Princeton junior Mathias Esmann will receive the 2010 International Service Award, which is presented annually by the Davis International Center to a student or student group in recognition of crosscultural humanitarian endeavors.
Esmann will receive the award at a ceremony at 5 p.m. Friday, May 21, in the entrance level of Campus Club. The ceremony is open to the public.
Esmann will be recognized for co-founding Global Minimum, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that has undertaken numerous projects in Sierra Leone aimed at combating the spread of malaria while promoting development in the country. His efforts in 2007 helped raise enough funds to work with a team to distribute 1,200 long-lasting, insecticide-treated mosquito nets in the country. He also organized the travel arrangements and visa applications for three Danish members of the team and led a mosquito net distribution team in the Malen chiefdom administrative area, located in the Pujehun district bordering Liberia.
During the summer of 2009, Esmann spent 10 weeks in Sierra Leone, where he led an 11-member team covering more than 110 miles on foot through 33 villages, distributing nets to more than 9,000 people.
Esmann is a major in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and is pursuing a certificate in French language and culture. He will focus his senior thesis research on the prevention and control of malaria in Sierra Leone. Committed to building on pre-existing health infrastructure as a means to improve and expand health care delivery, Esmann will seek to work in close collaboration with local health authorities and NGOs.
A second place award for international service will be given to senior Maura Mathieu for her work as the Student Volunteers Council's project coordinator in its collaboration with El Centro, a community center located in a Trenton, N.J., neighborhood of recent immigrants from Latin American countries. El Centro aims to help these immigrants learn English.
In addition to these awards, the Davis International Center will present honorary citations to the following students:
- Seniors Fatu Conteh and Hassen Yesuf for their contribution to the 2009 Davis Projects for Peace and the Development Grand Challenge internship on a water delivery project in Jorit, Ethiopia.
- Seniors Meghan McNulty and Neal Yuan for their contribution to the Engineers Without Borders/Davis Projects for Peace initiative that installed a photovoltaic system for power in a small clinic in Kono, Sierra Leone.
- Senior Veda Sunassee for founding the Young Volunteers Association to promote civic engagement in his home country of Mauritius.
- Junior Mohit Agrawal for his work with Engineers Without Borders on building a library in Ghana.
- Junior Jane Yang for her work with Engineers Without Borders on water supply issues in Peru and Ethiopia.
- Sophomore Chenyu Zheng for her contributions to the Princeton Costa Rica Connection by organizing a group of Princeton undergraduates to promote environmental awareness in Terraba, Costa Rica.
- Third-year graduate student Stephanie Hauck for her work helping women and children in Africa.
