Claremont, Calif. (April 28, 2017)—Pitzer College student Tiffany Ortamond ’17 was awarded a $15,000 2017 Napier Award to implement her work with Tla’amin Nation in British Columbia, Canada. Pitzer seniors Eli Erlick ’17 and Nick Necochea-Flores ’17 were named 2017 Napier Fellows, with Erlick being selected as a Napier Award alternate.
With this award, Ortamond will collaborate with the Tla’amin Nation to create a water-quality testing and education program and an ongoing database for water-quality analysis. She plans to build a foundation to empower local tribe members and others to collect and log information that can be utilized in building legitimate cases addressing pollution, international development and environmental injustice. She will also shoot a video documenting her experience in BC. Ortamond will graduate this May from Pitzer College with a degree in environmental analysis.
Erlick, co-founder of Trans Student Educational Resources (TSER), was selected as one of the two Napier Award alternates. She proposed using the award to support TSER’s second Trans Youth Leadership Summit, a unique and innovative Los Angeles-based fellowship program designed to develop the activism and organizing skills of young transgender leaders across the country. Erlick will graduate with a feminist, gender, sexual studies major and sociology minor.
Necochea-Flores proposed creating a hands-on interactive program that allows youth from Ontario and Pomona, CA, to work with tools to help build community structures so participants can learn how to use their hands and minds to beautify their communities. His plan was to hold Saturday-morning workshops at the community garden, Huerta Del Valle, in Ontario, and Cesar Chavez Park in Pomona. He will be graduating with a degree in sociology.
Along with Ortamond, Pomona College senior Jaya Jivika Rajani (PO ’17) won a 2017 Napier Award. She plans to organize social innovation and entrepreneurship boot camps for high school students in the United Arab Emirates India.
The Napier Initiative is a partnership between The Claremont Colleges and Pilgrim Place, a senior community for those who have served in religious or charitable organizations. Each year, the Pilgrim Place community offers two $15,000 Napier Awards for Creative Leadership for graduating seniors from the five undergraduate Claremont Colleges. The Napier Awards are given to two students who demonstrate outstanding leadership promise on social frontiers akin to those addressed by Davie and Joy Napier, who were longtime residents of Pilgrim Place and advocates for a just, peaceful and sustainable world.
