Future Generations Master's Degree Student Receives Davis Projects for Peace Award
Future Generations graduate student, Joy Bongyereire, was one of more than 100 students worldwide to receive a $10,000 Davis Projects for Peace Award. Joy will use these funds to implement her project:
Joy works with communities bordering two of Uganda’s largest national parks and gorilla reserves. She’s concerned with the increasing conflict between the government agencies and the neighboring communities entrusted with gorilla protection. Although Uganda has a national policy and legal framework to encourage community participation in wildlife protection and natural resource management, weak partnerships and an unequal distribution of tourism revenue are placing gorillas at risk. Although tourists pay $500 for a permit to see the gorillas in the park, when gorillas are on community lands, the community receives just $10. This has so soured relations between communities and the Uganda Wildlife Agency that farmers have allegedly threatened to kill gorillas on their land.
Joy will work to encourage dialogue, build capacity, and strengthen partnerships between Uganda’s wildlife agencies and communities. In the coming year, she will be conducting a situational analysis of the natural resource conflicts, facilitating dialogues and training sessions in peacebuilding and reconciliation, and arranging study tours to neighboring districts and countries that have effectively partnered with communities.
The Davis Projects for Peace initiative has been renewed for 2009 by philanthropist Kathryn W. Davis. University students from nearly 100 campuses will collectively receive over $1 million in funding during the summer of 2009 for projects in all regions of the world. Now 102 years old, Mrs. Davis launched the initiative on the occasion of her 100th birthday in 2007 and now renews her challenge to today’s generation of college students to undertake innovative and meaningful projects. Designed to encourage and support motivated youth to create and implement their ideas for building peace throughout the world in the 21st century, each of the more than 100 projects will receive $10,000 in funding.
Davis Projects for Peace invited all students from partner schools in the Davis United World College (UWC) Scholars Program plus students at International Houses worldwide and Future Generations to submit plans for grassroots projects for peace, to be implemented during the summer of 2009.
“The competition on nearly 100 campuses was keen and we congratulate the students
who proposed the winning projects,” said Executive Director of the Davis UWC Scholars Program Philip O. Geier. “Kathryn Davis has been a lifelong internationalist and philanthropist, and has left her mark on a wide range of institutions and countless students. The wisdom of her years has led her to look to young people for new ideas and fresh energy to improve the prospects for peace.”
“I want to use my birthday to once again help young people launch some initiatives that will bring new energy and ideas to the prospects of peace in the world,” said Kathryn Davis. “My many years have taught me that there will always be conflict. It’s part of human nature. But love, kindness, and support are also part of human nature, and my challenge to these young people is to bring about a mindset of preparing for peace instead of preparing for war.”
A complete list of the participating schools and projects, as well as a summary of the
2008 projects and a video interview with Davis from 2006, is available on the program’s Web site at www.davisprojectsforpeace.org.
