The Florissant Rotary Club

Greta grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri. Returning from Claremont McKenna College on

a grant in 2006, she volunteered at the St. Louis International Institute, where she

befriended a group of Liberian refugees through their mutual interest in dance. After

listening to their stories about Liberia’s civil war, Greta focused her creative work on

sharing their experiences. These Liberian women urged Greta to visit Africa. Since then,

she has spent a summer working with refugees in South Africa and has returned regularly

to volunteer at an orphanage in Zimbabwe.

She recently finished a master’s degree in creative writing at American University, where

she wrote and published work about her experiences in Africa. Her fiction and nonfiction

have won awards and appeared in publications including Creative Nonfiction and

The Crab Orchard Review. She recently received fellowships for residencies at

Yaddo and MacDowell Colony, where she worked on a novel that examines Western aid

in Zimbabwe during 2008, a time of great chaos and suffering in the country.

As an Ambassadorial Scholar, Greta will study forced migration at Witwatersrand University

in Johannesburg, South Africa. She plans to weave together her academic work and

humanitarian work, and she has identified the Central Methodist Church, which shelters

 homeless Zimbabwean migrants, as a place to both volunteer and conduct fieldwork.

Greta is interested in building understanding through stories. Throughout her travels,

 she has been surprised to learn how very different and how deeply the same we all are.

Like travel, writing allows for similar discoveries.

Great writing begins with principles of Rotary: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned?

Writing that is true and fair to the people represented is able to foster understanding and

cross borders. In South Africa, Greta will interview Zimbabwean women forced to leave their

homeland and try to write their stories.

With the master’s degree she will earn, Greta hopes to continue working to help those who

have fled their homes and are seeking refuge in foreign countries. Recording and sharing

stories will be an integral part of that work.

As an Ambassadorial Scholar, Greta will use her passion for writing and people to contribute

academically to her field and live Rotary’s mission of advancing international understanding

 and placing service above self.

Please write District 6060 Ambassadorial Scholarship Committee Chair

for more information.