Past Recipients
2022
We Are Here: Engaging in Art for Resilience and Reclamation of Space
This project involved an art installation of permanent mural cycles in several public schools in Union, New Jersey. Over the course of the summer, middle and high school students worked collaboratively with Sienna to execute student-driven works in the hallways and classrooms where they attend school.
2021
The National Black Action Plan Internship Program
DeBorah Ault and Sonali Anderson led a 10-week long program called the National Black Action Plan Internship Program in the summer of 2021. Their hope was to assist university students around the nation in creating plans to dismantle systemic racism at their schools. Through mentorship and intentional programming, students garnered key leadership qualities of empowerment, accountability, diligence, and negotiation.
2020
Promoting Peace through Education and Women Empowerment: Espace sûr-Building a safe space for Women in the Cote D’Ivoire to foster peace
Awa Soumahoro’s project was supposed to take place in the summer of 2020, but it was delayed due to the pandemic the world is still recovering from. This summer, working alongside the local community in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire, Awa will be building a ‘Espace sur”, a safe space to foster youth programming and women empowerment. It will be a place that advocates for girls’ education, empowers women and serves as a resource to fight HIV/AIDs at the grassroots level.
2019
CLUB DEL ESPENDRÚ
Gabriel founded and ran CLUB DEL ESPENDRÚ Academic Summer Camp, a month-long academic summer camp for Afro-Cuban youth in an under-resourced neighborhood of Havana. About 15 teenagers from Regla participated in the summer programs, which included lessons on Afro-Cuban history from accomplished scholars, music and visual arts programs led by Cuban hip-hop icons, and English lessons from Fontes, who plans to pursue a career as an English teacher.
2018
Abigail and Stephen implemented a summer education program for Nicaraguan children and adults. They shipped school supplies to operate summer camps for children and provided financial incentives for adults to attend nightly classes taught by local teachers fluent in English and Spanish.
2017
The Right to Immigration Institute (TRII): A New Home
TRII focuses on providing representation and assistance for asylum seekers in immigration proceedings, in addition to establishing opportunities for people to become trained representatives for asylum seekers. TRII also provides resources for navigating the immigration process. With this grant, they will create a training program for undergraduate students to become accredited representatives and they will implement a citizenship program for the Waltham Public Schools.
2016
Brontë Velez's project, SeluSemilla, will center around creating a collection of plantable books (biodegradable in design, which will sprout into endangered trees) written, conceived, and cultivated by Ecuadorean indigenous counterparts working with the Pachaysana organization. This will serve not only as an act of reforestation but simultaneously a replanting of ancestral knowledge and wisdom to reinsert oppressed voices into the economy of language, and to remember that environmental justice must inherently include human rights as a part of its struggle for all systemic oppression derives from the same source and attacks intersectionally.
2015
Kira will be empowering Maasai women in rural Tanzania through computer literacy and education. This will be a partnership through Brandeis University and the International Collaborative for Science, Education, and the Environment.
2015
Noah will organize an implement a large-scale collaborative garden, designed to increase community ownership, foster trust and deconstruct divisive barriers between the 490 residents of Prospect Hill Terrace public housing project, located in Waltham, MA.
2014
A Call for Dignity: Ending Manual Scavenging
2014
A Call for Dignity: Ending Manual Scavenging
2012-2013
Back to Basics: Food for Healing HIV
2012-2013
HIV/AIDS Education in Kazakhstan
2011-2012
Engaging Hand and Minds: Empowerment through Peer Education in Zimbabwe
2010-2011
Helping HIV+ Women and Children in Rwanda
2009-2010
Producing a Documentary Film about Costa Rican Culture of Peace
2009-2010
Empowering through Education Camp in Haiti