Students Awarded Davis UWC Projects for Peace
Two St. Lawrence University students have been selected to receive funding this summer for their Davis UWC Projects for Peace 2016 proposals.
Liqian Ma ’16 of Changsha, China, proposed to establish a liberal arts education center in eastern China. According to her proposal, inequality exists when comparing urban area facilities to rural ones. Research has examined the unequal distribution of income between urban areas and rural areas urban incomes are now more than three times higher than rural incomes. The differences are quite obvious in education as well. Students in major cities can access well-equipped schools with modern technology, while access in rural areas is limited.
Inspired by her volunteer work at Youwei Library as part of at St. Lawrence Internship, Liqian, who is majoring in biology, will spend this summer creating an eye-opening liberal arts experience for students living in the rural Chinese village of Sanmen. The center, she proposed, will help to counter the inequality in education and to inspire local students and to nurture their ideals.
Malakia Takane ’18 of Maseru, Lesotho, proposal will help provide water for the Mohale’ Hoek villagers, southwest of Lesotho. Due to climate variations Lesotho suffered one of its most extreme droughts in 2015, resulting in a rapid decline of agricultural production. More than 90 percent of Mohale’ Hoek villagers have had to rely on two natural springs, which often run dry.
The Malebanye Village with a female majority has been at a disadvantage during this crisis. Since, as a cultural norm, it is the responsibility of women and children to fetch water, they are faced with the danger of walking miles in the morning darkness as they try to access the springs before sunrise, which may not even be flowing when they arrive. Malakia, a physics and math major and Chinese minor, and his project partner, Bahlakoana Mabetha, a Harvard student, will build a bore hole and water storage tank water system that will help the people of Malebanye village.
The Davis Projects for Peace program invites undergraduates at American colleges and universities in the Davis UWC scholars program to design grassroots projects that they will implement during the summer. The objective of the program is to encourage and support motivated youth to create and carry out ideas for building peace. The projects judged to be the most promising and feasible receive $10,000 each.
