A young
woman from District 5420 (Utah) has been awarded one of 50 worldwide Rotary
International Peace
Fellow sponsorships for a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict resolution
at International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan. The award, including
tuition, room & board, and language instruction is worth over US$90,000.
“Elizabeth Gamarra is one of those rare individuals whose
inner light and compassion guide her to create powerful and significant ways to
serve,” says Salt Lake Rotarian Mike Deputy, District Peace Committee Chair in
the endorsement letter. “Her intuitive
need to do good was established early and is clearly her lifelong path. The
faster she receives training at a high level, the more quickly she will rise to
doing truly great things in this world.”
Elizabeth has already done some great things with her life.
Born in
Lima, Perú and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, she receive a Bachelor of Social Work and then a Masters from the
University's College of Social Work with an emphasis in Global Women’s Health. Her
accomplishments are broad for someone so young:
· Elizabeth
founded the non-profit, “Generations of Latinos,” the Academic Journal
for Mentorship Across Cultures and Disciplines and the MentorMe® Project - platforms to help thousands of
students seize best education, career and activism related opportunities. Now,
with an online network of 1,000 tutors and mentors, students have won more than
$1 M USD in financial aid and scholarships.
· Her work as
Utah’s Student Activist Coordinator for Amnesty International USA, researcher
at the Center for Research on Migration and Refugee Integration
(CRMRI), and founder of the non-profit Generations of Latinos in
Higher Education, have provided her a broad and comprehensive
understanding of the challenges rooted in integration, conflict, economic
inequality, and education; particularly in communities of color.
·
Elizabeth is
a former TEDxSaltLakeCity speaker: A Uniting Journey of
Perspectives: Human Mobility,” and most recently spoke at the University of Oxford Consortium for Human Rights on
climate justice and eradicating poverty.
·
Her
contributions have been recognized through Diversity and Equity University of
Utah Award, the Outstanding Researcher Award in 2015 and 2016, the National
Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) Graduate Award, the
Utah Young Philanthropy Award, and most recently the 2017 Martin Luther King
Jr. Drum Major Award through the Utah Human Rights Commission.
·
Elizabeth is
currently on a Fulbright Grant to teach and do research at the Instituto de Empresa (IE) University of
Madrid and Segovia in Spain.
After
graduate school, she looks forward to continuing the advancement of human
rights and wishes to work on the design of new and viable policies that can
lead developing countries, such as her own, down a path of equal opportunity,
growth, and justice. She hopes to pursue a Juris Doctorate and a Latin Legum
Magister (LLM) in Human Rights, focused on capacity building for refugees and
peace
building efforts within host and
neighboring countries.
Elizabeth
writes in her application, “My culturally diverse background has filled me with
pride to never forget where I come from and reach back to help those around me
through the doors of opportunity.”
