College Students with Great Ideas + $10,000 = Foundations for Peace

Dartmouth College is pleased to participate in the Davis Projects for Peace program, designed to encourage and support young people to create and test their own ideas for building peace. As a participant in the Davis United World College Scholars Program, Dartmouth students are invited to design grassroots projects that they implement in the summer. Now in its third year, the Davis program has enabled Dartmouth students, individually and in teams, to undertake projects around the world aimed at the promotion of peace.

 The Davis Projects for Peace is made possible by Kathryn Wasserman Davis, an accomplished internationalist and philanthropist. Upon the occasion of her 100th birthday in February of 2007, Mrs. Davis, mother of Shelby M.C. Davis who funds the Davis UWC Scholars Program, chose to celebrate by committing $1 million for one hundred Projects for Peace.  “I want to use my 100th birthday to help young people launch some immediate initiatives – things that they can do during the summer of 2007 – that will bring new thinking to the prospects of peace in the world,” says Mrs. Davis.  Because of the many marvelous achievements made by students in the summer of 2007, Mrs. Davis continued the Davis Projects for Peace for the summer of 2008 and is offering it again this year.

Dartmouth students with a projects in mind for the summer of 2009 need to submit their proposals to the Dickey Center by January 26, 2009. All submissions will be reviewed by the War and Peace Studies Faculty Steering Committee, and the most promising will be forwarded to the Davis Foundation.

Past recipients:

In 2007, the Davis Foundation funded Gabrielle Emanuel '10 and James Allison '10 to provide college test preparation materials and assistance to Ugandan students to encourage application to US colleges. That same year, Erika Sogge '08 and Jean Ellen Cowgill '08 received the Davis Foundation's $10,000 grant to run playwriting workshops for youths in Biloxi, Mississippi.

In Summer of 2008, Emmanuel Mensah '09, recieved funding to run leadership workshops for Ghanian youth, while Lilian Mehrel '09 ran filmmaking workships with Israeli and Palestinian youths so that they could share their stories with each other. 

To learn more about the Davis Program, visit http://www.kwd100projectsforpeace.org/