Lauren Levy

PhD Candidate, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (Counseling Psychology)
Generando/ASECSA
El Teja, Chimaltenango, Guatemala

Lauren hopes to create a grassroots effort that educates and empowers all women to fight for equality in Guatemala. She will be spending her summer interning with Generando and ASECSA, based in Guatemala, Mexico.  Lauren will be working on a project that will “structure and disseminate programs surrounding medical, legal and psychological care for survivors of sexual assault or family violence,” and hopes to provide psychological services to some women.  “With the Cmiel award, I will advance my professional goals while simultaneously contributing to the fight for basic human rights for Latina women: Each of them deserves a life free from the possibility of femicide or other forms of gender violence,” Levy said.

Farai Marazi

MA Candidate , College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (Anthropology)
Coalition for the Homeless
New York City

Farai hopes to pursue anthropology at the doctoral level at the University of Iowa after receiving his M.A. Degree in anthropology.  This summer he will be in New York City, working with the Coalition for the Homeless, to advocate on behalf of homelessness.  “It is my plan in participating in this internship that my work will go on to influence the manner in which the terms of New York City’s ‘Right to Shelter’ law are adhered to by the city administrators in ways that will benefit the homeless,” Marazi said.  While interning with the Coalition, Farai will launch video blogs of homeless individuals.  Marazi believes the project will serve to “give homelessness a face and voice in a way that captures their stories and humanizes their experiences.”

Kathleen Miller

M.D. Candidate , Carver College of Medicine
Mama Mwashi’s Maternity Home
Moshi, Tanzania

Kathleen is currently a first-year medical student at the Carver College of Medicine.  This summer she will be working with Mama Mwashi’s Maternity Home in Moshi, Tanzania where she will assist with home –based nursing.  She hopes to “increase awareness of global health concerns and the continuing inequities that present a challenge to women worldwide.”   Miller claimed to chose Tanzania because she wants to “learn about global health within the larger context of social inequities and the resulting human rights violations.” 

Nathan Rourke

Undergraduate, College of Engineering (Chemical Engineering)
Engineers Without Borders
Ghana, Africa

Nathan is a junior in chemical engineering at the University of Iowa.  He will spend his summer in Ghana, Africa, interning with Engineers without Borders.  He will be traveling to Africa with a group of students from the University of Iowa to conduct an assessment of Sanitary Water Supply, Sanitation, and Health.  Rouke will work as a key leader in the project, with a mission to administer feeding programs, using high protein maize, and to do microfinance loans for coca production improvements, etc.  Nathan and his wife, Sara, plan to utilize his engineering skills and her physician skills to “improve the lives of those in disadvantaged communities through service and education.”

Sara Rourke

M.D. Candidate , College of Medicine
Engineers Without Borders
Ghana, Africa

Sara is a third year medical student at the University of Iowa.  She will spend her summer traveling with a group of students in association with Engineering Without Borders to establish the baseline health status as well as determine water sanitation needs and desires of individuals in Africa.  Rouke will work as a key leader in the project, with a mission to “create a more stable and prosperous world by addressing people’s basic human needs.”  Along with a team of volunteers and public health graduate students, Rouke will conduct a community health assessment survey in Ejura and surrounding villages and allow observation of how “access to clean water affects these individual’s health over time.”  Rouke urges it would be her privilege to assist in bringing the most basic of human rights to the people of rural Ghana.

Matthew A. Rysavy

M.D. Candidate, College of Medicine
Nhamatanda Hospital/Universidade Catolica De Beria
Beira, Mozambique

Rysavy is a medical student at Carver College of Medicine.  He will be spending his summer interning with the Nhamatanda Hospital to examine ways to improve obstetric healthcare delivery.  Rysavy specifically plans to “consider how distance from the hospital and other healcare resources correlates with pregnancy outcome and examine how these outcomes can be improved.”   He will carry out his project to find ways to improve child and maternal health outcomes in Nhamatanda District.

Andrew P. Saito

MFA Candidate , College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (Theatre Arts-Playwriting)
Guatemala

Saito plans to spend his summer working with the Ngo Cultural Survival’s Community Radio project in Guatemala.  He will use his “skills and experiences as a playwright to mentor the creation of original dramatic scripts for radio broadcast in the Tz’utujil and Mam languages, and to create an educational and artistic model for play creation that cultural Survival can later develop and replicate in other villages.”  His internship will mark the first time that a professional writer has worked with Cultural Survival to support the creation of drama by Mayan artists, in Mayan languages, for Mayan audiences.  “This internship will allow me to use my vocation as a playwright to directly support a human rights issue I care about passionately,” Saito said.