Danny Konstantinovic
Reporter
Seniors Gita Abhiraman, Alexandra Klapper and Jessica Kao won the Wilburn Fellowship award in the program’s inaugural year, 2012, for their project, ‘Widening The Scope’, a documentary film following the lives of students around the world. “First, we had to come up with our project idea and outline,” Gita said. “Once we decided to create a documentary film, we started to look for collaborators overseas who were willing to send us video diaries about their cultural life.”
The fellowship is now returning to the high school for the 2013-2014 school year, and students in all grades were required to submit their applications by November 8th to participate. The Wilburn Fellowship will be celebrating its third year in existence as well as its third year in a partnership with the high school.
According to the Wilburn Fellowship’s website, their mission is “to foster the understanding of humanity’s differences, whether of gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion or culture, such that those differences can be respected, learned from, embraced and celebrated.” This program encourages high school students to participate and help contribute towards its goal of global understanding, and will offer a stipend to finalists so that they can pursue their project.
Gita, Alexandra and Jessica used the stipend given to them by the Fellowship to purchase Flip Video cameras that they sent to their collaborators abroad and compiled the footage they received to create their final project.
“Without the framework and support of the Fellowship, I don’t think our documentary would have been possible,” Gita said. “The fellowship gave us the funding to purchase cameras and send them overseas.”
“Making the film with Alex, Jessica, and all of the collaborators abroad was an extremely rewarding experience,” Gita continued. “The fact that the movie was initiated by the three of us makes it all the more special.”
Senior Stephen Mettler has applied for the fellowship for a second time this year, having applied once before in 2013.
“I saw the project that Gita, Jessica, and Alex did and I thought that was really cool,” Stephen said. “Several months later I had the idea of doing something similar to that myself. I just felt like I wanted to make it happen and I started working with the Wilburn Fellowship.”
Working with the Fellowship offered Stephen, as well as other participants, access to an audience that they would not have reached independently. “If I could really get something going well, then someone would be interested in taking it and giving it a wider audience,” Stephen said.
Like the 2012 winners, Stephen’s project promotes communication between cultures, albeit in a different way. “Studying from the American point of view doesn’t give you the full picture,” he said. “You need to be able to see things from another country’s point of view. Kids like us from other countries have completely different view points.”
“I contacted kids I met in a summer program after sophomore year from Pakistan, China and Columbia. My plan was to create an archive of information and of points of view from each of these countries and how they saw the United States or international issues from within their own countries,” he said. “This year I’m applying again, and now I have a website set up for communications between kids in our high school and kids in their high schools, which I think is a lot wider than what I had before.”
Senior Sam Kramer also participated last year. His project, an essay titled “Peace through Pluralism in the Muslim World… A Historical Validation,” won him the 2013 Wilburn Fellow award. “I’m mostly a research person,” Sam said. “My project simply lent itself to an essay form more than a multimedia version. I like to change things around and decided I would try my hand at something a little different.”
Sam spoke favorably of the Fellowship and its mission, encouraging all students to participate during the upcoming cycle and supporting its mission statement. “Anyone who has an interest in our world, no matter what you’re interested in, should consider applying,” he said. “Even if you’re a math person, even if you’re a science person, there’s plenty around the world that lends itself to unity and diversity.”
