Projects for Peace—established in 2007 by philanthropist Kathryn Davis—offers grants of $10,000 to 100 undergraduates each year who propose grassroots projects, anywhere in the world, that promote peace and address the root causes of conflicts.
Nassor has long been interested in tackling issues that create hardship for underserved communities in Tanzania. When she was in high school, she raised money to dig a borehole—a type of water well—in a village called Kiegea and set up a permanent committee to oversee its management.
With the Davis peace grant, she will partner with the An Nasir Foundation, which runs an antipoverty program providing women with the entreprenuerial and technical skills to grow, harvest, and sell seaweed in Zanzibar. After tourism, seaweed farming is the largest industry in Zanzibar, an island archipelago off the coast of Tanzania.
Though women contribute up to 80 percent of Zanzibar's total seaweed production, they are hobbled by a system where one main buyer sets the price for multiple producers.
Compounding this unjust system is the disenfranchisement of women in a patriarchal society. "The bargaining power of women has dwindled because they have little say in decision-making in Zanzibar," Nassor explained. "According to the An Nasir Foundation...seaweed farming could turn into a tool of liberation for marginalized communities in the archipelago—especially for widows, who often face stigma and isolation."
The mission of Nassor's project will be to "empower bereaved women by providing them the economic and social capital they need to escape destitution, be independent, and increase their visibility in a productive industry."
Nassor and the An Nasir Foundation will work with the Seaweed Center—a social enterprise located in the villiage of Paje—to identify twenty widows for a pilot project to introduce them to seaweed farming methods and business development. She'll teach them to make value-added items from the seaweed, like soaps, scrubs, and essential oils, and connect them to middle-market buyers who can give them a competitive advantage.
Because her project is delayed for at least a year*, Nassor is returning to the Brunswick office of The Nature Conservancy, where she interned last year. With a funded internship from Bowdoin, she will continue working with the organization's Africa team this summer.
As an environmental studies and government and legal studies major, Nassor says her environmental studies classes have enabled her to understand the disproportionate impacts of environmental perils on marginalized communities. And, through her government courses, she's "learned how to balance equities and create safety nets for these populations using grassroot interventions."
*Nassor's initiative was initially scheduled for this summer, but all Davis Peace projects have been canceled by the foundation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and her trip will be delayed until 2021.
