for Southampton so he went to Portsmouth, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

“Having the bursary was absolutely brilliant. To me it was a gobsmacking amount of money and as someone who didn’t have a lot, I could really make that go far,” he said.

“Money was the really big worry for me coming to university and I was thinking ‘how am I going to do it?’.

"I’m sure I would have survived on the maintenance loan alone but having this bursary really meant I could concentrate and find what I was really passionate about, which helped the lecturers to see how I felt about the subject.”

Freed of money worries he threw himself into his studies and impressed his lecturers so much he was invited to study the geology of Brazil on the field trip in the summer of 2019. “It meant I could study my dissertation in Brazil which I would never have been able to afford to pay towards without the bursary,” he said.

His work on the trip has led to him being offered a place on a project that will allow him to study for a Master’s.

“It is an opportunity offered to me by a handful of staff at Portsmouth and their co-partners in Brazil studying the geology of Gondwana, an ancient super-continent that the Atlantic formed over.

“My work is dating the terrain to put more specific ages on it. It is absolutely fantastic, the project is the right size for a Master’s,” he said.

A part-time job as a lifeguard in Portsmouth has helped him save enough to take up the offer in September. “Being able to go to Brazil really got me noticed by the senior staff and the other things came from that,” he said. “The trip helped me to get the contacts to progress.

“I’m so grateful for the grant because it has just made life easier with one less thing to worry about. I’ve been asked to sit on the grant panel to help the community foundation decide on future bursary applications and I said yes straight away because the money I had really did everything for me.”

Wiltshire Community Foundation has awarded more than £1.6 million in education bursaries since their launch in 2008. In 2020 it awarded £305,000 in bursaries and vocational and education support grants to 125 beneficiaries. This year’s funding round, with grants of up to £1,600 a year, is now open for applications. To find out more and apply go to wiltshirecf.org.uk/grants-and-support/individuals.