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CONTACT: Laura Ingalls (laura.ingalls@worldlearning.org) in Washington, 1.202.464.6973
Alice Rowan Swanson Fellows to Improve Mental Health Patients’ Lives
WASHINGTON, DC (May 6, 2010) -- World Learning is pleased to announce the recipients of the Alice Rowan Swanson Fellowship, an annual award that returns SIT Study Abroad alums to their host countries to conduct development projects that benefit human rights.
This year's recipients include Salome Vanwoerden, a Rice University senior and 2009 participant of SIT Study Abroad's Nepal: Culture and Development Program, and Dara Carroll, a senior at Northwestern University who traveled to Uganda in 2008 as part of the Uganda: Development Studies Program.
"SIT Study Abroad is thrilled to award Salome Vanwoerden and Dara Carroll with the Alice Rowan Swanson Fellowship," said World Learning President and CEO Adam Weinberg. "These talented young women share many of Alice's extraordinary qualities, including intelligence, a passion for learning, and the desire to make the world a better place."
Both fellowship recipients will conduct projects aimed at improving the quality of life of those suffering from mental illness. Vanwoerden, a double major in psychology and visual arts, plans to use photography to empower mental health patients at a Kathmandu hospital starting in October. The fellowship will provide patients with 35mm cameras, enabling them to explore the creativity and independence that comes with artistic expression. Carroll, who studies anthropology and global health, will return to rural Uganda in August to advocate on behalf of those suffering from mental illness and to devise a program for their rehabilitation and reintegration into society.
The family of Alice Rowan Swanson created the fellowship as a living tribute to Alice, an Amherst College graduate who died in a bicycle accident in July 2008 in Washington. Rowan Swanson was inspired to begin a career in international development and human rights following her SIT Study Abroad experience in Nicaragua in 2006.
The fellowship's first recipient, Tufts University graduate Michelle Eilers, recently returned from Chile where she studied a program that provides indigenous Aymara women with access to traditional birthing methods within a modern hospital.
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