The Elizabethtown College Alumni Peace Fellowship honored senior Bhim Thapaliya with the 2014 Paul M. Grubb, Jr. Student Peace Award at a reception last Saturday.

In recognition for his peace- and justice-related work with refugees through the Act for Humanity Foundation (AFH) and its Etown chapter that he founded, Thapaliya received $2,000 to invest in peace-related projects.

As part of the event, last year’s recipient, Jessica Leidy, gave a presentation about her funded study abroad work at schools in The Gambia.

According to Thapaliya, he will use the award money to financially support AFH efforts.  “I will really want to focus on the Act for Humanity Foundation [Etown chapter] that I have started,” he said.

“We [chapter members] don’t have details about how we’re going to use the money, but so far, we are planning to use that money for buying the supplies, stationeries and any kind of chart paper for demonstrations,” he continued. “When I applied for the award, it was specifically for the projects I intended to do from October 2014 to October 2015.”

He also mentioned the possibility of buying books that have the refugees’ native language translations for adult and child education sessions.

“We can buy books for children to give out so our volunteers are able to teach them in a better way so that they can learn English,” Thapaliya said. “[We volunteer] at their houses by tutoring and providing education engagements, and all volunteers for these projects will be from the College.”

Lesley Finney, executive director of foundation and government relations for the College, served as a mentor to Thapaliya in the application process, as did Ann Marie Potter, a lecturer in the occupational therapy department.

Thapaliya is involved in an AFH study abroad trip to Nepal for July 2015 but will not allocate any of the award’s funds to that program.