Julia Tinneny

Photo from Bard College Newsletter

Julia is the daughter of Brian and Heather McCarron Tinneny of Chalfont, Pennsylvania and a member of the 2018 class at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York where she is majoring in global and international studies. In May 2016 she was awarded a prestigious Davis Projects for Peace Prize. Her project, called Jappal translates to Hold On.

The $10,000 prize will support a two-year course that focuses on education and skill building for poor women living in the rural community of Sandiara in Senegal, Africa. The Summer of 2016, Julia will continue her work in Senegal promoting the economic empowerment for women by further implementing training programs for them in tailoring, artisan skills, and the production of sellable goods.  Developing economic independence is expected to help them break the cycle of poverty leading to domestic servitude or marriage far from their home village.  The Projects for Peace Prize was created by Kathryn W. Davis, a lifelong internationalist and philanthropist.

No stranger to Senegal, Julia spent August 2013 - April 2014 with the Ndiaye family in Sandiara.  She and her family raised money to purchase sewing machines, furnishings and equipment for a sewing class project for unskilled teenagers and young women in the area. She also learned to speak Wolof the predominant African language in Senegal. She spent the summer of 2015 in Sandiara formalizing the sewing program, hireing teachers, writeing curriculum and recruiting students.

Julia is the great-great-great granddaughter of Patrick “Yankee Pat” Tinneny of Goladuff, Newtownbutler, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland; Greenock, Scotland and Philadelphia.