Claire Fawcett, a first-year student at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, will spend 10 weeks in South Africa working on a project whose goal is to reduce the risk of HIV transmission through educating South African adolescents about safe sex, self-esteem, and abstinence.

In the aftermath of the transition from the apartheid government to a democracy, South Africa continues to struggle with inequality, particularly when it comes to education. As Fawcett explains,“Lack of education and economic strife can perpetuate both the rampant spread of AIDS and the faulty democracy.” It is this link between the AIDS epidemic and the difficulties of democracy that Fawcett plans on researching.

Fawcett will be involved with the South African Health Promotion Project, funded by the National Institute of Health. She plans on working as an English-speaking facilitator, teaching eight-grade Mdantsane students about HIV transmission and prevention. When needed, she will also help process data for the Health Promotion Project.“The knowledge that I give to the students hopefully will enable them to refuse sex and insist on protection,” Fawcett says.“Perhaps these students' education can contribute, in a small way, to the eradication of a world-wide epidemic.”

Fawcett will travel to East London, South Africa under the auspices of Haverford College's Center for Peace and Global Citizenship. She is one of 12 students who received internship stipends from the Center, allowing them to work on projects in the U.S. or abroad in areas related to peace making and peace building, as well as to social, political and economic and governmental challenges. This summer's interns will travel to Mexico, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Chile, India and Pakistan as well as to projects in Michigan and Nevada.