Congratulations to the 2010 MGF Fellows!

Shenan Bradshaw

DDS Candidate Class of 2012
UNC School of Dentistry
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I have organized the first annual UNC Dentistry Nepal Project in which a team of 4 students, including myself, under the guidance of faculty Drs. Frazier Keck and Andre Ritter will travel to Nepal for a period of four weeks. We will work in conjunction with the Nepalese organization Health Society of Nepal and plan to hold two four day dental camps in the Solukhumbu and Chitwan regions of rural Nepal where we will teach daily oral hygiene practices in schools and community centers and distribute supplies such as toothbrushes and toothpaste. We will also provide much needed dental care such as extractions, fillings, cleanings, and sealants. After our first camp in the Solukhumbu region we will continue on foot for 13 days to Mount Everest Base Camp providing oral hygiene education and supplies to villages along the route. Finally we plan to travel to the nearby Indian state of Sikkim and the Taktse International School to teach children and educators about oral hygiene and how to relay this information to others in their community.

Tasha Prados

UNC Chapel Hill Class of 2011
Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Latin American Studies Double Major
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I am honored and thrilled embark on the experience of a lifetime as a Mahatma Gandhi Fellow. The fellowship will enable me to spend six weeks in the Republic of Maldives interning with the NGO Live & Learn and working on the Innovative Gardening and Education Project. At an average of only 1.8 meters above sea level, the Maldives is slowly being engulfed by global warming induced ocean expansion. In the meantime, increasing salinity is threatening food production in a country already devastated by the 2004 tsunami and importing much of its food. We will conduct education workshops and introduce raised no-till gardens through Islands Women's Committees. I hope to empower women to take charge of their own food sovereignty as an educated response to climate change while building civil society in the newly democratic Maldives.

2010 Fellowship Application

The 2010 Mahatma Gandhi Fellowship is now available. Visit the 'How to Apply' page for more information.

Apply by 5:00 PM, February 26th, 2010.

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The Mahatma Gandhi Fellowship

We live in a multi-cultural society where education and awareness of our diversity is essential. As students, we recognize the necessity of education through experience and its role in creating a cohesive community. To this end, we present the Mahatma Gandhi Fellowship.

The Mahatma Gandhi Fellowship was established in 1998 by a group of students in Sangam, a South Asian awareness group at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who sought to create a unique new educational opportunity for their fellow students at UNC. The Fellowship awards selected students each year up to $3000 to execute a project of their own design that benefits South Asians in some way, whether it is through direct service or increasing awareness of South Asian culture and issues. There is no restriction on where the project is undertaken nor on the exact nature of the project, just that it apply to South Asian issues in some way. All full-time students at UNC-Chapel Hill are welcome to apply.

To date, MGF has sponsored twenty-one Triangle-area students since the Fellowship's inception. Past fellows have been involved in a wide range of activities, ranging from the study of the condition of women in Tamil Nadu to research on cataracts and their effects in South India. Another past fellow traveled with a group of students from the United States across India conducting AIDS/HIV prevention education while simultaneously establishing a plan to create a self-perpetuating group in India do continue the work after they left. These Fellows have all been highly motivated, perseverant, and thoughtful individuals with a great deal of passion towards their topics.

Currently, students at UNC-Chapel Hill are working to raise the Fellowship's $125,000 endowment, a fund that will guarantee that this opportunity is available to all students for years to come. These fundraising efforts, as well as the Fellowship itself, are coordinated by the MGF Co-Chairs of Sangam.