Three outstanding seniors named recipients of 2024 Global Citizenship Award

Goshen College President Rebecca Stoltzfus announced the winners of the 2024 Global Citizenship Award at the school’s opening convocation on August 28. Silas Immanuel and Arleth Martinez each won a $5,000 scholarship as runners-up, while Fatima Zahara earned a $10,000 scholarship as the first-place awardee.

Since 2022, the president has presented the Global Citizenship Award each year to three seniors who best exemplify the school’s five core values: Christ-centeredness, passionate learning, servant leadership, compassionate peacemaking and global citizenship.

Students are nominated by faculty members, and then write essays detailing their commitment to the core values.

First place: Fatima Zahara, a theater and music double major from Orlando, Florida

Zahara, the first-place awardee who is a theater and music double major from Orlando, Florida, has been involved in every choir concert, play and musical since coming to Goshen College three years ago. Zahara has volunteered at the Goshen Theater and with Mennonite Disaster Service at Red Lake, Minnesota. She is not only a member of Voices of the Earth and Chamber Choir, but she is also part of Parables, GC’s music and worship team, and the Queen Singers, a group of BIPOC women singers. The faculty member who nominated Zahara said, “she consistently shows significant care and thoughtfulness for her peers and goes out of her way to make people feel welcome and supported in groups,” and that she “lives and breathes compassionate peacemaking.”

Runner-up: Silas Immanuel, a film production and accounting double major from Delhi, India

Immanuel, one of the runners-up, is a film production and accounting double major from Delhi, India. He has embraced multiple leadership roles on campus, including: student producer at FiveCore Media, a campus video production company; leader of Unity, a campus Bible study group; and leader of the International Student Club, where Immanuel enjoys building community among other international students by hosting volleyball games or barbecues in his backyard. Immanuel’s nominator described him as “always going the extra mile in everything he does, and not satisfied until he feels like he understands a concept or has produced his best end product.” One of his biggest accomplishments was creating a documentary about the City of Goshen’s history as a sundown town — a documentary which has won national awards and is being shown at film festivals in Amsterdam, Florida and elsewhere.

Runner-up: Arleth Martinez, sociology major from Mexico City, Mexico, who resides now in Goshen

Martinez, a sociology major with a minor in social policy and advocacy from Mexico City, Mexico, who resides now in Goshen, was the other runner-up. She is president and co-founder of One Circle, the campus affinity group for Native American and Indigenous rights.. Martinez founded One Circle after visiting the Apache in Oak Flat, Arizona, on her Study-Service Term. Alongside her extensive work with One Circle, she is a writer and editor for the student newspaper, a resident assistant, a student-athlete on the cross country team, and a leader for the sexual assault prevention group Prevention Intervention Network. Her nominator said, “In my decade tenure at Goshen College, I cannot think of a more worthy student for this award.”

The Global Citizenship Award is made possible by a contribution from Shashi Buluswar, a 1990 Goshen College graduate who was an international student from India. He was one of the 2020 Goshen College Culture for Service Alumni Award recipients. Buluswar is the founder and president of the Institute for Transformative Technologies, a spinoff from the Berkeley National Lab that develops sustainable global development solutions.

Buluswar has worked with Bill Gates as the founding CEO of Global Health Labs, and has also worked as a partner at Dalberg Advisors, a consulting firm serving NGOs, foundations and governments. Outside of his professional interests, he has spent a decade competing on the Indian national rowing team, and created a critically acclaimed documentary about “cricket diplomacy” in the India-Pakistan conflict. Along with his work at the ITT, Buluswar currently teaches at the University of California at Berkeley.