Congratulations to °IJʿ’s most recent Projects for Peace recipient, Yiduo He ’24!
He, an anthropology and political science double major, will travel to Metzabok, Mexico, for 10 weeks over the summer to complete his project, Peacebuilding Through Cultural Heritage Protection Assessment. He plans to “explore the potential to protect cultural heritage sites and reconcile intergroup tension between indigenous Maya communities” while creating a protection plan for Lacandon Maya shrines in partnership with the local community.
“By relying on ethnographic methods, such as participant observation and interviews,” He states, “my project aims to facilitate dialogue between the two communities and provide practical advice on reconciliation, which may result in the proper preservation of Lacandon cultural heritage that sustains their ancestral ties and communal identity.”
This project stems from He’s experience as a part of Professor Santiago Juarez’s summer research team in 2022. During this research experience, he spent six weeks in Metzabok surveying the Preclassic Maya site of Noh K’uh through total station mapping. There, the team discovered that cultural heritage sites had been destroyed due to ethnic tension between indigenous Maya communities. This spurred He to take action and devise this cultural heritage protection plan. He created important relationships with members of the community, upon whom he will lean during his return trip, and he looks forward to diving deeper into intergroup dynamics.
He is also highly involved on the °IJʿ campus. He is a research assistant and docent at the Longyear Museum of Anthropology and assists with °IJʿ’s repatriation efforts of artifacts to Mexico. He chaired the Democracy, Governance, and Human Rights Committee at the International Model African Union as a member of °IJʿ’s delegation, served as a senator for the SGA, and co-founded the club Go+, a group focused on popularizing the ancient board game and fostering awareness of Asian cultures on campus.
Projects for Peace was founded by philanthropist Kathryn Wasserman Davis in 2007 and is administered by Middlebury College. Davis celebrated her 100th birthday with a remarkable investment in youth: committing $1 million for the first 100 Projects for Peace. Students are awarded $10,000 in grant funding for an original project focused on peacebuilding. By designing, implementing, critiquing, and reflecting on their Project for Peace, students develop an awareness of what it means and what it takes to be a peacebuilder and change-maker.
For more information on Projects for Peace and other opportunities, reach out to Meghan Niedt, mniedt@colgate.edu, in the Office of National Fellowships and Scholarships.