Seventeen student leaders presented their final projects on April 29, the culmination of a year-long fellowship focused on leadership, values identification, and community impact. The following article by student staff member Malaika Rehman, highlights the work of three fellows, Nkosi Ndebele, Itzal Terrazas, and Lillian Barnes.
The Citizen Leaders Fellowship (CLF) empowers students to turn personal experience into lasting community change.
Students across the University are involved in a range of efforts aimed at supporting both specific communities and the broader UVA population. Whether that involvement is through cultural organizations, shared-interest groups, or service initiatives, students are consistently finding ways to create impact. The Citizen Leaders Fellowship a partnership with UVA’s Contemplative Sciences Center, International Studies Office, Athletics, and Commonwealth Partnerships, offers a unique avenue for that kind of engagement — one grounded in values, reflection, and sustained community engagement.
Centered on the concept of flourishing, the fellowship aims to equip students with the tools they need to bring community-oriented ideas to life. Some fellows arrive with fully formed projects, while others begin with only a sense of direction. In both cases, the program emphasizes not just what students create, but how and why they create it.
For Nkosi Ndebele, a third-year PhD student in Civil and Environmental Engineering and an international student from South Africa, the idea for her project emerged from a lived experience during her first winter in Charlottesville.
“As an international student, and coming from warmer weather, it was kind of tough for me, especially my first winter here,” Ndebele said. “I never imagined that I could feel so cold.”
Without access to reliable transportation or the means to purchase winter clothing, she began to think about how small barriers could have large impacts on other students’ wellbeing. That reflection planted the seed for her clothing closet project, located in Thornton Hall.
“What if someone had extra clothing? Instead of throwing those clothes away, why not give them away?” Ndebele said.
Originally intended to serve international students, the project quickly expanded, as Ndebele recognized a broader need for such resources for the broader University community.
“After having conversations with different students around UVA, including in my department, I realized that not only international students are struggling with clothing,” Ndebele said. “Every student has got different needs, be it needs to formal wear, for interviews, so that’s why I decided that instead of strictly focusing on a specific group of students, why not just incorporate everyone?”
The fellowship’s support was instrumental in turning the idea into reality. Beyond funding for clothing racks, hangers, and signage, Ndebele also spoke to the collaborative environment among fellows as equally impactful.
“The fellows kind of give each other emotional support,” Ndebele said. “We talk about our different projects and how to enhance those projects.”
That spirit of mutual support has been a defining part of the experience for many in the cohort. Fellows regularly exchange feedback, share challenges, and help each other move projects forward. For Itzal Terrazas, a third-year PhD student in Physics and an international student from Bolivia and Canada, that sense of connection has been central to her experience. She spoke especially warmly about Nkosi’s project.
“I remember walking in and meeting her and hearing about her project, and I was like ‘that project is amazing,’” Terrazas said. “If there’s a project that should exist, it’s hers.”
Her own project grew from a similar impulse — the memory of international students without easy ways to run everyday errands they needed to complete. She started a transportation program within the physics department, pairing incoming international students with car-owning peers. Through the fellowship, she’s working on expanding that program and developing leadership skills to sustain it.
“If I can’t progress on what I’m doing, because sometimes I get stuck or people aren’t answering emails, [Nkosi] will be like, ‘it’s okay, everything will be fine,’” Terrazas said. “It’s kind of like the moral support that keeps you going.”
For second-year student Lillian Barnes, the pull towards the fellowship was deeply personal. While browsing on the CSC website, she came across the program and saw an opportunity to give back to a community that had shaped her own path.
“I really had this idea in my mind that I wanted to give back to a program that had given me so much,” Barnes said. “I wouldn’t say I [had] a specific idea of what that would look like, but the CLF program really helped me figure that out.”
That program was Year in Wise, a pathway through which students spend their first year at UVA’s College at Wise before transitioning to Charlottesville. Barnes’ own experience navigating that transition came with its share of challenges, driving her to seek better solutions for students that would come after her.
“I felt like so much anxiety and uncertainty regarding my transition, and I really wanted to make sure no one had to go through that,” Barnes said.
Her CLF project became a Year in Wise guidebook — a comprehensive resource designed to centralize information such as financial aid timelines, transition tips and advice from past students, all in one place. Through the fellowship, Barnes said she not only gained clarity on what to build, but how to build it with intention.
“I’ve learned a lot about creating things with purpose and leading by certain values,” Barnes said. “We talked a lot about how values can guide us in our daily lives and how that can help or hurt us, and I think that was really important for me.”
Across all the projects that range from guidebooks to clothing closets and transportation networks, a common thread emerges — the work is grounded in lived experience but is shaped through reflection, collaboration, and a focus on long-term and sustainable impact.
As Ndebele put it, “You don’t have to disguise the limits, everything is possible.”
Learn more about Citizen Leaders Fellows.