Students tackle hands-on dreams that get done and do good
"Dream big" sounds like good advice. But each year dozens of college students - including three this year from Skidmore - do better by dreaming small. With $10,000 grants from a philanthropic program called "100 Projects for Peace," they design and tackle community-service projects that can be completed during their colleges' summer break. The beauty part? Once achieved, such "small dreams" can change the world in surprisingly big ways.
Melvis Langyintuo '12 and Johane Slimane '13
This year, for instance, Melvis Langyintuo '12 and Johane Slimane '13 will help build a community sports field in impoverished Mpolonjeni, Swaziland, and Wissam Khalifa '11 and a Brown University pal will help repair a war-ravaged school in Fallujah, Iraq.
Their work is made possible with fundingfrom 103-year-old philanthropist Kathryn Wasserman Davis, who celebrated her 100th birthday in 2007 by donating $1 million to provide $10,000 grants to 100 student projects aimed at promoting global peace; she liked the results so well that she has renewed the challenge each year since.The program is open to students in the 91 colleges and universities nationwide that participate in the Davis United World College Scholars Program (founded by Davis's son, philanthropist Shelby Davis). Davis Scholars have graduated from one of the 13 United World Colleges around the world before matriculating at Skidmore or one of the other 90 affiliated schools. Skidmore currently has 32 Davis Scholars, but "you don't have to be a Davis Scholar to receive a peace-project grant," explains Darren Drabek, Skidmore's international student coordinator. Skidmore students (a good share of them Davis Scholars) have been carrying out Davis Projects for Peace every year since the program began.
This summer, Simelane and Langyintuo are coordinating the construction of a sports complex at the Orphanage Center at Mpolonjeni.The project has deep roots for Simelane, who comes from Swaziland, a nation deeply affected by poverty, unemployment, HIV/AIDS, and an inefficient education system?conditions that spark drug and alcohol addiction, gang violence, and frequent theft of food and equipment from orphanage centers likeMpolonjeni's. Simelane is considering a double major in exercise science and possiblya self-determined public-health-policy major; for him, the Davis grant offered a way to continue work begun with the Bantu Project,a student community-service group he co-founded in 2008.Langyintuo, a business and economics major from Ghana, adds business skills and passion of his own to the project, while sharing Simelane's belief in the community-bonding power of sports."With opportunity comes responsibility," saysLangyintuo, who plays basketball for Skidmore and has been class president for both his first and second years.
The Skidmore team is working with Swazi youth, community volunteers, and local contractors to level and fence off a field near the orphanage, donated by community leaders; they will also build a soccer pitch and a storage room, and poura concrete netball and volleyball court.The project will conclude with the new field's first Sports Day, an event to which the nation's Minister of Sports Culture and Youth Affairs will be invited as a guest speaker. A crucial part of their game plan is to field a media team to report each stage of progress to local newspaper and TV stations, to show that "you don't have to wait for someone to come and help you," as Simelane says. "Big improvements can begin with tiny daily contributions from each member of the community."
Wissam Khalifa '11
Like Simelane's , the project tackled by springs directly from his own life experience. Khalifa, a junior studying international affairs and religion, comes from Fallujah, where the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq had a devastating impact. He is working with Hanne Behrens Brynildsen, a classmate at the United World College in Italy. Brynildsen is now a junior at Brown University, majoring in international relations and Arabic studies.
Believing that education can narrow the differences within societies and help promote peace and equality, Khalifa was struck, when he went back to Fallujah last Christmas, by "how the harsh conditions of elementary schools were preventing children from enjoying their schooling and also widening the gap between them and children in other parts of the world. I decided to do something that would help college students learn the damages of wars, and also benefit people who lived through these conflicts."
Many of Fallujah's schools, destroyed in 2004, still lie in ruins, including Wahran Elementary School. Located near the infamous Abu Graib prison, it is surrounded by poor Shia and Sunni communities. When a new school was built for the Sunni community, the Shia students were left in the shattered old facility, with broken windows, dirt-covered floors, no drinking water, and no functioning lavatories.
Khalifa and Brynildsen spending the summer coordinating a community effort to clean, repair, and paint Wahran Elementary, stocking it with water filters and sports equipment, and sponsoring dialogues and educational sessions. Part of their Davis grant will go to create an art center. They plan a three-week sport and art camp for 60 children from both Shia and Sunni communities, with parents invited to join in sports, games, teaching sessions, and come to a celebratory reception. The children's drawings, diaries, and stories will travel in late October to Skidmore and Brown University, to appear in exhibitions designed "to show the physical and mental effect of war on children," says Khalifa. The artworks will also be auctioned to raise money for prizes and supplies for the children. Like Simelane andLangyintuo,Khalifa sees his Davis project as "a contribution to the making of lasting peace" - and that is no small thing.