Congratulations to graduating St. Michael’s student Rhea Raghunauth, who is a recipient of a Pathy Foundation Fellowship. She will receive $50,000 towards her community-building initiative to educate youth of South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities in Peel Region about intimate partner violence (IPV).
Witnessing firsthand a growing number of women in her community experiencing IPV, Rhea was compelled to address this issue and applied to the Pathy Foundation Fellowship program.
“My community is very deeply intertwined with who I am and who I identify as today. When I first heard about the fellowship, I was witnessing many tragedies in my community. Among them was intimate partner violence. I discovered that there was a space to address this issue. This fellowship gave me the opportunity to merge many of my worlds together, including my desire to give back to my community by building something that will support its members during difficult times,” she says.
This 12-month fellowship provides community-focused experiential learning opportunities for graduating students from across Canada. Applicants submit an initiative proposal to work alongside a community with which they have a meaningful and pre-existing connection. This is the first year the fellowship program accepted applications from students at the University of Toronto.
In June, Rhea will graduate with a Bachelor of Science, majoring in neuroscience and public health.
After graduation, she will join her cohort of Pathy Fellows in Nova Scotia to take part in a training program where she will flesh out the details of her project that will roll out over the following 10 months.
She’s focused on collaborating with local agencies that support those experiencing IPV to deliver workshops offered by healthcare professionals in the Peel Region. In the long term she hopes to research how early education can prevent IPV in the region.
“There’s very little research about this issue that’s specific to the Peel Region. I want to use some of the funding to focus on researching this issue,” she says.