MIDDLEBURY — Back in March, Middlebury College received a $25 million grant from an anonymous donor to fund the creation of a new conflict transformation initiative. Now, support from the newly formed Kathryn Wasserman Davis Collaborative in Conflict Transformation, or KWDCCT, is being used to enhance the work of students in the college’s Privilege and Poverty (P&P) summer internship program as they serve at Addison County organizations.

Conflict transformation is a field of study that seeks to build a more equitable world by addressing the root causes of conflict. Through the KWDCCT, the college has been able to support existing institution-wide work in the area of conflict transformation and begin implementing new programming, such as through P&P’s summer internship program.

This year, the P&P internship program was able to offer six additional placements at local organizations and pilot a new restorative practices training with funding and support from the KWDCCT.

Ashley Laux, director of the college’s Center for Community Engagement, said these additions will enrich the work already being done by P&P interns.

“We have this great ongoing program, and that program is really not changing, but conflict transformation is a new lens through which students can see the work that they’re doing,” Laux said.

The P&P internship program is part of the P&P learning community’s curriculum, which gives students a space to synthesize their work and experiences inside and outside the college through the theme of economic inequality. The eight-week internship program allows students to think deeply about the causes and consequences of economic inequality through their placements at various social service organizations in Addison County.

This year, the internship program was able to offer six more of these placements. P&P Faculty Director Matt Lawrence said these additional placements will allow for more effective internship experiences.

“I believe community engagement is most impactful when it takes place in groups where students can learn from and with each other. This grant gives more of our interns that chance,” Lawrence said.

Makenna Janes, a rising sophomore at Middlebury College, is interning with John Graham Housing & Services this summer. John Graham was one of the organizations to receive an additional P&P intern this summer, and Janes said working with a fellow student has offered her support that she would not otherwise have received.

“So far having the other intern with me, it’s been a very nice partnership where we each are experiencing different things but we’re able to talk about them with each other and support each other. I can’t imagine being the only intern here,” Janes said.

Janes wants to see the program continue to expand, particularly in order to keep meeting the county’s needs year-round.

“I would hope that in the future, the program could be opened up to even more college students in the community. Even with the increase of interns from last year, they (Addison County organizations) still need more help during the summer and during all times of the year,” she said.

This year’s internship program also included a pilot training on restorative practices, offered along with other training given to students during the spring prior to their internship. The training was led by the college’s staff of restorative practice trainers and taught students skills and strategies for engaged listening, understanding various perspectives and exploring the sources of conflict and harm.

Laux said this one-day pilot training was meant to supplement the program’s other forms of training, which prepare students for what they’ll encounter during their internship.

“Inevitably when we’re working in communities, conflict is going to come up, so how can we help students learn how to navigate conflict and try to channel conflict as a positive force or as a force for positive change,” Laux said. “Providing them the restorative practice training is helping them learn a new skill set for how they might navigate conflict or challenges differently.”

Gayathri Mantha is a rising sophomore at Middlebury College interning with both the Addison County Public Defender’s Office and Addison County Restorative Justice Services. She said her experience in the P&P internship program has worked toward that goal of looking at conflict differently.

Through her work at Restorative Justice Services, Mantha helps local adult and youth offenders realize the impact of their actions and repair some of the harm caused by their offenses. Mantha said this work was challenging for her at the outset.

“At first it was hard for me to be like ‘I am actively trying to help someone who caused a lot of harm’ and I had to shift that mindset to think ‘they deserve just as much community support if not more as I do,’” Mantha said.

Mantha isn’t the only P&P intern to think deeply about conflict this summer. Liza Grebenkina, another rising sophomore at Middlebury College, is working at the Helping Overcoming Poverty’s Effects (HOPE) food shelf. She said the college’s emphasis on conflict transformation is giving her new ways to look at inequality in the county and beyond.

“I think conflict transformation and the issue of economic inequality are strongly related. When we talk about inequality, we need to think about why it exists in the community and I think we need to be very community specific,” Grebenkina said.

P&P interns like Mantha and Grebenkina are encouraged to explore these ideas of conflict and economic inequality during the program’s weekly meetings, where students reflect on their internship experiences. P&P Assistant Director Jason Duquette-Hoffman said these meetings are a big part of the program and hopefully get students thinking about what effective change they can make in the areas of conflict they observe.

“These internships are explicitly learning opportunities, so we meet every week as a cohort and process through their experiences the work that they’re doing. We’re talking about the bigger picture,” Duquette-Hoffman said. “We are trying to understand the drivers of these things, and sort of thinking forward about what could transformation looks like.”