Winter Burhoe '08 has been awarded a KWD 100 Projects for Peace grant of $10,000, which she will use for The Underground Café in Utica. Philanthropist Kathryn Wasserman Davis, on the occasion of her 100th birthday, established the new national program with a donation of $1 million. The objective of the program is to encourage and support motivated youth to create and implement their ideas for building peace throughout the world in the 21st century.
KWD 100 Projects for Peace invited students from schools participating in the Davis United World College Scholars program to submit a plan for their own grassroots projects for peace that the students themselves would implement during the summer of 2007. Students from 65 colleges and universities will receive funding under the grant.
In her proposal, Burhoe wrote that "Utica has the fourth highest density of refugees in the U.S...with 24.5% of all families living below the poverty line." She said "Youth in Utica tend to self-segregate into ethnic and racial groups" and cites a study that indicates "Utica is an emerging gang city."
With her grant, Burhoe hopes to foster greater awareness and understanding among youth in Utica and create opportunities for them to be heard. She has developed the GlobalYouthUnited program in collaboration with the Underground Café, a non-profit teen center on Genesee Street in Utica.
Through GlobalYouth United, Burhoe hopes to build on the foundation of the Underground Café to facilitate cultural exchange programs, leadership development workshops, a regional teen service exchange program and a global youth organizing campaign with a diverse group of refugee and low-income teens. Burhoe writes "These programs will raise the awareness of youth on issues pertaining to identity and differences -- issues of race, class, gender, nationality, sexuality and age -- with an emphasis on race and nationality. In addition it will provide them with the tools necessary to create positive social change in their community."
With her funding Burhoe plans to establish a youth board; organize a culture festival; produce a bi-monthly newsletter; and sponsor a youth-organized week-long service project, among other activities.
Burhoe is a religious studies major at Hamilton.
