GLOBAL STUDIES AWARD RECIPIENTS
2019 - Jesilyn Faust
Jesilyn Faust Global Studies internship was with GABRIELA National Alliance of Women in the Philippines. GABRIELA is a grassroots-based alliance of more than 200 organizations, institutions, desks and programs for women all over the Philippines.
The alliance organizes women, especially farmers, workers, urban poor and students to vigorously campaign on women-specific issues such as women’s rights, gender discrimination, violence against women, and women’s health and reproductive rights. GABRIELA is also at the forefront of national and international economic and political issues that affect women. In addition, GABRIELA provides direct services for marginalized women through its National Office, provincial and regional centers, and member institutions.
2018 - Ana Caroline de Oliveira Moreno
Ana Caroline Moreno was a graduate student in Global Studies whose area of focus was political violence and feminism in Latin America. Ana traveled to São Paulo, Brazil and worked with two of the leading NGOs known to advocate for the rights of women, Afro-Brazilians, LGBT people, and low-income communities.
Ana said:
“This experience taught me a lot about resilience and doing what you believe to be the right thing. There's something extremely rich and exciting about witnessing and performing relevant community work and discussing feminism, empowerment, and racism in places where these themes don't come up naturally.”
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2018 - Swaroopa Lahiri
Swaroopa Lahiri, a doctoral student in Global Studies, worked in coordination with the Sundarban Tiger Widow Welfare Society and the Tiger Widows Organization in West Bengal, India. She interviewed households and gathered information about the needs of impacted widows and families. Swaroopa also taught English and math to the children in the village.
Swaroopa had these comments about the experience:
"My visit to the Sundarbans made me take note of the importance of being on the ground and talking to real people instead of being miles away and talking about poverty eradication, while being completely disconnected from the field realities … Teaching in the Sundarban Islands was the most rewarding part of my project as I witnessed the eagerness and interest of the children in learning new material and their exceptional capability, hindered by the lack of opportunities and infrastructure.”
2016 - Javiera Madrid Salazar
Javiera spent the first half of her internship with the Clinton Development Initiative (CDI). Her work at CDI focused on knowledge transfer and the determinants of technology adoption among smallholder farmers in South East Africa. She centered on the role of illiteracy as a constraint and disempowering factor in the knowledge transfer process, particularly in the case of women.
During the second half of her internship, Javiera worked with the Office of Migration and Development at the International Organization for Migration’s Mission in Chile. She proposed and later carried out a research project to create a comprehensive, user-friendly compilation of the different successful programs and initiatives that local governments are pursuing to facilitate immigrants’ successful integration into the community.
2014 - Caitlin Viejby
Caitlin worked with a nonprofit organization in regenerating a neighborhood in central Johannesburg, South Africa called Maboneng. Her work focused on building inclusivity in an up-and-coming neighborhood. She focused on starting an employment center that would offer training workshops and networking opportunities to connect job-seekers with new employment opportunities in this transitioning neighborhood.
2013 - Hannah Brown
Hannah spent several months in Uganda working with the Network for Africa in the northern rural town of Patongo. The Network for Africa helps support local NGOs that serve individuals affected by the Lord’s Resistance Army who suffer from massive trauma. She then interned in Kampala, Uganda at the US Embassy in the Economic and Political Affairs Division, working to monitor and report on regional stability and human rights issues, especially related to women.
2010 - Yenly Thach
Yenly was sponsored by the Clinton Global Initiative to spend the first half of her internship at the UN High Commission for Refugees in Geneva. Subsequently, she went to Cambodia to learn firsthand what challenges refugee returnees face. Her research paper compared the experiences of refugee returnees to Cambodia with her own experience as a Cambodian refugee in the US. Yenly conducted many interviews with returnees to gain insight into the many issues they face upon return.
2017 - Alexander Markovich
Alex worked on a fundraising and awareness campaign with Ugandan NGO Kirabo Doors of Hope. This organization strives to empower disadvantaged children through education and stability.
The project he worked on sought to procure funds for the drilling of a new borehole near the school/children's center near Jinja Town, Uganda. Through their efforts, they raised enough funds to drill a borehole, providing clean drinking water for the children living at the center.
2015 - Gokh Amin
Gokh travelled to Amman, Jordan where she volunteered with several organizations, the most prominent of which was Dar Al Yasmin. There, Gokh was tasked to help the staff organize and stage a reoccurring event “Habayabi” – for the al-Zaatari Refugee Camp, the world’s largest camp for Syrian refugees. During this event, educational activities, crafts, and games are provided for Syrian refugee children living in the camp to help give them some sense of normality in their new life.
2013 - Felicia Graham
Felicia studied the impact of oil production on local and indigenous communities in Bucaramanaga, Colombia. She partnered with SOS Children’s Village, helping to provide health and education services to displaced women and children.
2011 - Hannah Haehn
During her internship, Hannah worked at the Yayasan Bumi Sehat Birth Clinic in Bali, Indonesia. Bumi Sehat fills an important gap on the island of Bali in offering birthing services to women living in that area, regardless of their ability to pay. The clinic helps train midwives who can offer Bumi Sehat’s humanized birth model all across Indonesia. In 2011, Robin Lim, the American. who founded this clinic, received the CNN Hero of the Year award.
2009 - Caroline Le
During her internship, Caroline worked with Vietnamese and other Asians at a shelter for exploited women in Taiwan.
She spoke of her experience:
'I feel truly blessed to have had this experience, however challenging it was. I want nothing more than to be able to help these women in any way that I can and to share their stories –especially with those who don't realize the gravity of human trafficking in our world today.'