DAVIS PROJECTS FOR PEACE
Davis Projects for Peace is an invitation to undergraduates at the American colleges and universities in the Davis United World College Scholars Program to design grassroots projects to be implemented during the summer. Through a competition on over 90 campuses, the most promising projects will be selected for funding at $10,000 each. More information...
Name: Sudip Bhandari ’14 and Julia Coffin ’12
Major: Biology (Sudip) and Religion; Sociology/Anthropology (Julia)
Program: Davis Projects for Peace; Summer 2012
Project: The Anne Frank Project
The Anne Frank Project Nepal (AFPN) was developed to educate students in Nepal about the history of the Holocaust through the inspiring story of Anne Frank. We aimed to create awareness about
the topic and foster mutual respect and tolerance among students through two sub projects: the Traveling
Educational Exhibition designed to teach mostly middle school and high school students in schools
throughout the country, and the Peace Library to provide youth a permanent resource to access books related to history, human rights and democracy.
Name: Nicholas Kang ’12
Major: CIS- “Social Innovation and Community Development”; Biology
Program: Davis Projects for Peace; Summer 2011
Project: Li-k’ei Project: Youth Promoting Peace in Merritt, British Columbia
My project had three main components. The first was outreach towards local First Nations community to engage their youth in leadership and service experiences using the Smart Step Youth Association’s youth programming to facilitate those experiences. The program also established a youth council to provide First Nations and non-First Nations youth a voice at the political level. The program’s third component was establishing a full time Teen Centre as a resource and safe location for teenagers to organize leadership, sports, and service activities. (read more)
Student: Monica Southworth ’10
Majors: Political Science, Concentrations in Statistics and Middle Eastern Studies
Program: Saadani Village, Tanzania
Project: Organizer
The purpose of the internship was to provide the village of Saadani with a potable source of drinking water, which we did through a rainwater collection system.
My personal contribution was showing up and helping the project move along, making sure it stayed within the allotted budget. But I think the biggest impact made was allowing the village to have a clean source of drinking water that they knew wouldn't be contaminated. Since a lot of people in the village suffer from typhoid and UTIs, this is the biggest impact.
This experience gave me first hand experience working overseas where many things can serve as a barrier between you and the people you're trying to work with. At times, it was difficult and disheartening, but now I know what it's like for other organizations. Being young is another factor that played into it, because most people were not expecting to see us show up after all the correspondence via e-mail. While doing this project, I was also introduced (by another man in Saadani doing similar projects) to other projects going on in the area and reminded of the importances of conservation applied in a realistic necessity.
Student: Subhash Ghimire ’10
Major: Political Science
Program: Davis Projects for Peace Grant
Project: Six-week summer camp in rural Nepal
Please describe the program you developed.
I ran a six-week summer camp for 42 war affected children in my village in western Nepal. I also established the first library in the region with 1600 books and 2 computers. Currently, I am working on building the first peace school in the country in my hometown to help 250 war affected children go back to school and lead normal lives...(read more)