Citizen of the World: Francesca Overwater '10
Despite her role as captain of Columbia’s ski and snowboard club, Francesca Overwater spent last semester far way from snow as she channeled her long-time passion for human rights working at the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Francesca, who grew up in Belgium, the Netherlands, Russia, and Scotland, wondered how she could channel her passion for helping others. She applied early decision to Barnard because the human rights program was exactly what she sought: Instead of solely focusing on the political aspect of human rights, the program allows her to take a broader approach and enroll in anthropology and history courses to fulfill the major requirements. In addition to the program's flexibility, Barnard's urban setting fueled her desire to come here and live in the United States for the first time.
The summer after her first year at Barnard, Francesca interned at Human Rights Watch in New York and continued to work there throughout sophomore year.
After an anthropology course on Africa with Professor Mahmood Mamdani, Francesca, a political-science major with a human-rights concentration, decided to put her studies aside and go to Africa during the Fall 08 semester.
Francesca, a national of both the United States and The Netherlands, spent the following summer interning at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague.
Toward the end of her internship at the ministry this past summer, Francesca was offered the opportunity to work at the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Zimbabwe. With her father’s encouragement, she decided to accept the offer and take the semester off.
The day after being offered the job, Francesca had to sit down with the Dutch deputy ambassador in Zimbabwe for an interview. He was shocked to discover that she was only 20 years old. During the interview, he repeatedly asked her if she could work independently, emphasizing that there would not be any dance clubs in Zimbabwe. Francesca replied that she was not signing up just to have a good time, the opportunity meant more to her than that.
Francesca was hired as a program officer, for the political division of the embassy in Zimbabwe. Her duties included evaluating the existing human-rights policy framework, creating updated human-rights policy, consulting Zimbabwean civil-society organizations, and conferring with donors about their human-rights policies to construct a donor-map.
“At Human Rights Watch, I was always researching something that had already occurred. In Zimbabwe, however, I was immersed in the real world, directly involved with issues that would help me contextualize my human-rights classes at Barnard even further. I was able to see firsthand how embassy funds were being spent and to what degree this actually improved the situation,” she said.
“Professor Dennis Dalton gave me the courage to leave Barnard and go to Africa. I knew it was a good opportunity, but I was hesitant to take a path that was different from my peers. I learned that you need to do what makes you happy. Doing things that aren’t necessarily part of the plan is where people grow the most,” Francesca said of her initial hesitation to take a semester-long study leave.
Now back at Barnard, Francesca finds herself gearing most of her classes toward studies on Zimbabwe and will continue to delve further into case studies in other African states. Future plans include obtaining a master’s degree in international relations and continuing to study human rights. Until then, she hopes to set up a university-wide initiative on the country.
Citizen of the world is a title commonly granted to jetsetters rather than those who demonstrate a personal commitment to the common good on a global scale. More than her international background, it is her commitment to human rights that earns Francesca Overwater the title of citizen of the world.
—Julie Yang ’09
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