I’ve been hearing about some great new social impact initiatives from Wesleyan students. I recently met Trevon Gordon, who is finishing his third year at Wesleyan, majoring in chemistry and heading to Columbia University for the “2” part of the 3:2 engineering program.
Trevon is working with SAHA Global to bring solar power electricity sources to Ghana. He has already put together funds for creating a locally led group to develop and run the power source, and he is raising money to participate in the implementation stage for this project here. He’s getting close, and every gift brings him that much closer.
There are many other individual Wesleyan students and groups organizing worthy endeavors on campus and around the world. You can read about many of them on the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship’s website.
Students with the Wesleyan Refugee Project are giving their time to assist refugees from not only Syria but around the world. They are volunteering with local community organizations—helping refugees with resettlement applications and accessing housing and energy subsidies, and tutoring them in English—as well as fundraising for international NGOs and agencies, and organizing speakers here on campus. Read more about their efforts here.
And Wesleyan’s Invisible Men group recently started the Invisible Men Experience Grant Program. Beginning this summer, the Invisible Men hope to award two grants of up to $5,000 to students who normally wouldn’t be able to afford a particular professional development opportunity. Anyone interested in donating to this effort can do so here.
I’m always interested to hear about students engaged in social impact work. If you’d like to share your project, please submit a comment on the blog!
Loved reading this post! Brighter Dawns is a non-profit organization committed to resolving health issues in slum communities in Bangladesh. Our current project addresses clean water access and lack of sanitation, by repairing and maintaining tube wells and sanitary latrines, as well as holding health seminars to teach women and schoolchildren the importance of basic sanitary practices such as hand-washing. Most members on our executive board are Wesleyan alumni– including the Founder and “Chief Inspirational Officer,” Tasmiha Khan ’12.
Thank you for blogging about this! I feel so lucky to work with these and so many other student changemakers. There are of course too many to mention them all, but I’d like to take this opportunity to shout out to a few-
Hannah Sokoloff-Rubin ’16, Jesalyn Ortiz ’16, and Zandy Stovicek ’17 co-lead the Wesleyan Doula Project, a student-run, volunteer collective that improves access to quality women’s health care. http://engageduniversity.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2015/09/14/pcse-seed-grants-in-action-report-2-from-the-wesleyan-doula-project/
Bashaun Brown, Gabe Weinreb ’18, and Irvine Peck’s-Agaya ’18 are launching TRAP House, which harnesses and redirects the entrepreneurial energy of communities currently plagued by high rates of drug activity http://wnpr.org/post/confronting-social-injustice#stream/0 (start at 15:30)
Wishing Wells – founded by Tavo True-Alcala ’15, Brent Packer ’15, Nina Gerona ’15 – helped Wesleyan eliminate disposable plastic water bottles http://wwells.org/
JooMah – founded by a team of young Wes alums and powered by Chief Technology Officer Max Dietz ’16 – aims to transform hiring in sub-Saharan Africa https://www.joomah.com/
During her freshman year at Wes, Claudia Kahindi ’18 designed and implemented a successful summer education program in her home village of coastal Kenya http://engageduniversity.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2015/09/19/2015-davis-projects-for-peace-recap-from-claudia-kahindi-18/
Alex Garcia ’17 and Mika Reyes ’17 are co-presidents of Kai Entrepreneurship Wesleyan, a group focused on equity and inclusion in entrepreneurship. They opening doors for underrepresented groups in tech and startups. http://www.kaiwes.com/
These are just a few of the many Wes students making an impact. Thank you again for helping to share their stories!
-Makaela Kingsley ’98
Director, Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship