Sun Lee

Project: East Timorese Testimonial Narratives — Identification and Reconciliation after Mass Atrocity

Sun Lee’s project inquired into the mind of the East Timorese — asking their opinions on the state of justice in their country regarding the events of 1999, when the Indonesian military inflicted mass violence upon Timorese civilians as they voted to become independent from Indonesia. The UN established a Special Crimes Panel in order to investigate the events, and a national truth and reconciliation commission (CAVR) worked hard to produce a massive report documenting the events. But the thoughts of the Timorese themselves were never solicited in full. Sun investigated how ideas of justice differed for the Timorese in comparison with international opinion and also among Timorese from various backgrounds. Documenting these voices in the form of personal accounts was the primary objective of the fieldwork period, which resulted in the production of hours of digital video. The editing process will produce a twofold final product: a collection of interviews to go into the archive and a more artistic interpretation of the current situation in the form of a short film.

Biography

Sun Lee is a scholar-activist-artist who spent the last few years of her undergraduate career focusing on human rights issues as they relate to postcoloniality and modernity. Specifically, she has applied her interest to post-conflict/colonial societies’ engagement with war crimes, considering the victimization of large numbers of civilians as a product of modern warfare. Although concerned about the future and implementation of international criminal law, her fieldwork in countries such as Rwanda, Cambodia and East Timor has deviated from a purely legal or analytical approach. While her work is always grounded in theory, her approach is distinctly interdisciplinary and wide reaching. In Rwanda she focused on the community justice process called gacaca — created to address the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide of 1994; in Cambodia she worked with local NGOs in devising strategies for the newly established hybrid court — Extraordinary Chambers in the Court Criminal Court for Cambodia. 

The Stronach project took her to East Timor where she recorded people’s opinions and hopes for the establishment of justice for the Indonesian crimes of 1975-99.  The production of a film depicting the voices of justice in East Timor will serve as a segue into the field of art and visual studies, as she pursues her passion to use art as a medium for social change.
 

Senay Yitbarek

Project: Preserving Biodiversity in Brazil

Building on his classroom and internship experiences, Senay Yitbarek will help both small farmers and Brazilian forests benefit from environmentally sound practices. This new development studies graduate will use his Portuguese language skills and cultural knowledge to help preserve biologically diverse forest fragments in the Pontal do Paranapanemea region of Brazil, west of Sao Paulo.

As an undergraduate, Yitbarek studied agricultural ecology and rural development in Latin America. He also learned about Brazil’s MST (Movimento dos Tabalhadores Sem Terra) movement, or landless peasantry movement. He then traveled to Brazil to examine agro-ecological practices firsthand and intern with small farms and the Institute for Ecological Research (IPE).

With funds from the Stronach Prize, Yitbarek will enhance joint MST and IPE efforts to sustain biodiversity. He plans to create an environmental education center within IPE’s office to provide information about the benefits of ecological practices. He also will develop an environmental education curriculum, help increase the number of farmers who dedicate land to agro-forestry buffer zones, and host exchanges about forestry practices between small farmers and state and interstate groups.

Once this project is complete, Yitbarek wants to delve even more deeply into ecological management and the preservation of biodiversity in rural communities. He hopes to return to Berkeley to earn a master’s degree in environmental science, policy, and management.

Irene Chemtai Mungo

Project: Guiding Community Health in Kenya   

Whether in the Bay Area or her native Kenya, Irene Chemtai Mungo has had the same goal: combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic through education and support. She helped coordinate family and adolescent HIV support services at Children’s Hospital in Oakland. She gave presentations about AIDS in Kenya through the Multicultural Speakers Bureau at Berkeley’s International House. And she went to Mombasa, Kenya, as a 2006 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow to research the impact of HIV/AIDS on that community.

With a Berkeley chemistry degree in hand, Mungo plans to attend medical school. But first she will provide critical health education at the AIDS Research and Family Care Clinic in Mombasa, where poverty, joblessness, limited education, and cultural stigma are all obstacles to treating and caring for children with HIV/AIDS.

Mungo will develop a health resource guidebook in both English and Swahili to help families better understand HIV/AIDS and provide proper care for children with the disease. Her guidebook will communicate health lessons through simple language and the drawings of local children. Mungo will also organize educational workshops for caregivers and adolescent patients, bring presentations on HIV/AIDS and other health topics to area schools, and sponsor an essay contest in which students can propose ways to address health issues in their lives and their community.

Months of research, writing, planning, and outreach efforts lie ahead, but Mungo feels well prepared. She noted, “My background in science will enable me to take on the technical aspects of this project …. and translate the scientific information to a format accessible to a lay audience, while the breadth of my coursework will enable me to appreciate the challenges of this work.”