EWC Awarded $350,000 for New Environmental Stewardship Institute

HONOLULU (September 17) The East-West Center (EWC) received a grant of $350,000 from the U.S. Department of State to support a new six-week institute on environmental stewardship for undergraduate students from Southeast Asia.

The EWC, working in partnership with more than 20 organizations including the University of Hawaii’s Environmental Studies Program, Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment, and the Nature Conservancy, will host and facilitate this program in May-June 2009 for approximately 20 students from non-traditional and underserved groups in the region.

The participants will be exposed to the diversity of professionals in the U.S. environmental movement, from activism to corporate social responsibility, consumer behavior and government regulation.  Each week they will examine pressing environmental issues through different lenses such as advocacy, market, policy, cultural and scientific approaches, culminating in a field study tour to San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Participants will connect with their American peers throughout the program and will engage in job shadowing and service projects with community leaders. This institute incorporates an emphasis on leadership training so as to prepare the participants to take action on issues such as poor air and water quality, aquifer depletion, waste management, land use conflicts, and climate change when they return home.


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The EAST-WEST CENTER is an education and research organization established by the U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen relations and understanding among the peoples and nations of Asia, the Pacific, and the United States. The Center contributes to a peaceful, prosperous and just Asia Pacific community by serving as a vigorous hub for cooperative research, education and dialogue on critical issues of common concern to the Asia Pacific region and the United States. Funding for the Center comes from the U.S. government, with additional support provided by private agencies, individuals, foundations, corporations, and the governments of the region.