Three Princeton students will receive $10,000 each as winners of the Kathryn Wasserman Davis 100 Projects for Peace program. Earlier this year, Mrs. Davis established the program on the occasion of her 100th birthday to encourage and support young people to create and implement specific plans of action that will have lasting effects in building peace throughout the world in the 21st century.

“I want to use my 100th birthday to help young people launch some immediate initiatives — things that they can do during the summer of 2007 that will bring new thinking to the prospects of peace in the world,” said Mrs. Davis.

The winning students will travel all over the world this summer to implement their projects, and report on their experiences when they return. They include:

• Celene Lizzio ’08 will travel to Cairo, Egypt, to establish the Salam Initiative, a program that combines mentoring, social interaction, and entrepreneurship for young people through the creation and sale of P(eace)-shirts that convey “Islam is Peace.”

• Julia Neubauer ’07 will travel to Pune, India, to create a computer literacy and cross-cultural exchange program focusing on breaking the cycle of poverty of India’s street children. The project will take place at the Ashraya Initiative for Children, which was co-founded by Neubauer as a home for street children in Pune.

• Danilo Mandic ’07 will undertake a project titled “After Kosovo,” a workshop series in Serbia, which will engage university students in the region in the opportunity for ethnic reconciliation and cultural respect.

KWD 100 Projects for Peace invited all students from schools participating in the Davis United World College (UWC) Scholars Program to submit a plan for their own grassroots projects for peace. A competition for the funding took place on 65 of the 76 campuses in the UWC Scholars Program, which provides grants to select American colleges and universities in support of students from all over the world who have completed their pre-university studies at UWC schools.

“We are very grateful to all the students who submitted proposals and to the many faculty and staff on all those campuses across the country who played a part in evaluating and submitting the students’ work,” said Executive Director of the Davis UWC Scholars Program Philip O. Geier. “Mrs. Davis sends her congratulations to all the students for their creativity and commitment. She feels this is a wonderful way to celebrate her birthday.”

Mrs. Davis, an internationalist and philanthropist, is the widow of Shelby Cullom Davis, a member of the Princeton Class of 1930 and U.S. ambassador to Switzerland from 1969 to 1975. Earlier this month, Mrs. Davis was joined by her son Shelby M.C. Davis, who also funds the Davis UWC Scholars Program, in donating $5 million to endow the Kathryn W. and Shelby Cullom Davis International Center at Princeton University.

Applications from Princeton students were received through the Pace Center. Senior Program Coordinator Phil Martin then worked with the students to help them to refine their ideas and guide them in developing projects that would be feasible and would match the requirements set for the program. The Pace Center serves as a central resource for civic engagement activities at Princeton, supporting individuals who want to get involved in public-service internships and fellowships; course work and research that address real-world problems; volunteer service; and a variety of other activities.

A complete list of the winning schools and projects, as well as a video interview with Mrs. Davis from 2006, is available on the program’s Web site at www.kwd100projectsforpeace.org.

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