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UCLA students receive grant to fund development projects

By Emeizni Mandagi

May 10, 2015 7:14 p.m.

After a year of severe stomach pains, doctors diagnosed Jessa Culver with Crohn’s disease, a chronic inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract, and finally gave her the proper treatment. Her experience ignited in her a desire to prevent others from experiencing similar physical pains due to health complications.

Her passion for development projects led her to Peru in the summer, where she taught Spanish and English at an elementary school and helped refurnish its library.

Culver works with Noah Lizerbram, a second-year global studies student, whose interest in development projects was heavily influenced by his first international development project in India through Youth Jamz, a nonprofit organization that funds music programs for impoverished children on global and local scales.

Both their experiences motivated them to create the Global Development Lab at UCLA through a $10,000 grant they won last month from the Strauss Foundation. Through the lab, they hope to provide students with resources to create their own development projects, such as volunteering in a mobile clinic. The Donald A. Strauss Public Service Scholarship Foundation funds California college students’ development initiatives.

The Global Development Lab will focus on teaching students how to write grants proposals and cover the legal aspect of development projects through workshops and seminars. Students who participate in the lab will create development projects in spring quarter, Lizerbram said.

Culver, a second-year international development studies student, said the lab will aim to help students learn how to alleviate poverty globally and locally.

Duncan Strauss, trustee of the Strauss Foundation, said he hopes the lab will help more than just the students in it to prepare their own sustainable development projects.

“We want to create a lab where students not only learn, but also form a community in which they can build off each other’s passions and collaborate on the work they will be doing,” said Lizerbram.

The current timetable for the lab includes recruitment, applications and a core curriculum of seminars in a lecture-and-discussion format.

Lizerbram said the lab has solidified its curriculum and will confirm the list of guest speakers, which include professors, for each workshop within the next few weeks.

“It was like everything we had been planning and thinking about turned into something that was real and happening,” Culver said. “It felt so rewarding to be able to have finally started something and gotten progress.”

Culver and Lizerbram expect to launch the lab fall quarter. Students will be able to apply in fall and on a yearly basis.

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