February 8, 2007
Endowment celebrates 10 years of supporting student development
In 1997, Suzanne Jeneby went to Kenya as a 21-year-old Washington native, bringing nothing but a backpack and a determination to volunteer in a hospital. Four years later, she had founded a community center. Today, it serves more than 1,000 people each week.
At the same time, UW student Jeff Eaton, supervised by a UW faculty member, is modeling the HIV epidemic in northeastern South Africa. It’s part of the basic work necessary to work out large-scale treatment plans.
Eaton’s and Jeneby’s work, not to mention that of more than 2,000 other students, has been aided by the Mary Gates Endowment for Students at the UW. Jeneby and Eaton will be among those attending a Feb. 16 luncheon celebrating 10 years of the endowment.
Established by Bill and Melinda Gates, the endowment began with two gifts in the late 1990s totaling $20 million. It provides undergraduates chances for deep, rich intellectual experience outside the classroom. Four kinds of scholarships — honors, research, leadership and venture — have been awarded. In most cases, the student works with a mentor in the community or a UW faculty or staff member
Jeneby traces her focus on international relief to Regina, a 35-year-old AIDS patient she knew at the PCEA Kikuyu Hospital in Kenya. “She was so sick,” said Jeneby. “Her cheek bones practically had corners; her eyes were sunken deep. She was too weak to hold a glass of water.” Jeneby befriended Regina, only to find her dead one morning. She had died alone, said Jeneby, “third row back, first bed on the right.”
A desire to stop senseless death inspired Jeneby to establish the East African Center in 2001. Operating on $40,000 per year in Takaungu Village, which is about 30 miles north of Mombasa, the center offers 12 programs, including adult education, a nursery, a primary school, a health service, health education and small-business education. There’s also a milk-goat cooperative, a farming field school and sewing classes where women learn to make saleable clothing.
“I see the benefits of our real programming actually play out,” says Jeneby. “I see a woman put a door on her house with the money she’s made, another buy a goat, another write her name for the first time. Our results are tangible. Our grass roots approach transforms the world one child, one woman, one village at a time.”
Eaton is similarly aware of individual lives even though he focuses on large quantities of data. He’s working with Sociology Professor Samuel J. Clark and graduate student Jason Thomas to determine the extent of the HIV epidemic among 21 rural villages in Mpumulanga province. He’s also researched the potential for circumcision as an intervention strategy. (A study done in South Africa and published in 2005 showed circumcised men were 60 percent less likely to acquire HIV than uncircumcised ones.)
Eaton studies masses of census records, but sees each one as a snapshot of a multi-dimensional life. In a telephone interview, Eaton recalled his first day in South Africa last fall, how he saw large numbers of people simply standing by the side of the road — unemployment in the area is about 40 percent. He recalled chatting with a man at a community center, who in the middle of the conversation blurted out, “Hey man, I need a job.” Seeing Africa up close, said Eaton, has shown him the complexity of the continent’s challenges.
A 20-year-old native of Seattle, Eaton plans to graduate from the UW in 2008 with three degrees: one in mathematics, one in sociology, one in statistics. And oh yes, he’s also getting a minor in music. He’s played the double bass with the University of Washington Symphony.
Eaton said the Mary Gates Scholarship application forced him to distill his research goals into a focused plan that has a good chance of producing new knowledge, both for him and the community at large.
Some other UW students besides Eaton and Jeneby who have held Mary Gates scholarships:
- Kristi Govella studied Japanese animation, or anime, to learning about changing speech patterns among young Japanese women. She found growing use of masculine-style speech compared to more feminine and “polite” speech common in the past.
- Brandon Stogsdill was in prison for three years starting at age 17. There he woke up, eventually founding The REAL Experience, a multi-phase program that helps at-risk youth assess the consequences of their actions. It includes personal coaching, conversations with inmates and a support network.
- Rizanino Reyes received a venture scholarship to visit Sichuan China to collect seed and live plant material, and create pressed specimens for a herbarium collection. He plans a career as a professional horticulturalist.
The late Mary Maxwell Gates met her husband, Seattle lawyer and philanthropist William H. Gates, when they were UW students in the late 1940s. They subsequently had three children: Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft; Libby Gates Armintrout; and Kristianne Gates Blake (UW ’75), who with her father serves on the UW Board of Regents.
Mary Gates served as a regent for 18 years, chairing the Student Affairs Committee early in her tenure.
