Skip to main content.
Bard
  • Bard College Logo
  • Academics sub-menuAcademics
    • Programs and Divisions
    • Structure of the Curriculum
    • Courses
    • Requirements
    • Academic Calendar
    • College Catalogue
    • Faculty
    • Bard Abroad
    • Libraries
    • Dual-Degree Programs
    • Bard Conservatory of Music
    • Other Study Opportunities
    • Graduate Programs
    • Early Colleges
  • Admission sub-menuAdmission
    • Applying
    • Financial Aid
    • Tuition + Payment
    • Campus Tours
    • Meet Our Students + Alumni/ae
    • For Families / Familias
    • Join Our Mailing List
    • Contact Us
  • Campus Life sub-menuCampus Life
    Living on Campus:
    • Housing + Dining
    • Campus Services + Resources
    • Campus Activities
    • New Students
    • Visiting + Transportation
    • Athletics + Recreation
    • Montgomery Place Campus
  • Civic Engagement sub-menuCivic Engagement
    Bard CCE
    • Engaged Learning
    • Student Leadership
    • Grow Your Network
    • About CCE
    • Our Partners
    • Get Involved
  • Newsroom sub-menuNews + Events
    • Newsroom
    • Events Calendar
    • Press Releases
    • Office of Communications
    • Commencement Weekend
    • Alumni/ae Reunion
    • Fisher Center + SummerScape
    • Athletic Events
  • About Bard sub-menuAbout
      About Bard:
    • Bard History
    • Campus Tours
    • Mission Statement
    • Love of Learning
    • Visiting Bard
    • Employment
    • Support Bard
    • Open Society University Network
    • Bard Abroad
    • The Bard Network
    • Inclusive Excellence
    • Sustainability
    • Title IX and Nondiscrimination
    • Inside Bard
    • Dean of the College
  • Giving
  • Search
Kebab Menu: June 2025
Information For:
  • Faculty + Staff
  • Alumni/ae
  • Families
  • Students
Giving to Bard
Quick Links
  • Apply to Bard
  • Employment
  • Travel to Bard
  • Bard Campus Map

Join the Conversation
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Instagram
Read about us on Threads
Watch us on You Tube

Bard News

Back to All News

News Menu
  • Newsroom
  • Events Calendar
  • News Archive
  • Press Releases
  • special sub-menuSpecial Events
    • Commencement + Reunion
    • Family + Alumni/ae Weekend
    • Fisher Center
    • Bard Summerscape
    • Bard Athletics
  • Home

Bard Student Ariha Shahed ’26 Awarded Davis Projects for Peace Grant 

Bard Student Ariha Shahed ’26 Awarded Davis Projects for Peace Grant 
Ariha Shahed. 
Bard College student Ariha Shahed ’26 has won a Davis Projects for Peace prize for her proposal, “Train Track to Right Track: Supporting Bangladeshis Who Call the Railway Tracks Their Home.” Ariha, a first-year economics and politics major from Bangladesh, will receive $10,000 to work with Bangladeshi families living in extreme poverty along the country’s railway tracks, communities which often go unnoticed. Partnering with NGO initiative BRAC Bangladesh, Ariha will help families connect with essential social protection programmes, access healthcare, keep their children in school, and improve their economic situations by sustainable and continual support.

Ariha’s project is designed to provide avenues for both short-term and long-term support to these communities through multiple efforts. It seeks to give families a way to re-establish their lives through BRAC’s “Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative,” which aims to help people ‘graduate’ from extreme poverty, and will operate out of workshop hubs near train stations in the country’s three largest cities, Dhaka, Chattogram, and Sylhet. Healthcare volunteers will offer basic health classes to those living along the tracks in these cities, and Ariha will partner with a small local restaurant to organize a food drive to distribute meal boxes from these hubs. “This way, we can incentivize a long-term solution for them using a short-term solution, which have been proven to work better when supporting people in extreme humanitarian need,” Ariha writes in her proposal. 

“The disparity between the families living below the poverty line along the rail-tracks and my own trips inside the comfort of a car had always struck me,” she said. “The first step to eradicating any kind of social inequality, I believe, would be to acknowledge one’s position of privilege. This project is a small way of giving back to the country and the people that raised me—something my parents have always valued. I want to thank my friend Mikaail Kaiser Shahabuddin (Davis Alum, Clark University ‘26) who will be helping me to co-facilitate this project and for his insights. As a Davis Alum myself, I’m overwhelmed and grateful to the Davis Foundation for such opportunities that help call attention to often neglected places like Bangladesh.”

Projects for Peace, a Davis Foundation initiative facilitated by Middlebury College in Vermont, is a global program that partners with other educational institutions to identify and support peacebuilders and changemakers across college campuses. Every year, 100 or more student leaders are awarded a grant in the amount of $10,000 each to implement a “Project for Peace” anywhere in the world. To learn more, visit: middlebury.edu/office/projects-for-peace.

Post Date: 03-11-2023
Bard College
30 Campus Road, PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504-5000
Phone: 845-758-6822
Admission Email: [email protected]
Information For
Prospective Students
Current Employees
Alumni/ae 
Families

©2025 Bard College
Quick Links
Employment
Travel to Bard
Search
Support Bard
Bard IT Policies + Security
Bard has a long history of creating inclusive environments for all races, creeds, ethnicities, and genders. We will continue to monitor and adhere to all Federal and New York State laws and guidance.
Like us on Facebook
Follow Us on Instagram
Threads
Bluesky
YouTube