P.E.O. INTERNATIONAL PEACE SCHOLARSHIP FUND | IPS
2021-2022 P.E.O. International Peace Scholarship Fund Named Awards
by Jan Knuckey, Chair, P.E.O. International Peace Scholarship Fund Board of Trustees The P.E.O. International Peace Scholarship (IPS) Fund Board of Trustees is pleased to introduce three named award scholars for the 2021-2022 academic year. The Ventura Neale Trust Fund, Jean Negus Malmo IPS Endowment Fund and Marian K. Hume Memorial IPS Scholarship Fund are endowed funds. IPS named award scholars receive $12,500 toward completion of their graduate degrees and return home to their countries to Foster Global Peace through Education.
Wenqi Zhang Jean Negus Malmo Named Scholarship Chapter BL Seattle, Washington
Lily Freeston Ventura Neale Named Scholarship Chapter M Miami, Florida
Madiha Syeda Marian K. Hume Named Scholarship Chapter AF Cleveland, Ohio
The Jean Negus Malmo Named Scholarship was awarded to Wenqi Zhang, a renewal recipient from China continuing her pursuit of a doctorate in education at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. In China, girls are encouraged to become future teachers, but discouraged from serving as educational leaders such as principals. Believing she could excel as a leader, Wenqi took pre- service principal training to become an assistant principal but found her training in China to be rudimentary. Her doctoral study at the University of Washington is preparing her with solid theoretical approaches and advanced methodology to design a program which aims to build a community of principal candidates from different cities and ethnicities. Her career goals upon her return home are to establish the first Chinese university-based principal preparation program (PPP) to support more female principal candidates and to empower her students to strive for educational equity. Wenqi has enjoyed meeting P.E.O. members via Zoom. She shares, “I asked these nice women why they became P.E.O.s. Through our interactions I realized, all these women from a variety of backgrounds come together for the same goal—to support women.”
Lily Freeston, a first-time applicant from the United Kingdom, was selected for the Ventura Neale Named Scholarship. Lily, an award-winning filmmaker, journalist and Fulbright Scholar, fuses her talents with her passion for empowering women whose voices aren’t often heard to share their stories. Some of her short films have focused on disability, domestic violence and sexual assault. Her goal is to elevate her filmmaking abilities through a master’s degree in documentary media at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, and produce and direct longer, more in-depth films for global audiences that impact policy and influence real change by drawing attention to topics that affect vulnerable girls and women. Lily states, “I hope to establish my own voice as a female filmmaker and shine a light on women who are silenced.”
Pakistan is home to Madiha Syeda, a renewal recipient and second- year doctoral student in educational leadership, culture and curriculum at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Madiha grew up attending inadequate schools which generally lacked math and science teachers yet she excelled in all subjects, receiving science instruction from her father and studying math on her own. With a desire to become an educator herself, Madiha escaped child marriage, graduated from university and launched a life-long love of teaching. Madiha’s dream is for all Pakistani students to have a better educational experience than she had and to respect people of the world, irrespective of religious, cultural and geographic boundaries. At Miami University she is learning how to revise the teacher training curriculum in Pakistan and to internationalize education. Upon returning home, she will work at the National Teacher’s Training Institute, training college professors, as well as serving as a curriculum design expert at a non- governmental organization that uplifts women’s education. Madiha says that her IPS scholarship saved her academic life and that she enjoys sharing her educational achievements with her P.E.O. family because “they know that I owe them my success.”
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THE P.E.O. RECORD | January–February 2022
Women helping women reach for the stars
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