The International Service Award was presented Thursday to Antonio Lacayo '07, who organized a project to build houses for impoverished residents of Nicaragua.
"The main purpose [of the award] is to recognize and encourage services around the world with the anticipation of being able to understand another culture," International Center director Paula Chow said.
The accomplishments of this year's 16 nominees ranged from providing sports gear to underprivileged children in the Princeton area to building a foster home for orphans in Bombay, India.
Lacayo and fourteen other students worked with Nicaragua's Habitat for Humanity for two weeks last summer to construct the basic structure of five houses in a barrio, or poor urban district, of Matagalpa.
Afterwards, the students participated in a week of touring the country's historical sites. They also met significant political figures, including the U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua, the current Nicaraguan president and a former president, Lacayo's grandmother.
According to Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson, Lacayo's vision, persistence and willingness enabled him to complete the project.
"He gave a tenacious effort to do something that would be meaningful for people in his home community, as well as for Princeton students who often live inside the bubble and don't realize how they can make an impact on the community beyond this one," Dickerson said.
Lacayo, who is one of two students on campus from Nicaragua, got the idea for the project when he went home for the summer.
"Working in this community ... opened my eyes to the state of poverty that more than half of Nicaraguans live in, and that's basically what I'm most thankful for," he said. "I was also trying to show my country to other people and show the many political issues going on."
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