2025 Napier Award & Critical Language Scholarship Winner Natasha Yen ’25 Has South Africa and Indonesia in Her Sights

From empowering youth leaders in South Africa to learning a new language in Indonesia, Natasha Yen ’25 is pursuing her dream of cross-cultural engagement. She has received two prestigious awards to pursue this passion: the Paul M. Minus Napier Award and a Critical Language Scholarship.

Empowering South African Youth

The Napier Initiative Fellowship is a partnership between the local Pilgrim Place senior community and The Claremont Colleges to recognize graduating seniors committed to social justice. The initiative provides two $20,000 awards to students to carry out their projects. The Napier Award will enable Yen to develop a youth empowerment and leadership program at the Little Rose Centre in Soweto, South Africa.

Little Rose Centre provides kindergarten classes, daycare, after-school tutoring, a community soup kitchen, and housing for children in the Kliptown neighborhood of Soweto. Yen first connected to the community center while studying abroad in the Pitzer in Southern Africa program.

Yen described the Pitzer-run study abroad experience as “transformative, grounding me in local communities and daily life in Soweto.” Volunteering at the Little Rose Centre enhanced Yen’s immersion and tapped into her passion for youth development. She intends to deepen her engagement with the Little Rose community through her project.

Yen plans to host leadership and skills development workshops. She will also mentor a cohort of middle and high school students to identify local needs and design and implement their own community projects.

“Rather than imposing external solutions, I am collaborating closely with Little Rose Centre and community members to ensure the program responds directly to the challenges they identify,” said Yen. “By empowering youth to take on leadership roles, the project will foster a sense of agency among Soweto’s next generation, equipping them to advocate for change in their own communities.”

Yen traces her zeal for mentorship and capacity building to her student support roles at Pitzer—including as a career fellow, new student guide, and former head sponsor for the Pasifika Asian Student Union sponsor program.

Connecting to Indonesia Through Language

Inspired by her study abroad experience learning Setswana, Yen viewed language learning as a way to immerse herself more deeply in different cultures and communities. Although she had never visited Southeast Asia before, she was eager to learn Bahasa Indonesia for intercultural learning immersion in Indonesia.

“As I pursue opportunities for intercultural exchange, language enables me to engage with local communities, deepening my understanding of local values and traditions and strengthening my ability to navigate cultural differences and foster authentic connections,” said Yen.

Yen’s language learning experience is possible thanks to the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS). CLS is a program of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and is supported by the American Councils for International Education. CLS provides a summer study abroad opportunity for American college and university students to learn languages essential to America’s engagement with the world.

Yen has also applied for the Fulbright Program to conduct research on urban sociology, focusing on street food communities and urban development in Indonesia. If selected, she hopes her CLS experience will help her immerse herself in the local environment and language.

Yen’s Pitzer education, where she pursued a combined major in sociology and environmental analysis and a minor in Asian American studies, has shaped her approach to social justice and community-based work. She shared that her studies have “provided an interdisciplinary foundation to approach social justice and equity with critical analysis and compassion.”

“These fields have grounded me in the importance of centering community voices and lived experiences, and informed my commitment to community empowerment work,” Yen continued. “My academic pursuits have also been driven by my love for exploration and intercultural learning, where I am excited to continue engaging in cross-cultural, community-based work through CLS and the Napier Fellowship.”