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BY AMELIA POSSANZA

In print | Published January 22, 2009

In late December, the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility named six sophomores as recipients of the Eugene M. Lang Opportunity Scholarship. Awardees Ecem Erseker, Priya Johnson, Katherine Lam, Chengetai Mahomva, Ashia Troiano and Sneha Shrestha will receive funding for a social activism internship, the chance to receive a grant of up to $10,000 to complete a service project of their choice and a team of mentors to guide them through the execution of their project. Scholars who complete their project can also apply for up to $10,000 towards graduate studies.

Ecem Erseker ’11

Erseker ’11 plans to use these resources to help women in her native Turkey achieve economic self-sufficiency. “We have a problem because when [Anatolian women] immigrate to the city from the farms they cannot find jobs. So my project’s target is to use micro finance as a solution to support them economically.” While working with the Turkish Ministry of Education to create more humane conditions in orphanages, Erseker heard many parents express concern over the lack of the family’s economic resources. Her project, titled Micro Anatolia, aims at giving adult women a sustainable source of income and improving the lives of their children. To prepare, she is conducting research on micro finance with two Wharton professors and examining the culture of Anatolian women to determine what will make a micro finance system work in this specific setting.

Priya Johnson ’11

Johnson ’11 is also concerned with improving the lives of women. Inspired by her experience working with the Georgia-based public health initiative, Atlanta Harm Reduction, her goal is to overcome the obstacles associated with bringing important resources to women that are often descriminated against. Through her project, Kahaniyo Ki Rani, or Queen of Stories, she plans to hold a workshop in Mumbai, India that will give sex workers both essential sexual health information and an opportunity to explore performance arts. “My project, at least the way that I see it, is innovative because it is a combination of the two. The sex workers will have the opportunity to explore their own history of performance identity but at the same time learn a really valuable lesson about sexual health and then in turn become agents of social change in and of themselves and able to pass on that lesson,” Johnson said.

While working with a population engaged in high-risk behavior, Johnson learned that harm reduction is “about accepting risky lifestyles but working with them to cut back on the risk factors and make their life a little bit more sustainable.” She hopes to use this lesson to improve the lives of Indian women without condemning them.

Katherine Lam ’11
Active political involvement in California led Lam ’11 to create Angeleno Youth Advocates. “Once I started interning with my congressman, I realized that the only people who were calling in to lobby for legislation were adults. It seemed kind of problematic to me, because even I hadn’t known I could lobby for legislation. It was something that really troubled me,” Lam said. To address this problem, Lam plans to kick off two programs for teens in the L.A. area. The first is a conference that will allow high school students to meet their legislators and learn more about how these men and women represent them. She also plans to create a Web site that contains both information about Californian legislation that is of interest to youth and contact information for state legislatures. She hopes that this combination will empower the youth in the area.

Ashia Troiano ’11 and Chengetai Mahomva ’11

Mahomva ’11 and Troiano ’11, roommates since their freshman year, are working together to bring education to Zimbabwean children. The two began working with a children’s home in Mahomva’s native Zimbabwe their freshman year to build a school specifically for the children in the orphanage.

Initially, they will model their school after a UNICEF program that provide boxes full of everything needed to run a school, including chalk, slates, and other materials. Afterwards, the two will work with the home to build something more permanent. The curriculum is being carefully planned with the directors of the orphanage to include lessons in leadership in addition to the usual subjects. “Because some of these children are AIDS orphans, they’re a generation of people who haven’t known sound leadership or had a family setup,” said Mahomva.

The pair plans to work closely over the next two years. “This has been a really great project to work with my roommate on because late at night you can toss it around and argue with each other,” said Mahomva. In the spring of 2008, they raised money to buy ten eco-sanitary latrines for the children’s home, which, by turning human waste into fertilizer, improves the local food supply.

Sneha Shrestha ’11

Affected by her own experience as the daughter of a single mother in Nepal, Shrestha ’11 plans to create a psychological first aid program for girls in Nepal with the goal of helping them regain the self-confidence they need for success. In an email she said, “The ten day long program will create reflective processes for teenage girls that give them new vantage points from which to view their lives and gain power from within.” She also described the injustice that widows and their daughters must face on a daily basis. “Widows are denied to wear anything red since red is the color that defines a married woman in the Nepali society. More than simply denying a widow of wearing auspicious colors, this denies them of their freedom and rights to social life.” Previously, Shrestha worked with the NGO Women for Human Rights to document these injustices and put together a movie. The organization will continue to help her by making her new project sustainable once she has held one program. She will also make a video to allow others to replicate her program in other areas that face similar struggles.

Although these women anticipate facing many obstacles as they work to execute their visions, they are also flexible and hopeful. To describe the feeling she has while standing before such a daunting task, Erseker said, “We have a saying in Turkey. We say, “This is Turkey,” which means that anything can happen.”

Disclosure note: Ashia Troiano is assistant news editor for The Phoenix but had no role in the production of this article.

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