Faces of Michigan
Name: Yazhuo (Grace) Liu
Year: Class of 2008
Major: Cellular and Molecular Biology/Honors
Home: Michigan
Wallenberg Fellow Yazhuo (Grace) Liu Steps into Different World.
Grace Liu stepped into a different world, one of the poorest cities in Peru, as a Raoul Wallenberg International Summer (2007) Travel Fellow. She witnessed medical surgeries, monitored the construction of lodging for pregnant women awaiting birth, and taught English to children and health care providers. "It was eye-opening for me," she said. "I was able to observe surgeries. That was something I never would have been able to do in the U.S." Liu aspires to become a physician.
Liu was one of four U-M students who received a Raoul Wallenberg International Summer Travel Fellowship in 2007, part of the Wallenberg Endowment, to fund travel abroad for community service projects. Awards ranged from $2,250 to $5,000.
U-M alumnus Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who rescued more than 70,000 Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust, received his B.A. in architecture from the University in 1935.
Liu spent five weeks working with Project Suyana, a U-M student-led organization focusing on women's health in Puno, Peru. Puno has one of the highest infant and mother mortality rates in the country. The main focus of Project Suyana, founded 2005, is construction of the Stay House, a place where pregnant, rural women can stay for two weeks before their due-dates. Many of these rural women cannot travel long distances once they've gone into labor, yet lack the financial resources to pay for lodging in the city before giving birth. Liu also made hospital rounds, spent time in the Intensive Care Unit (where there was only one doctor and three beds), and saw first hand the shortage of such staples as hospital scrubs and painkillers.
Liu was one of 13 U-M students who traveled to Puno for Project Suyana this summer. In addition to daily duties, there was another benefit, Liu said. "It was amazing how much the community and especially the kids appreciated us, that we were paying attention to them. I think our presence gave the kids hope."
The Ginsberg Center organized the selection process. The students were recognized at the annual presentation of the Wallenberg Medal on Oct. 11.
The other students who received 2007 summer travel Wallenberg fellowships were:
- Stephanie Curtis, who worked with a community hospital in the small mountain city of La Esperanza, Honduras.
- Swapnaa Jayaraman, who received the Isabel Bagramian Summer Travel Award for work with Pudiyador, a non-profit organization that improves the lives of children living in poverty in Chennai, India.
- Ashlea Surles, who worked with Operation Crossroads Africa.
Reprinted by permission from Ginsberg Center E-Newsletter (October 2007).