College Honors Grant Recipients

When the Middlebury Center for Social Entrepreneurship (MCSE) was created in 2012, President Liebowitz predicted that the center “will aspire to be a world leader in social change … offer[ing] young people and their allies an opportunity to take on the world’s toughest 21st century challenges and make a difference.” Judging by the successes of the MCSE this summer, his forecast was foretelling.

In the spring of 2013, 16 groups of students competed in the Social Entrepreneurship Grant Challenge. They competed with proposals for testing solutions to a range of social problems. Four entries were selected to launch their projects in the summer of 2013.

This past Friday, MCSE held an event in Axinn to honor the four grant recipient projects, and give them an opportunity to showcase the social good they accomplished while away from the College.

First to present her summer work was Gabriela Fuentes ’16, of Chicago. Her project, “Preserving Pilsen,” worked to address the issues of violence, high school dropout rate, and gentrification in Pilsen, Chicago, by providing a creative outlet for teenage girls to explore their identity. Through dance, writing and discussion, 13 girls ages 12-15 were given a chance to investigate their identity, culture, and legacy. The project aimed to decrease academic delinquency, gang involvement, violence and other risky behavior, while fostering positive identity development through community and academic involvement.

Fuentes’ approach was personal and direct.

“We would ask the girls ‘Who am I? What do I like about my body? What makes me strong? Who do I want to become? Who am I now?’” she said.

Fuentes partnered with Assistant Professor of Dance Christal Brown and used Project: BECOMING as the model for Preserving Pilsen.Rabeya Jawaid ’16 focused her work in Karachi, Pakistan. Inspired by her experience volunteering at the Deaf Research Center in Karachi, Rabeya created a project that provided vocational training to underprivileged deaf women in hopes of teaching them skills to obtain jobs and overcome poverty.

“It’s not easy being a woman in Pakistan. It’s not easy being a poor woman in Pakistan. And it’s definitely not easy being a deaf poor woman in Pakistan,” said Jawaid.

Her project trained young deaf women to sew and screen print, and provided classes that taught sign language and entrepreneurial skills. Reaching far beyond the confines of a small group, Jawaid became involved with the creation of the first official Pakistani sign language dictionary.

Armel Nibasumba ’16 and Betty Kobia ’16, from Burundi and Kenya, respectively, focused their work on peace keeping and community building.  Nibasumba grew up in a time of war and genocide, and saw the horror of a war torn nation. This past August, their project, “Twese for Peace,” recruited 30 high school and university students in Bujumbura, Burundi, to participate in a week-long peace-building camp. The goal of the project was to promote harmonious living in a post-war nation by facilitating communication and peace-building skills among the people of Bujumbura. Additionally, the Twese for Peace camp sought to instill entrepreneurial skills among the youth through challenging ideas and proposals such as microfinancing, need-finding, prototyping and record-keeping.

“We had a lot of conversations about how education can be a powerful tool amongst us,” said Kobia. “We talked about how our communities build upon communal living, rather than exclusive living as an Tutsis and Hutus.”

The $3,000 grant from the MCSE allowed Nibasumba and Kobia to travel to Burundi and pay for the costs of establishing the camp, which included rent of the venue and workshop materials. The pair hope to make this an annual event by training the previous participants to become facilitators for the camp in the future.  When a strong facilitators system is established with the students in Burundi, they hope to expand the program to Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

The fourth to present was the “Platforms for Hope” project, a team comprised of Vera Chan ’16, Mzwakithi Shongwe ’16, Jia Ying Teoh ’16, Adrian Leong ’16, and Roksana Gabidulina ’16. This project bettered the quality of education in Swaziland by providing lap desks to students. Working with a team from the University of Chicago, these students believed that by providing a sturdy, comfortable and portable surface to write on, students will be more motivated and able to study at school and in their homes. Along with providing desks, the project aims to provide jobs to those who make the desks, and instill an entrepreneurial spirit in those who use the desks, seeing first hand that innovators can create simple solutions to solve community problems.

Their $3,000 grant enabled the members of the “Platforms for Hope” team to travel to Swaziland, as well as provide for the costs of making and distributing the lap desks. The team is currently working at the Old Stone Mill to develop a solar-powered light source that would be attached to the lap desks.

The MSCE grant projects were varied in location and overall aims, a fact that demonstrates the MCSE’s goals. Watch for the MCSE Friday speaker series to keep up with social entrepreneurship projects on and off campus.