Kintan Silvany
Kintan Silvany was interning for the City of Philadelphia’s immigrant affairs office last summer, when an email popped up on her phone.
“I quickly opened it and read, ‘Dear Kintan Silvany, Congratulations! On behalf of the Voyager Scholarship …’ my world stopped,” she said. “Tears immediately filled my eyes and I called my mom. As soon as she picked up, I was yelling ‘I WON! I WON!’
“We were both crying and thanking God. It was just like a green light for my future.”
The Case Western Reserve junior had earned an Obama-Chesky Scholarship for Public Service, commonly known as the Voyager Scholarship.
Silvany is one of 100 students nationwide who last year won the award, and part of just the second cohort in the program founded by Michelle and Barack Obama and Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky.
Voyagers receive a $10,000 stipend and an Airbnb housing credit to pursue a summer experience between their junior and senior years of college that combines work and travel. After graduation, their education about the world continues with a $2,000 Airbnb travel credit every year for 10 years, totaling $20,000.
Silvany is ecstatic. The international relations and education major has wanted to pursue public service in international education since eighth grade, when she volunteered with a summer program for migrant youth.
She also feels all the emotions of making her parents proud. They moved to the United States from Indonesia before having a family, in part to give their future children educational opportunities. So when Silvany received the scholarship, “it was like their dreams came true as well,” she said
Now she wants to better understand how different countries approach education and the implications of educational disparities around the globe. In November, she joined other new Voyagers in Chicago, where they attended a program followed by the 2023 Obama Foundation Democracy Forum.
“It felt amazing,” Silvany said. “Everyone is thinking the same way you do: How do we make the world better?”
The Voyagers also participated in a question-and-answer session with Barack Obama and Chesky. Seeing the former president was a thrill for Silvany. “I was, like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m in the same room with this man!’ It was so cool.”
Silvany is spending spring semester at the University of Sydney in Australia, taking courses focusing on Southeast Asian history, society and the language Bahasa Indonesia, to learn more about her heritage. She’s also interning at an organization for asylum-seekers.
The semester experience is partly funded by another prestigious resource: the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, awarded by the U.S. Department of State.
Then Silvany will take her Obama-Chesky “Summer Voyage.” She will teach, observe and volunteer in educational and community programs in Madagascar, Dubai and Colombia, and attend the Paris Conference on Education.
“My goal is to hit every continent and see how education systems are different and how that affects people’s happiness and education,” Silvany said. “I really want to make use of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”