CID awards undergraduate student grants:

The Center for International Development (CID) has awarded 25 grants to Harvard undergraduate students to support international development internships and research projects this summer.

The following students will work as volunteer teachers in Costa Rica, Namibia, or Ecuador through the WorldTeach program funded by CID. In Costa Rica will be Erin Barringer ’05 (history of science), Brett Simchowitz ’05 (social studies), Catherine Walleck ’06 (romance studies), and Minyang Jiang ’06 (literature). Three interns will be stationed in Namibia, including Caroline McKay ’05 (history), Rashan Jibowu ’06 (social studies), and Adriana Luciano ’05 (psychology). Kevin McCaffrey ’06 (government) will be in Ecuador.

The following students were awarded CID undergraduate summer research grants:

Jason Alcorn ’04 (social studies) will study the University of the Autonomous Regions in Nicaragua and its relationship with ethnic communities.

Leila Chirayath ’04 (special concentration: African development studies) will travel to Mali to examine the movement to repatriate West African art from Europe, and the symbolic role of cultural property in the development of state and national identities.

Alexis Caloza ’04 (social studies) will examine the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development’s support for bilingual education and multicultural reform in Guatemala.

Justina Hierta ’04 (government) will travel to Rwanda to study the effects of government policies on local civil society’s ability to foster interaction in a democratic manner.

Emily Anderson ’05 (history and literature) will study public health and medicine as a volunteer with a nonprofit health-care center in rural Honduras.

Shakirah Hudani ’03 (social studies) will research the religious rhetoric and the transitional justice process in Rwanda as an investigation of the confessional process in the Gacaca courts and of the historical memory of genocide.

Catherine Honeyman ’04 (social studies) will study the rural secondary education system in Honduras and its impact on community solidarity and development.

Adrienne Minster ’04 (history and science) will conduct research in Botswana on the arts as a tool of public health education.

Swati Mylavarapu ’04 (special concentration: human rights issues in international development) will travel to India to study the impact of the Gujarat riots on national, economic, social, and political development.

Ryan Rippel ’04 (social studies) will study the role an international diaspora has come to play in local efforts in Nigeria to bring about economic and political development.

Julia Sheketoff ’04 (social studies) will travel to Nicaragua to analyze how the contemporary women’s movement in that nation reflects the work of the Sandinistas.

Suchanan Tambunlertchai ’04 (economics) will travel to Senegal to study microcredit and its effects on gender roles and food security.

Thapta Tripti ’04 (economics) will travel to Bangladesh and Nepal to study microfinance institutions through an internship with Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC).

Patricia Hernandez ’04 (psychology) will study UNICEF interventions in Colombia, with the goal of learning which interventions are sustainable and make a positive difference to Colombian children.

Candice Chiu ’04 (social studies) will be traveling to Thailand to study strategies of destination-imaging and marketing in the Thai tourism industry, specifically in regards to intra-Asia tourism.

Benjamin Wells ’04 (history and literature) will travel to Mexico to research agrarian reform in Hidalgo during and after the Mexican revolution.

Timothy Wickland ’04 (physics) will study the operation, development, planning, and effectiveness of the subway systems of Beijing and New Delhi. Wickland will travel to India for the project.