Human rights activists in South Africa.
Levine/Weinberg Fellowship
The COVE selects students annually for the Levine/Weinberg Endowed Summer Fellowship. This fellowship provides highly qualified students, interested in pursuing a career in community and/or public work, with summer internship funding in the field of direct community service. This year’s recipients are:
Miranda Scott ’18 interned at Africa Unite in Cape Town this summer. Africa Unite is a human rights and youth empowerment organization that works with citizens, refugees and migrants to prevent conflicts, enhance social cohesion, and promote socioeconomic development. It was formed in 2001 in response to violence against asylum seekers, refugees and migrants in a sprawling, impoverished, predominantly black township on the outskirts of Cape Town. Africa Unite focuses on building the knowledge and skills of Human Rights Peer Educators, facilitating reciprocal learning exchanges with community-based and migrant-led structures, and creating a platform for intercultural exchange and dialogue between local, refugee and migrant communities in South Africa.
Miranda’s goals for the internship furthering the human rights causes in South Africa and to ensure a smoother transition for immigrants into the surrounding townships of Cape Town. She wanted to understand how people in the same country can experience a life so vastly different in privilege and hardships. She was looking for an experience that would broaden her global perspective and challenge her to become an independent thinker and leader. She wanted to be out of her comfort zone and take on more responsibility than she had in past jobs. She chose to pursue this internship with Africa Unite because of the unique opportunity to experience severe inequality in the context of hope. She did not expect or intend to change the world on this trip or to save anyone’s life, but she felt it important to educate herself firsthand on the truly pressing issues of the world. She says, “Being at such a wealthy school [Colgate], it is essential to seek opportunities of discomfort and growth so as not to become narrow-minded or ignorant. I am an optimist and think that the world can and will get better; but in order for that to happen, people need to be able to understand the dire need for human rights and equitable education.”
Lukuo Lee ’17 interned with Engage Chicago this summer. Engage Chicago is an eight-week summer field-study program organized through Northwestern University that gives bright undergraduates from across the nation a chance to live, work, serve, and learn together in Chicago, amidst a rich history and culture of civic engagement. The program model deliberately combines academic coursework, internships at community organizations and civic institutions, and powerful community experiences — all under the guidance of expert Northwestern faculty, staff, and community mentors.
Through hands-on experience, thoughtful reflection, and a summer living with a vibrant community of peers, Engage Chicago is designed to be a powerful opportunity for students to learn about a great city, about social change, and about themselves.
Lukuo’s goals for the summer, work experience in a health-related organization, shadow experience with practicing medical professionals, and service work. The Engage Chicago program covers each of those goals, as an intern for a nonprofit organization within the health & medicine field. He was also a part of the program’s health & medicine concentration, in which he participated in weekly site visits, conversations with healthcare leaders, practitioner, and patients, and volunteer service. Being able to work and live alongside other students of his age and career path allowed him to gain other perspectives toward how they are tackling the pre-med track. Finally, being able to work in the public health field alongside the field of medicine, allowed him to get a feel for how both areas function, which would help him make better decisions toward his career goal of becoming a doctor.