Human Rights Grants Awarded

Undergraduates researching the Sudanese civil war, the European Court of Human Rights and development projects in northern Canada recently received several of the first annual grants for research in human rights.

The 10 recipients of the summer research awards from the University Committee on Human Rights received up to $1,500 each and will present their findings to the committee in the fall.

“The desire to advance knowledge and address pressing social and political issues at the same time is precisely what the committee hoped to encourage by instituting these new grants,” said Jacqueline Bhabha, the committee’s executive director, in a press release.

Religion concentrator Gerald L. Williams ’03 said he will use his $1,500 grant to research the connection between civil war and slavery in Sudan.

“I’m really happy the University at large is bringing human rights to a higher priority and providing resources for students involved,” he said.

Williams, who has already visited Sudan twice and worked for an anti-slavery group in Boston, said he is planning to travel to the East African country this summer.

Mervyn W. Han ’03. who is an environmental science and public policy concentrator, said he will use his $1,000 grant to “document hydroelectric development in Canada as a human rights concern.”

Han, who is also a Crimson editor, will spend a month this summer in northern Manitoba to research how dams built in the region have caused ecological damage and unemployment.

Government concentrator Bernd H. Beber ’03 received $540 from the committee to research the success of the European Union’s Court of Human Rights.

Beber has received grants from other parts of the University, for a total of $3,000, to fund the research he will undertake in France, Germany and Austria this summer.

“This is a very positive [grant], not just for the money, but for the opportunity to present our findings to a committee,” Beber said.

According to the award website, the money for the awards comes from Harvard Law School alumni Gustave and Rita Hauser.

Students interested in the award filled out an application in early April proposing research related “to issues that implicate human rights questions centrally,” according to the website.

Other award recipients include Alvaro M. Bedoya ’03, the Harvard-Rwanda Project, Nadia S. Johnson ’03, Kent K. Lam ’03, Scott S. Lee ’03, Alexander B. Patterson ’04 and Courtney A. Roberts ’03.

The awards were announced late last month.

—Staff writer Jenifer L. Steinhardt can be reached at steinhar@fas.harvard.edu.