Amanda Harrow has pursued her interest in child-protection policy and practice through an internship with the Massachusetts Department of Social Services and through her Bates senior thesis, which has examined interventional approaches to domestic violence through service-learning work at the Abused Women’s Advocacy Project, Lewiston.

For her Watson Fellowship research year, which begins this summer, “in each country I’m looking at a different aspect or a different player in the realm of protecting kids,” Harrow explains.

In New Zealand, she will research family counseling practices adapted by the state from the customs of the indigenous Maori people.

In Peru, she will look at the role played by nongovernmental organizations in child protection and adoption, as well as residual effects on domestic violence rates from the long war against the Shining Path insurgency.

In Uganda, Harrow will investigate how various religious organizations function in the child-protection role and how AIDS has affected traditionally resilient family structures. Finally, in Sweden, she plans to examine the correlation between the robust state welfare system and low rates of child abuse.

Harrow is also one of two recipients of Bates’ 2006 William Stringfellow Award in Justice and Peace, bestowed in March. An organizer of the New World Coalition and the Women’s Resource Center, and a member of the Bates Emergency Medical Services board, Harrow has been active in various social justice groups in Lewiston-Auburn. She has worked extensively to promote gender equality and redress the consequences of inequality through her work with the Abused Women’s Advocacy Project, the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women and RAINN, the national sexual assault hotline.

The Watson “is really amazing, and it’s an honor,” Harrow says. “I’m really excited, and I’m definitely slightly terrified,” she adds with a laugh.

Two Bates College seniors are among 50 students across the country to receive 2006 Thomas J. Watson Fellowships, $25,000 grants that support a year of independent research abroad.

The Bates recipients are Amanda Harrow of Hopkinton, Mass., and Andrew Stowe of Wallingford, Conn.

Harrow’s research project, titled “Keeping Kids Safe: Strategies for Protecting Children from Abuse,” will take her to New Zealand, Peru, Sweden and Uganda, where she will investigate a variety of cultural and institutional approaches to child protection.

For “Life on the Wing: Traveling Pole to Pole with the Arctic Tern,” Stowe will spend a year following the global migration route of this sea bird, working to expand scientific knowledge of the species and examining how it is affected by environmental policies in countries along the way.

The Watson Fellowship is designed to identify potential leaders and challenge them in ways that foster independence, a global perspective and adaptability to new cultures. It funds research, conducted outside the formal academic environment and the recipient’s home culture, into a topic deeply important to the recipient.

For both Stowe and Harrow, the Watson affords an opportunity to pursue research interests instilled by their parents. A psychology major at Bates, Harrow is the daughter of Sheryl MacGowan Harrow, Bates class of 1975, and Ed Harrow. The Harrow family has supported 24 foster children, a practice that sparked Harrow’s interest in child-protection issues. (Click here to read more about Harrow’s Watson research.)

In recognition of her social justice activities at Bates and in the community, Harrow was also named this month as one of two recipients of Bates’ William Stringfellow Award in Justice and Peace.

Stowe’s parents, Lawrence and Helen Stowe, are dedicated birdwatchers who passed this interest along to their two sons. (In fact, the couple met through a birdwatching course.) The arctic tern “is one of the most incredible species of birds,” Stowe explains. (Click here to read more about Stowe’s Watson research.)

A program of the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, of Providence, R.I., the Watson Fellowship was established in 1968 by the wife and children of Thomas J. Watson Sr., the founder of IBM. The 50 Watson recipients this year were selected from among 176 applicants nominated by the colleges and universities they attend.

At least one Bates senior received a Watson Fellowship every year from 1985 through 2000, and in 2002 and 2003.

Tom Ewell, recently retired executive director of the Maine Council of Churches and an activist in many peace and justice arenas, will give a lecture and present the annual William Stringfellow Awards in Justice and Peace at 7 p.m. Friday, March 31, in Chase Hall Lounge, Chase Hall, 56 Campus Ave., Bates College. Sponsored by the Office of the Chaplain, the talk and a potluck dinner that begins at 6 p.m. are open to the public free of charge. Call 207-786-8272 for more information.

A leader in the 2005 effort to ensure that all Maine citizens are protected by law from discrimination based on sexual orientation, Ewell will give a lecture titled, Nonviolence: Let the Revolution Roll On. The lecture honors the legacy of William Stringfellow, Bates class of 1949, a lawyer and lay theologian prominent in the American peace movement, and coincides with the 2006 William Stringfellow Awards for Justice and Peace, to be presented this year to Bates senior Amanda Harrow of Hopkinton, Mass., and Lewiston resident Jake Grindle, a Maine People’s Alliance community organizer for the Androscoggin Valley region.

Harrow will graduate this May with a degree in psychology. She recently received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, a prestigious one-year $25,000 grant awarded to graduating college seniors for independent study and travel outside of the United States. Harrow will investigate strategies for protecting children from abuse in New Zealand, Peru, Sweden and Uganda.

An organizer at Bates of the New World Coalition and the Women’s Resource Center, and a member of the Bates Emergency Medical Services board, Harrow has been active in various social justice groups in Lewiston-Auburn. Involved with various campaigns such as Maine Won’t Discriminate and community groups, including the Coalition of Many and One, she has worked extensively to promote gender equality and redress the consequences of inequality through her work with the Abused Women’s Advocacy Project, the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women and RAINN, the national sexual assault hotline.

International travel has offered Harrow a new perspective from which to view the actions of the United States, she says, and fundamentally changed her understanding of U.S. global policy. Most recently, Harrow studied in Bolivia for six months, where she found great inspiration in the courage and activism of indigenous people. As a result, she has spent significant time in the last year working on issues connected to the region. Her latest project, planned for April 2006, is organizing a Bates student-led exploration of globalization “on the ground” in Maine and Nicaragua.

While growing up, Harrow’s family cared for numerous foster children, which “instilled in me respect and compassion for all forms of life,” she says. “As I grew, I learned more about the root causes of poverty, violence and social and environmental degradation and became convinced of the need for change at the structural level,” she says. Harrow is the daughter of Sheryl MacGowan Harrow, Bates Class of 1975, and Ed Harrow of Hopkinton, Mass.

Jake Grindle grew up in Pownal and attended Greely High School in Cumberland. He received his B.A. in sociology and anthropology from the University of Maine at Farmington.  He has worked on U.S. Senate campaigns, multiple ballot initiatives, statewide healthcare and environmental legislation, the protection of citizen rights and democracy, consumer protection and human rights.

Grindle typically draws inspiration from volunteers and staff he works with.  He has supervised one of the largest voter registration campaigns in Maine history, which registered more than 12,000 new voters, one door at a time, in summer 2004.  In 2005, he supervised a very successful door-to-door canvass bringing the message of community and mutual responsibility to the debate over Social Security.  Both of these door-to-door efforts were led by Bates students.

Grindle’s proudest accomplishment as an organizer, he says, is his role with a group of downtown Lewiston residents who challenged Lewiston’s Heritage Initiative, an urban renewal plan to put a highway through downtown. Picking up on the theme of the invisibility of local residents and their needs in Lewiston’s planning processes, members launched a “Visible Community” campaign, rallying residents to challenge the proposal and promote alternatives.

Grindle lives in Lewiston with his wife.