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Date: February 26, 1997
Princeton Senior Wins Award to Conduct Research in India and Nepal
Princeton, N.J. -- Sangita Shresthová, a member of Princeton University's Class of 1997, was recently awarded the Henry Richardson Labouisse '26 Fellowship for 1997. The award will allow Shresthová to travel to India and Nepal next year to carry out her project, "Long-term Effectiveness of Credit Schemes: The Possibility of Gender Empowerment?" She plans to conduct a detailed study of the Self-Employed Women's Organization (SEWA), based in India, to design a project that would transplant this model to other countries, especially Nepal.
Shresthová's three-stage project grew out of her senior thesis, which focuses on the implementation of German development policy and how it perpetuates gender stereotypes in Germany. The first stage examines the current position of gender issues in German society; the second evaluates German development policy on the policy-making level; and the third, a case study, addresses the implementation of German gender and development policy in Nepal. This last part, according to Shresthová, is the most important, and will include an examination of the perceived needs of Nepalese women by the women themselves. This phase will concentrate on Nepal's Gorkha Development Project (GDP), a grassroots development initiative that focuses extensively on women. Her research into GDP led her to SEWA and her award-winning project. When she discovered that the GDP staff was looking to SEWA as a model for their own organization, wishing that a similar initiative could be developed in Nepal, Shresthová noted, "My research project was born."
In Nepal, the SEWA model will have to be adapted to accommodate the needs of a rural environment. SEWA was founded approximately twenty-five years ago in India in response to continued violations of worker and vendor rights of economically impoverished women in urban areas. It is divided into three subgroups -- worker's unions, cooperatives, and a cooperative bank -- which together encourage long-term economic mobilization, similar to the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, and long-term social mobilization. With its headquarters in Ahmedabad, SEWA has established branches in such major centers as Delhi, Mumbai, and Calcutta, and is one of the more highly respected development initiatives in South Asia.
Shresthová's interest in Nepal is personal as well as academic. A politics and German major earning a certificate in the Department of Theatre and Dance, Shresthová is half Nepalese. Although she was born in Prague, Czech Republic, she lived in Katmandu for about fourteen years, where she worked at Mother Theresa's Old People's Home and at the Jorpati Disabled Children's Hospital, among other places. One of her long-term goals, even before she began her thesis, has been to return to help the less-fortunate people she encountered while growing up in Katmandu.
The Labouisse Fellowship will allow Shresthová to meet her goal. Established in 1987, the prize honors the memory of Henry Richardson Labouisse '26, a State Department and United Nations official who headed Unicef from 1965 to 1979. In his distinguished career, Labouisse played a key role in setting up the Marshall Plan operations in postwar Europe, was appointed the director of the International Cooperation Administration in 1961 under the Kennedy administration, and served as ambassador to Greece from 1962 to 1965.
According to the fellowship précis, the award honor is given "annually to a graduating Princeton senior who wishes to work or study abroad on matters in keeping with the spirit of Labouisse's life, broadly conceived." The winner must present a record of outstanding academic achievement, reflecting intellectually serious interest in problems of less-developed areas; demonstrate qualities of moral and intellectual leadership; and intend to pursue a career, either public or voluntary, that is devoted to the problems of deprived populations. Winners have traveled to Africa, Latin America, and Asia, exploring a variety of topics, from rural development strategies in Jamaica to health-care programs in rural areas of Zimbabwe. Shresthová is the 14th winner of the award.