Scholarship in honor of Feith

JAKARTA: The Australia Indonesia Institute (AII) announced on Friday that it had established a scholarship in honor of Herb Feith, one of Australia's greatest Indonesia scholars, who died in Melbourne on Nov. 15.

The Herb Feith Scholarship will enable students to join the new Masters Program in Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta.

The institute has committed funding to the project for three students over the next four years.

The scholarship is aimed at recognizing that Feith personified much of what is best in the relationship between Indonesia and Australia and the strength of that relationship, through its many challenges.

Born in 1930 in Vienna, Feith was educated in Australia and became the first volunteer in a program he helped found that developed into Australia Volunteers International. Between 1951 and 1956 he worked in Indonesian government ministries as the first volunteer in this scheme, on a local salary and under local conditions.

He died in a tragic accident just days after returning from the opening of an exhibition in Jakarta featuring photographs of the Australian volunteers who had followed in his footsteps over the past 50 years. -- JP