Princeton University senior Sarah Kamanzi, has been awarded the Henry Richardson Labouisse ’26 Prize to pursue international civic engagement projects for one year following graduation. Other collegues who got the same award are: Chisom Ilogu, Leopoldo Solis and Lydia Spencer.
Princeton University senior Sarah Kamanzi, has been awarded the Henry Richardson Labouisse ’26 Prize to pursue international civic engagement projects for one year following graduation. Other collegues who got the same award are: Chisom Ilogu, Leopoldo Solis and Lydia Spencer.
The Labouisse Prize, which awards $30,000 to each recipient, enables graduating seniors to engage in a project that exemplifies the life and work of Henry Richardson Labouisse, a 1926 Princeton alumnus who was a diplomat, international public servant, and champion for the causes of international justice and international development. The prize was established in 1984 by Labouisse’s daughter Anne Peretz and family. It is administered by the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS).
Kamanzi, a French and Italian concentrator from Kigali, Rwanda, will interview African international students in Rwanda, like herself, who come from low income-backgrounds but have acquired socioeconomic and passport privileges.
« Throughout my time at Princeton, I was reminded of the significance of an American education for a Black low-income African woman and how it could benefit my family and [me], both financially and socially,» she said. « It would provide me with access to better life opportunities, and I could, in turn, transform my community and assuage the effects of colonization, slavery, imperialism and a very recent genocide. Even with that determination, I recently had to confront the quintessential dilemma for people like me: Should I stay in the U.S. and freely grow as an individual or go back home and start to build again ? »
Her Labouisse project will tell the stories of people like her, she said — people who come from low-income backgrounds but have acquired socioeconomic, ethnic and passport privileges.
« I want to explore the decisions, doubts, failures, mistakes, mishaps, losses that make us feel like we are living multiple lives at once, » she said. Kamanzi hopes to turn her interviews into a mini web series similar to the television show « Insecure » created by Issa Rae.
Kamanzi has taken courses in film history and writing at Princeton, and will partner with Iriba Art Center in Kigali, Rwanda, during her fellowship year. The organization will provide her with physical workspace, as well as research materials, as she develops her script.
« This is an ambitious project, but I have no doubt that Sarah has the skills to pull it through, » said Simon Gikandi, the Robert Schirmer Professor of English and chair of the Department of English.
« Even if Sarah is just able develop a pilot project on the changing cultural landscape of young Africans in a global context, this will be a major achievement, providing a space for articulating what it means to be African in the 21st century. »
In addition to her courses in French and African studies at Princeton, Kamanzi has taken classes on development and nature conservation at the University of Namibia and Francophone studies on East Africa at the Université Paris 8 Vincennes–Saint-Denis. She has also been engaged with African entrepreneurship, setting up a start-up company with the support of two grants from the Keller Center for Innovation. At Princeton, she serves as the artistic director of the DoroBucci Dance Group, the student-led African dance ensemble.
Due to ongoing uncertainty about global travel, these projects might be modified accordingly.
« The current COVID-19 pandemic, with its tragic death toll, spreading disease and poverty, and exposing deep domestic and global inequalities, racism and injustices, also serves to remind us that no nation can go it alone and that we need to continue our efforts to work together to make this a better world, » said Emmanuel Kreike, professor of history and chair of the Labouisse selection committee. « Despite COVID-19, this year’s and last year’s Labouisse fellows continue to follow in the footsteps of alumni like Henry Labouisse even though their service to less privileged communities abroad under the current circumstances often takes place in an online format. »
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