Kate Waters, an English major who graduated from Duke in 2000, is a writer with interests in collaborative work with children and community development. During her time at Duke she worked with urban and Mexican immigrant youth on documentary projects through the Community Stories and Literacy Through Photography programs at the Center for Documentary Studies. Kate spent 2000–2001 as a Hart Fellow in Paraguay, where she developed and coordinated alternative education projects with young women in rural areas.
From 2001 to 2002 Kate was the documentary coordinator for the Hart Fellows Program at Duke. In the fall of 2001, she co-taught with Alex Harris the Duke FOCUS Program seminar Humanitarian Action: A Documentary Approach. During 2002 Kate was the program coordinator for the Lewis Hine Documentary Fellows Program and also worked as a community consultant and assistant teacher on Growing-Up Hyphenated, a collaborative writing project with second-generation immigrant youth in Durham, North Carolina.
Kate was a Jessica Jennifer Cohen Fellow/Lewis Hine Fellow working with Melel Xojobal in Chiapas, Mexico. Melel targets displaced indigenous families and children living in the streets of San Cristóbal, offering support, providing non-formal educational activities, and enlightening other agencies and organizations about the needs of these families.
