Greene '13 and Laurenzi '13 awarded ReachOut fellowships

Abigail Greene ’13 and Christina Laurenzi ’13 have been awarded ReachOut fellowships of $30,000 to continue their demonstrated commitment to international service. Through the fellowship, Greene and Laurenzi will take on one-year public service projects in Nicaragua and South Africa, respectively.

The fellowship is sponsored by ReachOut 56-81-06, an intergenerational alumni organization committed to civic engagement. While ReachOut originally focused on domestic service, an anonymous donation from a Class of 1956 alumnus endowed an international component, which awards one to three fellowships every year. There are currently four other ReachOut fellows serving around the world.

Greene, a psychology major from Katonah, N.Y., will be working with Pro Mujer, a nonprofit development organization focused on women’s health and financing, to revamp and improve its healthcare outreach. She became interested in women’s empowerment on a service trip to Nicaragua in 2007.

“I met some incredible people who shared stories and made it clear that women of the developing world face serious compounding barriers that don’t otherwise exist,” Greene said, describing the dual challenges of poverty and gender discrimination. “Women’s empowerment is something I’ve been interested in but not had the opportunity to pursue at Princeton.”

Pro Mujer stands out to Greene for its three-pronged approach to microfinance and women’s empowerment, combining loans to women for small business development, business leadership training and healthcare initiatives.

“There is a real place for me to evaluate and help implement a new pilot program. I’m thrilled to be a part of it,” Greene explained.

Laurenzi, a politics major from Mountain Lakes, N.J., will work in the O.R. Tambo district of South Africa with the Mentor Mothers Zithulele community health program, part of the Philani Child Health and Nutrition Project, which focuses on child and maternal health.

“I was always interested in global health,” Laurenzi said. “I went to Haiti twice during high school and was inspired by being in developing countries and seeing some of the problems.”

While Laurenzi worked with Philani last summer in Cape Town, she said she expects this experience to have a number of new challenges.

“The Tambo program is only three years old, while Cape Town is 10 years old with an entirely different atmosphere,” she said. “Rural issues are not the same as urban pollution and sanitation.”

Laurenzi will be doing program monitoring and evaluation. “I will be looking at the data and the system they have for collecting information from clients,” she explained. “There is a reservoir of materials that’s being constantly updated with valuable information that is important to analyze.” To make a lasting impact, Laurenzi will try to look at ways to build this data analysis into the daily routine of Mentor Mothers.

Jean Telljohann ’81, the Vice President of Princeton ReachOut 56-81-06 and co-chair of the Fellowship Committee, said that while it is “heartbreaking” to not be able to award more fellowships, Greene and Laurenzi are “phenomenal young women.”

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“Both brought a tremendous passion and sincere dedication to the people they want to serve.” Telljohann said. “Their projects were well-thought-out, they made excellent presentations, and their goals are feasible to reach within a year.”

“This is a great fellowship for students because it really is an open-ended opportunity with very few limits on the type of projects we fund,” she said, while additionally making an appeal for more domestic applications.

In addition to the fellowships, ReachOut 56-81-06 has a mentoring program and a social entrepreneurship contest.