Living in India during high school, Julia Neubauer '07 saw a three-year-old girl in the corner of an orphanage every day. She soon became attached to her young friend and even thought about adopting her.
But within months, the orphan died from AIDS.
Devastated by the girl's death, Neubauer founded an orphanage with a group of friends from her high school. Three weeks ago, she and two other Princeton students — Celene Lizzio '08 and Danilo Mandic '07 — received a grant of $10,000 to further their volunteer projects.
The money comes from philanthropist Kathryn Wasserman Davis, who celebrated her 100th birthday in February by providing grants to 100 students around the country.
The program, called "100 Projects for Peace," aims to "get the young people of today thinking about what they can do to make it a more peaceful and better world," Davis said.
All of the funded projects will be implemented this summer.
Despite having lived through two world wars and many of history's most turbulent moments, Davis said she has "lived in a very wonderful century." But, she added, she is eager to keep making changes.
"She really got excited about the fact that she was empowering young people to really take charge and embrace this idea of peace that her and my generation had failed on," Phil Geier, a private advisor to Wasserman on philanthropy, said.
He added that it was "extra special" that three Princeton students received scholarships, since most schools only received one or two.
Lizzio, Neubauer and Mandic were selected for the grant from among 22 Princeton applicants, Pace Center senior program coordinator Philip Martin, who assisted the applicants in tailoring their projects to University guidelines, said.
"It was amazing to see so many students — not just the ones who eventually won the award — directing their passion, their intellect, everything, at trying to make some part of the world a better place," Martin said.
He added that all of the selected winners have "deep connections" to the countries where they will be working.
Lizzio's project involves working with a team of Egyptians to design T-shirts sporting the message, "Islam means peace." She aims to recruit participants who are "committed to the ideals of the project but at the same time might be in need of a channel through which to act on their views," she said.
She added that she hopes to spur "the children and young adults to consider their role in the community and the part they can play in building an ethic of peace."
Lizzio, a U.S. citizen, was inspired to spearhead the project after spending several years living in Egypt. While there, she said, she recognized that there is "so much room in Egypt to build community."
Danilo — whose "After Kosovo" project uses a series of workshops to promote stabilization, respect and reconciliation in Serbia — said he was drawn to the Projects for Peace program because of the opportunity it offered students to "look beyond state borders."
"Although Princeton has a great study abroad office and international internships," he said in an email, "we have a lot more work to do in exposing students to different people, histories, cultures and political environments — and supporting important efforts in the so-called Third World."
Neubauer is using the grant to build a computer education center in the Indian orphanage she founded several years ago. Noting that computer literacy has become especially essential in India, she added that she hopes her project will help children "get a job and keep them off the streets."
"I'm most excited about the fact that for us, it's going to really create resources that are sustainable," she said.
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