The Jennifer Caldwell Endowed Fund in Human Rights

 

This fund has been established in the name of a cherished UW alumna, Jen Caldwell, to honor her passionate commitment to human rights. While at the University of Washington, Jen was known for combining academic excellence with working for justice. She played leading roles in efforts to educate the campus community about rape and sexual violence, in switching our campus to 100% fair trade certified coffee, and in raising funds to support scholarships for young people who work on Guatemalan coffee plantations through the UW Guatemala Education Project.

Upon her graduation in 2007, the Law, Societies and Justice program awarded her the Karin Stromberg Award in recognition of her outstanding combination of scholarship with public service. She also won the prestigious Bonderman Fellowship, which enabled her to travel around Latin America and Africa after graduation.  Jen stayed in South Africa in order to help shape a new effort to encourage forms of global tourism based on equitable and sustainable relationships with local communities in poor countries. While in South Africa, she was killed in a tragic accident in September 2009.

The Jennifer Caldwell Fund in Human Rights gives financial support to UW students proposing international, hands-on practical projects to produce tangible human rights improvements for vulnerable communities around the world.

Read more about Jennifer Caldwell in the UW Daily article that featured her life and legacy.

 

Fellowship Eligibility

New application dates will be posted once available.

In 2013, applications were open between March 1, 2013 and April 1, 2013.
 


All undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Washington (Bothell, Seattle, Tacoma) working on projects connected to faculty research or teachingare eligible to apply. Strong applicants will propose work related to topic areas about which Jen cared deeply (including fair trade, human rights, and women's rights). Preference will be given to proposed projects that are feasible, sustainable, and develop partnerships with established organizations on the ground.

 

Selection Criteria


Preference will be given to projects with the following characteristics:

  • Feasibility. The project has clearly specified objectives, a specific and realistic work plan (including tasks and timelines if appropriate), and the candidate possesses the skills and resources to carry out the work required.
  • Hands-on engagement. The project will have a practical human rights benefit. While it may be appropriate to also receive degree credit for this work, this is not a necessary component. The award places primary emphasis on real-world impact.
  • Partnership. The project will be undertaken in conjunction with an established organization working in the topical or geographic area where the project is to be carried out. This ensures that the student’s work is viewed as productive and positive contribution by groups that are already active in the field, and that the student will benefit from the guidance of experienced leaders.
  • Vision. The project clearly reflects Jen's commitment to connecting campus activities with service work abroad.



Application Materials


To be considered, please submit the following materials in a single PDF file to uwchr@uw.edu.
1. Your CV or Resume with full contact information (phone, address, and email)
2. A document answering the following questions:

  • Status as a UW student (anticipated degree, expected graduation date, and subject/area of focus)
  • Statement of purpose describing the project, your qualifications to do this project, the project’s timeline, and identifying (including full contact information) the faculty member whose teaching and/or research is connected to this project. (approx. 500 words)
  • What is your project’s specific human rights impact? How, exactly, does it improve the human rights of the affected people? (approx. 250 words)
  • Keeping in mind Jen’s commitment to connecting campus activities with service work abroad, what, if any, work have you done on campus (coursework and/or student activities) that is relevant to your proposed project? (approx. 250 words)

3. A detailed budget describing how the funds would be used and, if necessary, the source of supplemental funds to complete the project.
4. A letter of support from the primary organization with which you will be partnering.
5. The names and full contact information (campus address, phone, and email) of two University of Washington faculty members who are familiar with your work. One of these references can be the faculty member listed in 2 and whose research and/or teaching is connected to your project.


If you have any questions about the application process, please do not hesitate to contact us at uwchr@uw.edu.

 

2012 Award Recipients

Kate Fenimore and Marina Fitzpatrick are both students in International Studies at UW; Marina was the founder of, and Kate is a member of the executive board, of the UW chapter of GlobeMed, a student-run non-profit dedicated to promoting health equity throughout the world. (http://www.globemed.org) GlobeMed partners its university chapters with grassroots organizations working in impoverished communities to address injustices in health access throughout the world and train the next generation of global health leaders in sustainable, community-driven social change. The UW chapter is partnered with a Cambodian organization called Women’s Development Association (WDA), a non-profit, non-political, and non-governmental organization established by a group of poor women who joined together to improve the living conditions in slum villages in Phnom Penh City. WDA aims to help the poor, vulnerable and those living with HIV/AIDS empower themselves to address causes of ill health in their communities and access health care services as needed. Their programs focus on education promotion for the whole family and peace advocacy within the community.

As Marina and Kate wrote in their joint application for the Caldwell Award,

“Together with Sereithida Soreach, the executive director of the WDA, we have developed a project that will expand the reach of the WDA’s health education program into the rural provinces, thus in a very direct way advancing the human right to health of an entirely underserved population.

With our project, we will first provide the funds for the WDA to purchase two motorbikes, and then in conjunction with WDA workers, we will help them find and train ‘peer-educators’ who will work to disseminate health information (related to maternal health, water sanitation, and in particular the value of using local clinics) into entirely underserved rural populations. As Sereithida (Thida) described to us, many people living in rural villages do not trust the local health clinics, and thus they are unaware of basic preventative medicine and sanitation methods, and diseases are often untreated. By promoting health education from within the community itself, this valuable information will be spread through trusted community sources.

Through our fundraising efforts we will be able to support this program for the next year. However, our goal is to make the program sustainable enough that it will continue and expand for the next ten years. To this end, we will spend the summer in Phnom Penh both instituting the program and developing the systematic data streams required to procure grants large enough to create a lasting endowment. This will require that we carefully measure and document the outcome of the program, both in order to potentially improve upon it, and to generate the accountability metrics we will need to apply for larger grants from international aid organizations. We anticipate that our first month in country will be spent working with the WDA to develop the program, produce the necessary materials, and train the peer educators. The next month and a half will be spent gathering data on the reach and efficacy of the program, and then using that data to apply for larger grants. …By grounding the project firmly within the community, establishing transparent systems of monitoring and evaluation, and continuing to seek out larger sources of funding, we will help create a sustainable program that will continue to grow in the years to come.”

Marina and Kate’s commitment to this work has a long track record. While they have devoted considerable energies to preparing their project in Phnom Penh, a key part of GlobeMed’s approach is also emphasizing connections to, and education among, university students in the United States. As Marina and Kate explained,

“In support of this goal, we have spent the year bringing a wide range of students into the project through fundraising and education programs. Every week GlobeMed hosts ‘Global Health U,’ a student-led information session on issues in global health and, in particular, how the WDA approaches these issues. By educating other students about our project with the WDA, and more broadly the human-rights issues endemic to Cambodia, we have been able to link our two communities in a tangible way. This connection is further solidified through our fundraising efforts, from a GlobeMed/Jackson School “Pub Crawl” to an individual giving program in which students purchased “shares” of the WDA’s new motorbikes, we have raised money and awareness, thus providing students with a sense of connection and ownership of our project in Cambodia. Additionally, we will be presenting our project to an audience 500 at GlobeMed’s ‘Global Health Summit’ this spring at Northwestern University. While we have been very happy to research aspects of Cambodian human rights, health care, and the WDA’s work for various classes, we feel that the greatest value of our work this summer will be the way that it brings a sense of connection to our two disparate communities, and in so doing helps other students on campus realize the incredible impact each of us can have on human rights around the world.”


Ursula Mosqueira is a third-year Ph.D. student in sociology at the University of Washington. Originally from Chile, since beginning her graduate studies at UW she has focused on processes of collective memory and human rights. Her master’s thesis focuses on the development of the Museum of Historical Memory and Human Rights in Chile as a process by which the Chilean state grapples with the complex legacies of accountability in the wake of the Pinochet dictatorship. This year, Ursula has been a key participant in a number of projects at the Center for Human Rights, including a research project connected in conjunction with immigrant rights organization OneAmerica, documenting human rights concerns raised by Border Patrol practices within the state of Washington, and another project dealing with research and documentation of crimes against humanity committed in the context of El Salvador’s 12 year civil conflict.

As Ursula described in her application,

“Partnering with two human rights organizations in El Salvador, the Center for Human Rights has been gathering data on human rights abuses committed by the Army and security forces during El Salvador’s civil war (1980-1992). Recently, the team… has encountered new evidence that will be crucial in establishing the systematic and institutionalized nature of repression implemented by the Salvadoran government during the war period in a way that will allow our partners to initiate legal action against former perpetrators of crimes against humanity. At UW, Professor Godoy has been working on this task with a group of [students, in coordination with our Salvadoran partners]. Although initially the case will be brought to the Salvadoran courts, the team is exploring further legal action before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, before criminal and civil courts in the US against Salvadoran perpetrators residing in this country, and possibly before [third-country] courts under the principle of universal jurisdiction.”

Ursula’s involvement with this project began in February 2012 when she assisted during a private strategy session held at the Center for Human Rights between Salvadoran victims and human rights advocates and international justice experts. As she wrote in her application, the chance to be present for such high-level discussions shaping the future of human rights campaigning in El Salvador was inspiring and transformational for her, and she is eager to continue to contribute however she can:

“The effects of this research project could potentially be tremendous in both judicial and social terms. Bringing the case to justice will likely set a precedent for other similar cases, establishing a theoretical and evidentiary framework that could motivate future legal initiatives, as was the case in Chile after Judge Garzón indicted Pinochet in 1998. Even if this legal action does not result in convictions, it can make the Salvadoran state more accountable regarding victims’ right to truth and reparation; the excavation of illegal mass graves is one result the team aspires to prompt.”

With support from the Caldwell Fund, Ursula will continue her work in support of the project by attending and assisting with the next international strategy session, currently planned for June 2012 in Mexico. This quarter, she is assisting Prof. Godoy in supervising a group of undergraduate students conducting research into wartime abuses using US declassified documents and human rights reporting from the 1980s.
 

 

 2011 Award Recipients

Abby Temple and Melanie Robinson ~ Worked in Loitokitok, Kenya to help the teachers and staff at DEB Primary School build a Learning Resource Center and design a sustainable curriculum emphasizing self-development for school students.

  

2010 Award Recipients

Lydia Ansari ~ Worked with Refugee Consortium of Kenya on gender-based violence in urban refugee camps in Nairobi

Mariah Ortiz ~ Worked with Kenyan Human Rights Commission on reproductive rights and transitional justice

 

 

Center for Human Rights
University of Washington
Cunningham 214
Box 353650
Seattle, WA 98195
►uwchr@uw.edu

Angelina Snodgrass Godoy
Helen H. Jackson Endowed Chair in Human Rights
Director, Center for Human Rights
►agodoy@u.washington.edu

Gai-Hoai T. Nguyen
Assistant Director, Center for Human Rights
►ghoaitn@uw.edu