Double the Fun: Two Juniors Receive Travel Grants
It’s double the global learning and double the fun this year for Ellis juniors Payton Ferris and Lauren Jasper who have been named the 2018 awardees of the Marcie WATERMAN Love ’56 International Travel Grant for the Global Empowerment of Women and Girls. Instead of choosing just one grant winner this year, Marcie chose to offer both Lauren and Payton her name-sake grant after they both exhibited a clear sense of purpose and passion for global learning in their applications and proposals. As recipients of the alumna-funded grant, Payton and Lauren will step outside of their comfort zones and travel to Guatemala and South Africa to pursue independent study abroad projects aimed at empowering women. When they return for their senior year, their experiences will inform their senior project.
Lauren will spend five weeks in South Africa as part of The Experiment in International Living’s South Africa: Leadership and Social Change program. While there, she will immerse herself in the culture of South Africa and learn about the country’s complex history through the people and places she visits, such as Kruger National Park for a two-day safari and Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years. From Cape Town to Johannesburg and everything in between, Lauren will learn entrepreneurial and leadership skills through the lens of social change.
Payton will participate in a new innovative program offered by Envoys titled Stronger Together: Developing Authentic Girls’ Empowerment Across Borders. This collaborative program will connect Payton with students at Denver’s Girls Athletic Leadership School in a partnership with the Guatemalan organization Starfish to affect positive change in girls education in this Central American country. Payton, along with her peers from Denver and Guatemala, will research and develop tools and programs for the girls school before their visit and then implement their ideas during a week-long immersion in Guatemala in early September.
Dr. Susan Corbesero, Global Initiatives Coordinator and History Department Chair, facilitates the process for students and helps them choose a program that’s the best fit for them. A stalwart believer in the importance of global citizenship, Susan shared, “this award is really an opportunity for students to take their leadership development to the next level. While empowering girls across the globe, Lauren and Payton will learn more about themselves and their future in the process,” she said. “There’s no other award quite like this that I know of. Marcie’s passion and commitment to the empowerment of women began at Ellis and she is now inspiring more generations of Ellis students to advance that cause on the global stage.”
At Ellis, we believe that exposing students to new experiences like the Marcie WATERMAN Love ’56 International Travel Grant for the Global Empowerment of Women and Girls positions them to be successful in any future learning or work environment. Inspired by Marcie’s own experiences traveling in developing countries, the international travel grant offers students an opportunity to pursue their passions, develop their unique voices, and connect with other cultures in a meaningful and authentic way.
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