News Briefs: 4 Bay Area college students among Zamora scholars
Four Bay Area college students are among the latest group awarded Pedro Zamora Young Leaders scholarships from the National AIDS Memorial Grove.The $5,000 scholarships provide financial support for the academic aspirations of young activists working to advance health and social justice in their communities, according to a news release from the AIDS grove, which is located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.The scholarship is named in the honor of Zamora, the late AIDS educator, activist, and reality television pioneer who died in 1994 from AIDS-related illness.Two students are from UC Berkeley — Olivia Freidenreich and Peter Pham.
Freidenreich is a first year student at Cal and is exploring the intersection between literature, art, and social justice in the College of Letters and Science, according to a news release.
She's been a Planned Parenthood peer advocate and spoke to fellow high school students at state Senator Anthony Portantino's (D-Pasadena) annual HIV/AIDS summit.She also worked as an intern for the law enforcement accountability unit at the Los Angeles County Public Defender's office tracking officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths.
Freudenreich plans to continue her work at the convergence of criminal justice, reproductive health, and art."As I bonded with fellow advocates and artists, I realized that my motivation to do this type of work was more than a hobby," she stated. "It is a fierce passion that I will take with me into the future."Pham is a community college transfer student to Cal, where he studies public health and molecular environmental biology.
