[mpoverlay]North Carolina Central University students Tiarra Green, Courtney Williams and Iyana Henry have been selected among 250 North Carolina Schweitzer Fellows for 2012-13. The fellows are chosen to develop and implement community solutions in health care and social services to under-resourced communities.

Tiarra Green and Courtney Williams, students at NCCU’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, will work with preteen girls in Durham through theater and peer-learning workshops to promote the girls’ health and academic performance. Their fellowship is funded by the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust.

Green and Williams are both enrolled in the clinical psychology master’s program at NCCU. They met as undergraduates in Greensboro — Green was at N.C. A&T and Williams at UNC–Greensboro. They will meet weekly through most of the 2012-13 school year with two groups of girls, about 40 from Githens Middle School and 20 to 25 from the McDougald Terrace public housing community. “We’re passionate about giving back to the community,” Green said. “We want our project to have a positive effect on a vulnerable group of children.”

Iyanna Henry, a student at the NCCU School of Law, has developed a mentoring and self-esteem program for minority middle-school boys to encourage academic excellence and expose them to the legal profession as a career option. The program will be conducted at the law school through the 2012-13 school year and will involve 14 boys from Durham Nativity School, a private school for boys from low-income families.[/mpoverlay]