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CHILD LITERACY ADVOCATE RECEIVES
BARBARA BUSH AWARD FOR VOLUNTEERISM
WELLESLEY, Mass. -- Recent Wellesley College
graduate Sheila Raghavan is the recipient of 1999 Barbara
Bush Award for Volunteerism that provides a stipend for an
internship with a not-for-profit organization. With the help
of the award, Raghavan will be working at Child Relief and
You (CRY), an international non-profit organization that
focuses on child welfare.
A 1999 graduate of Wellesley College where she majored in
biology and minored in mathematics, Raghavan will be based
in Chennai, India, where she will be working with CRY's
Indian chapter to develop and implement programs to promote
literacy and help children stay in school.
"I grew up in India and constantly witnessed the
consequences of illiteracy. Yet I was not aware of my role
in reversing the trend of illiteracy until I got to
Wellesley," Raghavan wrote in her application essay. "Indian
schools rarely have community service programs and I am
interested in establishing such programs in the city ...
Students have developed an almost indifferent attitude
towards children on the streets and I wish to remind people
of the privileges of education while providing opportunities
for education to all children."
The Wellesley College internship award was established in
1990 by Sally Needles Toffey '55, in recognition of Barbara
Bush's
Commencement
visit to Wellesley at which the then-First Lady
encouraged graduates to become involved in volunteerism and
"to believe in something larger than yourself."
Wellesley College is a prominent liberal arts college and
has been a leader in the education of women for nearly 125
years. The College's 500-acre campus near Boston is home to
about 2,300 undergraduate students. Wellesley's
distinguished alumnae include First Lady Hillary Rodham
Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Madame
Chiang Kai-shek, and broadcast journalists Cokie Roberts,
Diane Sawyer, and Lynn Sherr.
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