Student Highlight: David Idowu, MTS ’26

Humanitarian Action

While in Nigeria I took RPL’s HarvardX course on religion, conflict, and peace, so it was a no-brainer for me to continue my studies through the CRPL. I chose the humanitarian action track because it intersects with my interest in displacement and issues of trauma in current and post-conflict settings. I want to see how those issues can be mitigated, especially in a place like Africa, where it can be weeks into a crisis before aid comes.

Through the class, I’ve been impacted by the idea from Donna Haraway that knowledge is situated. When we understand that, we can better interpret many of the things we see and then create and imagine new things. Thinking through Johan Galtung’s theory of peace and how to transform violence into peace helped me evolve my mantra, “How can we move forward from all those deep issues of division—religious division and ethnic division—in Nigeria?”

I want to work in dialogue and peacebuilding, both through methods and organizations, so through RPL’s CRPL internship I’ll be able to work with Churches for Middle East Peace, a coalition of more than 30 national Church communions and organizations that work to encourage US policies that actively promote a comprehensive resolution to conflicts in the Middle East with a focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the future, I want to continue working on the ground in humanitarian action camps. I see my work as building bridges and understanding intersecting issues so that I can transform the roots of the problem.

For anyone outside of RPL, I want them to know that RPL is one of the best things that anyone can ever take. It opens your eyes to things that you didn’t think about before, especially our own power and other people’s power. We’re not just thinking about an alternate reality. We’re thinking about what we can do on the ground, while not imposing outside structures on people, so they can say, “This is what we want” and then guide them. RPL is a great place to be.