Students Win Grant to Promote Peace in Egypt
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For the tenth year in a row, a team of Lewis & Clark students has been awarded a grant from 100 Projects For Peace, a program which funds undergraduate initiatives to promote global peace. Lewis & Clark students have won at least one grant every year since the inception of 100 Projects for Peace a decade ago.
Founded by philanthropist, scholar, and world traveler Katherine W. Davis, the $10,000 grants have been used to create projects addressing a diverse range of challenges, including providing clean water in Ethiopia, educating residents about human rights in Morocco, and teaching self-defense to women in India.
This year’s winning Lewis & Clark proposal was designed by a team of five students. They’ll use the funds to travel to Cairo, where they will partner with the Resala Charity Orphanage to create and host a summer camp for Egyptian youth affected by homelessness, focusing on teaching strategies for decision-making and positive conflict resolution.
Hamdan Alameri ’18 visited Egypt in Winter 2015, helping to strengthen ties with the Resala Organization and the children it serves. The trip was a life-changing experience, one which motivated him to return. He and team members Reham Bahauddin ’16, Isabella Irtifa ’18, Jessica Rosenblatt ’17, and Burnley Truax ’17 will teach weeklong classes and engage with children between the ages of 9 and 18 through activities promoting community involvement and an appreciation for teamwork.
“Kids there were so excited to see us again in the summer and they loved the idea of the camp,” Alameri shared. “They were filled with joy when they heard of the summer camp site and the various activities we had planned with them. I felt affirmed that this program we’d created would make the children feel like they can do anything.”
This was not an easy path, and it took two years and hundreds of hours of work to prepare this project for submission. But, now, the team agrees, all that hard work has paid off.
“We have planned and planned, but nothing can prepare you for a trip like this,” said Rosenblatt. “At the end of the day, we want to teach children that nothing is out of their reach.”
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