2009 Scholarship Recipients

  • Jacobson Scholar

    Aidan Kwame Ahaligah, 33, a native of Ghana, earned a master’s degree in theology at Wartburg Theological Seminary and is using his scholarship to pursue a Ph.D. at Yale Divinity School, where he is studying inter-religious dialogue. Trained in theology in Ghana, he previously served parishes in an area experiencing long-standing tribal and religiousrelated violence. To promote peace and bring people together, he started a soccer league, formed a local music group, and helped restart the local council of churches that had been inactive. He plans to return to Ghana upon graduation. 

  • Jacobson Scholar

    Subhash Ghmire, 22, a native of Nepal, is a senior at St. Olaf College. He is studying political science as a means to learn how to improve the status and rights of the weakest members of Nepalese society and hopes to become a human rights lawyer. At St. Olaf, he is president of the Model United Nations Club. He is a columnist for Nepal’s largest English language newspaper and writes on South Asian issues for the Huffington Post. He is using his scholarship to run a summer camp for lower caste and war-affected children in Nepal and conduct an awareness program on minority rights and social justice. 

  • Ryan Alaniz, 31, Minneapolis, is pursuing a doctorate in sociology at the University of Minnesota. He has volunteered on community-based projects in Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua, co-directed a project for underprivileged children to visit their incarcerated fathers, and founded a non-profit organization (The Futbol Project) to obtain donations of sports equipment for orphanages in Central America and Africa. His dissertation research focuses on two communities devastated by a 1998 hurricane and the divergent outcomes of post-disaster resettlement initiatives. 

  • Adam Karas, 21, Frisco, Texas, is a senior at Carleton College, majoring in international relations with a concentration in the Middle East and East Asia. He received the U.S. Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarship to study Arabic and also spent a month in Yemen at the Yemen Institute for Arabic Language. He studied Hebrew for two months at the University of Haifa and is also learning Chinese. He was one of 30 Carleton students selected to participate in the college’s Middle East Mosaics Seminar, traveling and studying in Egypt, Turkey and Morocco.

  • Christine Meling, 24, a native of Sudan, is a senior at Luther College, majoring in social work and health. Her family was displaced by civil war and she grew up in a refugee camp in Uganda. While at Luther, she applied for and received a grant to build an elementary school in Yari, her home village in Sudan. She traveled to Sudan in 2008 and worked with the Yari community on construction of the school. Since her return to Luther, she has presented her story to a variety of groups and raised funds for additional needs of the school. The scholarship will be used to continue the school project and to pay for tuition for her final year. 

  • Gada Roba, 27, Minneapolis, is a 2009 graduate of the University of Minnesota, where he majored in global studies and political science. At the university, he participated in local and international social justice educational programs, leadership conferences and internships. He attended the Youth Leadership Africa conference in South Africa, interned with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, and took part in the Institute on Human Rights Capacity Building in Arusha, Tanzania. A native of Ethiopia, he is a leader in the local Oromo refugee community. He is using his scholarship for an internship with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society Refugee Trust of Kenya (HIAS).

  • Kyera Singleton, 20, Clementon, New Jersey, is a junior at Macalester College, majoring in American studies and women’s gender and sexuality studies and focusing her studies on Black feminist thought. At Macalester, she has served as chair of the Black History Month Committee, moderator of the Jena 6 Campus Wide Forum, and vice president of the Black Liberation Affairs Committee. On campus,she created a documentary, entitled “My Black Is Beautiful,” on the way in which young black women interact with issues of sexuality and intimacy. Last summer, she mentored girls from low-income families in the YWCA-Girls LEAD Program.

  • Danielle Taylor, 40, St. Paul, is pursuing a master’s degree in conflict transformation with a concentration in restorative justice at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at the Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia. For the past five years, she has worked with teen girls as an instructor and recreation therapist for Camp Thistledew, an alternative program of the Minnesota Department of Corrections.