Kareem Watson ’16, a public policy major at Hamilton, has received the Humanity In Action Fellowship for travel to Berlin this summer. He is the first Hamilton student to receive this award. The fellowship recognizes commitment to social justice and future promise for community leadership. Humanity in Action is an international educational organization headquartered in New York City.
The Humanity in Action Fellowship programs brings together international groups of college students and recent graduates to explore past and present examples of resistance to intolerance, with a goal of encouraging future leaders to be engaged citizens and responsible decision makers.
Watson was one of 48 students and recent graduates selected for the program out of a pool of 513 applicants from universities and colleges across the United States.
Major: Public Policy
Hometown: Brookly, N.Y.
High School: Science, Technology & Research Early College High School at Eramus
The Humanity in Action Fellowship programs in Europe take place from May 27 through June 26 in Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Paris, Sarajevo and Warsaw. Before embarking for the European programs, the U.S. Fellows will participate in an orientation workshop in Washington, D.C. The orientation will focus on American civil rights, Holocaust education and European security and political issues. It will also advise Humanity in Action Fellows on how to engage human rights work in innovative and artistic ways. While a student at Hamilton, Watson participated in a legal outreach internship program with three law firms in New York City. He has been a math tutor with the Young People’s Project, is an Annual Fund Phonathon student caller, manager of the Tech crew, co-founder of the Caribbean Students Association, organization chair of Feminist Color Collective and a DJ and co-host for Hamilton radio station WHCL.
The Humanity in Action fellowship programs are interdisciplinary and feature daily lectures and discussions with renowned academics, journalists, politicians and activists, as well as site visits to government agencies, non-profit and community organizations, museums and memorials. The programs seek to highlight different models of action to remedy injustice relating to diverse societies.
Since 1999, Humanity in Action has engaged more than 1,500 Fellows in its transatlantic study programs focusing on human rights and minority issues—past and present—in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and the United States.
