Two Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity stu­dents and a recent alum­nus are spend­ing the sum­mer in Nicaragua and Brazil pur­su­ing new and cre­ative ideas for pro­mot­ing peace through grants from the Davis Projects for Peace. The pro­gram awarded more than $1 mil­lion to stu­dents from uni­ver­si­ties across the coun­try to pur­sue inter­na­tional endeav­ors dur­ing sum­mer 2012.

Luciana Chamorro, a recent grad­u­ate of the Class of 2012 and a native of Nicaragua, received a $10,000 grant to help mem­bers of the com­mu­nity of Mata­galpa tell their sto­ries of the 1980s civil war through the project “Sto­ries of the Civil War: Empow­er­ing a Gen­er­a­tion Through Com­mu­nity Film­mak­ing.” High school and col­lege stu­dents, video artists, schol­ars and the broader pop­u­la­tion will col­lab­o­rate in a work­shop to pro­duce a video doc­u­men­tary, Chamorro said.

“The per­sonal nar­ra­tives of the war will col­lec­tively pro­vide a view of the recent local his­tory of Mata­galpa, with the premise that under­stand­ing the past is empow­er­ing and gives a com­mu­nity the tools to think about their present and reimag­ine their future,” Chamorro said. She hopes that such a project will help “rec­og­nize in the past the seeds of our cur­rent polit­i­cal and social issues, and use this under­stand­ing to build a more just and peace­ful future for Nicaragua.”

The team of Court­ney Crum­pler and Sarah Simon, both mem­bers of the Class of 2013, were awarded $10,000 to con­front issues of health, nutri­tion and vio­lence by mobi­liz­ing an under­priv­i­leged com­mu­nity, known as a favela, in Rio de Janeiro to build sus­tain­able rooftop gar­dens. Their project, “Cul­ti­vat­ing Restora­tive Spaces: Improv­ing Health and Reduc­ing Vio­lence Through Urban Gar­dens,” aims to bring youth and their fam­i­lies together while learn­ing about food through sus­tain­able gardening.

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