On Sept. 21, the International Day of Peace, the Peace and Conflict Studies Program (PACS) will hold an informational session about the Davis Project for Peace.
The Davis Project for Peace is a $10,000 prize to support a student’s winning proposal. Over the summer, the winner will use the funds to implement a project aimed at promoting peace.
Angela Frimpong ’20, whose “Aspiring for More” project won last year’s Davis prize, will discuss her project and her experience at the informational session.
Frimpong’s project aimed to make educational resources such as internet more accessible to students in Jamestown, Ghana. The project provided 140 students from four schools with accessible educational resources, encouraging students to pursue their dreams.
In the summer of her gap year in 2015-2016, Frimpong visited many local schools in the community and noticed that the lack of computers in many schools prevented students from accessing educational resources online. Seeing the lack of connectivity to the internet motivated Frimpong to act. With funds from Vodafone Ghana, Frimpong began to think of a long-term plan to expose students to more educational resources.
“I [wanted] to motivate them to pursue high levels of education,” Frimpong said. “Because in low-income areas, I saw education as a tool for them to move up the social ladders.”
“The real challenge [was] connecting that project to peace,” Frimpong said. “What I did was, [look] at the area I [was working in]: the business, the stress, and I found the students without educational resources end up becoming thieves, and some may be in prison, somewhere that seclude them from society, and that definitely won’t create community.”
“I helped them realize the importance of school, and provided them with resources in the meantime. Then, the students with resources will be able to educate their friends and will continue building a sense of community. This was my connection to peace, and this makes me see peace differently,” Frimpong said.
Recalling her passionate and sometimes rough journey to successfully implementing her project, Frimpong stated that the most valuable lesson the experience offered her is a new definition of peace and humanity.
“Humanity is not only an intuitive to love, but also a core ability to listen humbly to different people, being present and offering help,” Frimpong said. “Peace is not only the absence of war; it’s community.”
According to Frimpong, International Day of Peace is not simply a special day to promote world-wide awareness of peace, but a medium through which people can disseminate love and kindness. For her, peace is not just about ending warfare, but in its essence, a sense of community.
“It is the day for us to think how far we’ve come and how far we are on our journey to end sexism, racism, poverty and to build a real community,” Frimpong said.
Frimpong will be discussing her project as part of the Davis Project for Peace informational session on Friday, Sept. 21 from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. in JRC 101.
