Over her semester abroad in Buenos Aires this fall, Chelsea Sprayregen ’10 spoke with members of the human rights organization “Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo-Founding Line” and became fascinated by the work they were doing in Argentina. Their stories inspired her to write a thesis about human rights organizations. 

“I fell in love with the people there,” Sprayregen said.

The idea, however, would require her to make a return trip to Buenos Aires and go through the archives of Las Madres and other similar organizations there. Thanks to the Davenport Award—which offers scholarships for student research in public affairs—Sprayregen now has the resources to do so. 

The Davenport Award is open to sophomores and juniors who submit a proposal outlining their goals and monetary needs to the Davenport Committee. According to a memo published in February of this year, the funds were a gift from the Surdna Foundation in honor of Frederick Morgan Davenport, class of 1889, and Edith Jefferson Andrus Davenport, class of 1897. 

Sprayregen heard about the award from fellow CSS students who had received the award in previous years. Applications are accepted from all majors but the majority of applicants come from social science departments and the CSS. Senior thesis proposals took priority and Sprayregen’s proposal fit the bill.

Las Madres de Plaze de Mayo-Founding Line was formed by mothers to locate children who disappeared during the dictatorship of 1976-1983. Part of the group’s mission involves fighting against past injustices, prosecuting those involved with the Juan Perón regime. The organization has since expanded, and they now march every Thursday in Buenos Aires for various social causes. 

“I had reads a lot of books about them [the mothers] before coming, and I really disagree with a lot of what [those books] said, having met them,” Sprayregen said.

As Sprayregen’s interest in the subject grew, it became an obvious topic for a thesis project. Without the Davenport funding, however, returning to Argentina for research would have been out of the question. According to Sprayregen, Las Madres and other similar organizations have a lot of multimedia resources that she would like to explore for a senior thesis next year, but most of the archives are not online.

Without the award, she explained, “It would have been a very different thesis.”