2002-03 Student Recognition Award
Four students were honored with the CIEE 2002-2003 Student Recognition Award at the Budapest Conference: Robin Reineke, Sam El-Silimy, and Allyn Steele from the CIEE Study Center in Khon Kaen, Thailand, and Paula Eichenbrenner from the CIEE Study Center in St. Petersburg, Russia. These exceptional students not only excelled academically, but put their hearts and souls into the community.
Khon Kaen, Thailand
Read what David Streckfuss, Resident Director of the CIEE Study Center in Khon Kaen, Thailand had to say about his three students:
These three exemplified the best of "service learning" by committing themselves, body and soul, to getting the struggle of the Pak Mun villagers registered within the human rights community. Through their work of documenting a violation of the political and civil human rights of Pak Mun villagers on 18 September 2002, and through their efforts to place the Pak Mun issue within a framework of economic, social, and cultural rights, these three students made a modest but significant contribution to this issue. More than that, they made real connections with the Pak Mun villagers and these connections helped them come to identify the struggle of these villagers as their own.
One thing that was apparent to staff and other students is that these three students, by giving this issue their all, transformed through the process. They learned to work together, to recognize each other's strengths, and to forgive each other's weaknesses. Through their work, they learned about themselves, their roles as concerned global citizens, informed themselves about the importance of human rights, and through it all, helped give voice to a group of villagers that have been fighting for more than a decade to bring life back to the river on which their lives, communities, and culture depend on.
Robin, Sam, and Allyn, at least for a time, sharing a common destiny with the poor and oppressed, gave of themselves so that the struggle of the poor could have a voice in larger society. They learned skills and developed an awareness and sensitivity for the silenced in society. They entered into a vastly different world, a vastly different cultural place. They were touched and moved by it, by the faces of the elderly that were beaten, by the immensity of the struggle of thousands of villagers that have fought to open the Pak Mun dam gates.
And they acted upon it. In a short, four-month study abroad experience, what more could we expect than this in creating "concerned global citizens"?
Click here to read the article in Perspectives, the magazine produced by the Khon Kaen Study Center students. This article also appeared in The Nation.
St. Petersburg, Russia
Nathan Longan, Resident Director of our Study Center in St. Petersburg, Russia wrote the following about Paula Eichenbrenner:
Paula Eichenbrenner asked last fall if there was a social service project that she could work on. I pointed her in the direction of one local American charity but after two weeks she came back and explained that that particular organization was too interested in her religious testimonials and asked if I could find another organization. The other organization is one that my family is associated with, a children's home called House of Mercy. Ironically, this organization looks more explicitly religious with icons in all the rooms and a chapel on the second floor, but there is, in the best traditions of Orthodoxy, no proselytizing; Paula had found the perfect fit for her energy. By the end of the first week there she had made up for lost time, had suggested and got the approval of the director for her Toys for Tots campaign, and had pulled in other students to come and volunteer their time at the home.
Paula’s work involved flyers, phone calls, meetings, and at least one and most of the time more than one day a week at the Home helping her "kids" with their homework, playing and being a real big sister. I visited the home one afternoon when she was there. The girls were simply enthralled with Paula, and Paula was running from one project to another as the girls called for help with their art (that day's activity).
Paula taught many people many things last fall. She taught "her kids" things about kindness and art and math and love; she taught her classmates and the other students about taking a little initiative and making a good difference in the world. She taught her teachers about grass roots traditions in America She taught her Resident Directors that American charities in Russia aren't necessarily the best place to put American students who want to do good things here.
And I think that Paula learned a lot, too. She learned about gaining understanding, about acquiring knowledge and developing skills to make a positive difference in our world.