SEEDS: Students for Education, Empowerment, & Direct Service
Davis Projects for Peace
Care about peace? Want to do something meaningful this summer? Would $10,000 help you make that happen? Find out more about the application and talk to past recipiants at the coming hour-long info session this Wednesday, November 18th, in Eliot 103 at noon.In its third year, Davis Projects for Peace, is an invitation for undergraduate students (including current seniors) to design grassroots projects that they will implement during the summer of 2010. The projects judged to be the most promising and do-able will be funded at $10,000 each. The objective is to encourage and support today’s motivated youth to create and tryout their own ideas for building peace.
Intentionally, no clear definition is offered so as not to limit the imagination. Students should define for themselves what a “project for peace” might be. The funding foundation hopes to encourage creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. The overall program (all 100 projects) is to be worldwide in scope and impact, but specific projects may be undertaken anywhere and as grassroots as desired, including in the U.S. Groups of students from the same campus, as well as individual students, may submit proposals.
Reed is proud to participate in the Davis Projects for Peace by nominating one student proposal to the Davis foundation. Internal application are due January 25, 2010. Download a MS Word Reed Davis Projects for Peace Application or more information, please email Career Services or SEEDS.
In 2009, the Davis Projects for Peace initiative awarded Reed students Kirsten Mandala and Skye Macdonald $10,000 to teach peaceful conflict resolution to traumatized orphans in the Rwandan capital of Kigali. Read Kirsten's moving account about their preparations and experience in Rawanda.
It is estimated that over one million orphans live in Rwanda
due to the combined effects of HIV/AIDS and genocide. Mandala and
Macdonald hope to engage with and educate 80 orphans between the ages
of nine and 19 over a four-week period. The goal of their project is to
promote understanding and tolerance in youth who have been burdened by
the loss of a parent and live in a region that is often overshadowed by
ethnic hatred. Their plan is to modify the Alternatives to
Violence Program, and the Compass Manual on Human Rights Education with
Young People to use these as tools to raise the children’s awareness of
human rights. These tools will serve to guide their overall curriculum,
which will include games and activities designed to foster trust
between races, and encourage peaceful behavior and conflict resolution
as alternatives to violence. Mandala and Macdonald are confident that
their efforts will help reduce ethnic hatred and animosity in the next
generation.
Mandala and Macdonald will work with the community
to construct a lending library. Kigali is in desperate need of this
type of development, as there are currently no public libraries and
only one publisher in Rwanda. By instilling cooperative skills in the
children, and helping to construct a library, they hope to build a
sense of hope for a better future. Coming away from the experience,
Macdonald, a junior anthropology major, and Mandala, a sophomore
political science major, hope to share the lessons they learn with
their respective Reed departments.
Mandala has experience in
teaching, including a brief stint in Costa Rica. Currently, as an
intern for Students for Education, Empowerment, and Direct Service she
helps organize programs for Reed students to teach after school.
Macdonald spent time as an English tutor in Paris and led the most recent alternative spring break volunteer trip to New Orleans to aide in the reconstruction of buildings damaged in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
To review successful proposals from past years, visit: http://www.davisprojectsforpeace.org/