June 2, 2009 - Santa Monica, CA - The Orang Utan Republik Foundation (OURF), a Santa Monica-based conservation education nonprofit that supports the survival of wild orangutans in Indonesia, announced the recipients of its scholarship and fellowship program for 2009. Five Indonesian students from the island of Sumatra received the Orangutan Caring Scholarship while a student from Holland received the prestigious LP Jenkins Memorial Fellowship.
Since 2005, OURF has partnered with the Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS) to fund, administer and manage the Orangutan Caring Scholarship annually. The scholarship provides a four year tuition award to college students entering schools of forestry or biology on various campuses. SOS advertises and promotes the scholarship in the provinces of North Sumatra and Aceh. Because of the limited number of scholarships, the award is competitive and requires the shortlisted applicant to present his or her report to a panel of judges who critically question the applicant following their presentation.
This year, three awards were given to students in North Sumatra and two in Aceh. The recipients for the Orangutan Caring Scholarship 2009 are: From North Sumatra Ilhayatu Aini from the School of Biology at North Sumatra University, Lolly Banjarnahor from the School of Forestry at North Sumatra University, and Sari Ayu Maghdalena from the School of Biology at the University of Medan. From Aceh Jaka Frahmana from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Syiah, Banda Aceh and Cut Tri Janurli from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Syiah, Banda Aceh. The awards will be given in June.
The Lorraine P. Jenkins Memorial Fellowship was started in 1998 in honor of OURF President Dr. Gary Shapiro's mother who died the previous year. The $1,000 fellowship has been awarded 11 times previously for research on orangutans, ranging in topics from behavioral and ecological aspects of wild orangutans to factors influencing conflict between humans and orangutans.
This year the fellowship will be given to Madeleine Hardus, a graduate student from Holland conducting her doctoral research in Sumatra. She is investigating the effect of logging on the food culture of wild orangutans. Food culture among orangutans are patterns of food handling and processing, including tool making and using, that are unique to orangutans in certain areas and are passed down from generation to generation through observational learning. Such culture is being threatened as populations of orangutans go extinct locally. The extent to which such culture is threatened by habitat disturbances such as logging will be measured in Madeleine's study.
OURFs scholarship and fellowship program depends on funding obtained by the Foundation which comes from individual and institutional sources. Individuals, companies, and foundations that would like to support this annual program are invited to contact OURF at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..