LEWISTON – Bates College students from Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New York state, Kazakhstan and Turkey have been named 2005 Phillips Student Fellows, recipients of an award that provides major funding for summer research projects involving immersion in different cultures.

Three of the six recipients are sophomores: Ainur Begim of Aktobe City, Kazakhstan, Jacob Bluestone of Huntington, N.Y., and Arda Gucler of Istanbul, Turkey.

The others are juniors: Tyler Paul of Great Falls, Mont., Vanni Thach of Camden, N.J., and Chelsea Tryder of Fryeburg.

Begim’s project is titled “The Study of the Panathenaic Festival, Greece and Great Britain.” She will explore social hierarchies of ancient Greece through in-depth study of the Panathenaic Festival.

For his project titled “The Honesty of Broken Language,” Bluestone will spend eight weeks in Cochabamba, Bolivia, volunteering to teach and work with disadvantaged children.

A photographer, Bluestone will document his work and the community.

He hopes to supply his students with disposable cameras, teach them about photography and set them off to record life in their neighborhoods.

For “The Anzac Soldiers: Faces of War, Australia and New Zealand,” Gucler will travel to Australia and New Zealand to interview the families of veterans of the World War I battle of Gallipoli. Gucler will explore how individual soldiers in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps – the Anzacs – experienced the battle, and will place those experiences in the context of national history and modern views of the battle.

Paul’s project, “Exploring Identity and Economic Development in Central Asia,” will take him to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan for eight weeks to study the economic progress and national identity of these former Soviet republics.

Thach’s project, titled “Cambodia’s Genocide: Finding Myself in the Killing Fields,” will take her to Cambodia to make personal and historical discoveries.

Visiting museums, archives, religious sites and the villages of her family, who were displaced after the Vietnam War, Thach will seek to better understand her heritage and will explore the history of Cambodia.

In her project, “Accessing the Arts: Hogar Nuestra Seora de la Paz, Chile,” Tryder will spend the summer at an orphanage for girls in Santiago, Chile.

She will work as a volunteer assisting with the day-to-day activities of the orphanage, teach dance to the girls and create a mural.

In addition, as the orphanage is one of a network throughout the city, Tryder will direct an art committee for volunteers from the other orphanages.

Phillips Student Fellowships support students who design exceptional international or cross-cultural projects focusing on research, service-learning, career exploration or a combination of the three.

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