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Noah Baker Merrill
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Jessica Posner and Kennedy Odede
In late 2007 Jessica Posner, a student on the SIT Study Abroad Kenya: Health and Community Development program, found herself in the Kenyan National Theatre with a small group of young actors from Shining Hope for Community (SHOFCO), a grassroots community development organization from Nairobi’s Kibera slum. Though her passion had always been for theater, the focus of her work in Kenya was already evolving into something far more complex. The group was there to perform an original piece entitled The Face Behind the Mask: A Play About Poverty, directed by Jessica and SHOFCO founder Kennedy Odede. It was the first time any member of the group had ever been inside the Kenyan National Theatre. To visit the theater for the first time as performers was a shock and an honor to all, but it would not be the last time Jessica and Kennedy would collaborate on something so meaningful.
New student Prudence Achieng
Jessica, a 2009 graduate of Wesleyan University, initially traveled to Kenya to follow her interest in “theatre as a tool for social change and empowerment.” Through friends, Jessica was able to contact Kennedy Odede before she even arrived in Kenya, and she subsequently spent the entire semester working with him and his organization to facilitate and direct the original theatre piece. However, her experiences living in the Kibera slum and working with Kennedy inspired her to take a different route after the semester had ended.
“I still remember once stopping a five-year-old girl running through a pile of trash and human waste and asking her why she wasn’t in school,” Jessica recalls. “The child responded: ‘school is only a dream and dreams don’t come true.’ Kennedy also had this mentality about his own life. He had gone to high school and college was a vague dream. Upon returning to the US, I encouraged him to apply to Wesleyan, and he was accepted. We never stopped talking about the need for a free school, as there are no other free schools in Kibera, specifically targeting girls who have no other way to go to school and are at risk of becoming another statistic.”
The first incoming class at the Kibera School for Girls
When Kennedy arrived in Connecticut, they successfully applied for a 100 Projects for Peace grant offered by the Kathryn Davis Wasserman Foundation, and the project was off and running. Jessica notes, “Kennedy and I work as a team. We bring different things to the table, including our very different upbringings. We believe that our differences are the strength of our organization. We love working together to effect change surrounding a need that is very great, and in a community very dear to both of us.” In addition to the 100 Projects for Peace grant, the two raised additional funds, and from there they engaged an alternative-curriculum specialist to create a special program for the school, based on play and experiential learning.
After several years of fundraising and planning, Kennedy and Jessica returned to Kenya this past summer to build The Kibera School for Girls. They received 500 initial applications, and selected 45 girls for the entering 2009 class. The tuition free school is run entirely by local Kenyans and includes a community center, a health center, a library and a garden. Jessica writes “It is my hope that the school and compound become a model of how to use existing social networks to engage a community on many levels, addressing issues such as education, gender violence, and health simultaneously.”
To learn more about SHOFCO and The Kibera School for Girls, visit http://www.hopetoshine.org/, or read articles about Kennedy and Jessica in the Wesleyan Connection, and Hartford Courant.
Michael Roberts, an Experiment in International Living group leader to Mongolia in 2008 and 2009, recently created a digital story about his experiences in Mongolia. This video is part of the Experiment in International Living digital storytelling project, a project where Experiment alumni are invited to create and share stories about their experiences. Email alumni@worldlearning.org to learn more.
Jenna Spencer in Morocco
This past summer Jenna Spencer traveled to Morocco with the Experiment in International Living. Though Jenna has always enjoyed traveling, this was her first adventure outside of North America. Jenna wishes to thank the many generous donors who make the Experiment possible for students like her, who would not otherwise be able to afford the experience.
Experimenters gaze into the Sahara
My mind wandered back to my homestay in a small, rural village called Aberdi. During my two week stay there was no electricity or running water. I went to the bathroom outside and lived amongst the family’s animals. I slept on the ground with my whole family in just one room. It was a simpler, more relaxed way of living which I grew to love. I would wake up to the sound of roosters without the worry of showers or what to wear. Instead, this time would be spent sipping tea and laughing with my host mother, or picking pears with my host brother. I learned to wander the long dirt roads that spanned across my village, feeling utterly safe and confident. Whether it was weaving with the local mothers, teaching English to the village children, or dancing Ahidous with the village fathers, I was constantly absorbing and learning.
Jenna and her Experiment group with Moroccan friends
As I left my homestay, after the two most rewarding weeks of my life, I sobbed. I could not imagine leaving the people I had grown to love but I was so grateful for the invaluable chance to meet and learn from them in the first place. And of course the learning did not stop there. Whether it was riding camels in the Sahara desert, exploring ancient Mosques, or learning to bargain, everyday my mind seemed to open and grow in a way I had never known before. Needless to say, on that last day navigating my way through the vibrant Rabat streets with all my senses being engaged, I was not the same person who had entered Morocco nearly four weeks previously; I had grown into so much more. I am so grateful to The Experiment [EIL] for giving me this opportunity that will forever be imprinted in my mind.
Jenna lives with her family in Cambridge, MA. She is currently a student at Concord Academy, where she is an A Better Chance student.
Damiana de Miranda and fellow recipients
Damiana de Miranda, academic director of the SIT Study Abroad Brazil: Public Health, Race, and Human Rights program, recently received the Prêmio Mulher Guerreira Maria Felipa. The award, created in 2008 as part of the International Black Women’s Day celebration, is given annually by the city council of the city of Salvador, in Bahia, Brazil. This year, 45 political activists, researchers, scholars, and community leaders received the award in recognition of their work with Afro-Brazilian communities.
Dr. de Miranda has served as a member of national, state, and municipal Afro-Brazilian health committees. She received the award for her research on public health and her work to provide all Brazilians with equal access to health care. “As a melting pot society, Brazil has failed to implement public policies to include all citizens,” she says. “As a result, Afro-Brazilians and Native Brazilians have limited participation in mainstream society.” Dr. de Miranda asserts that her background in public health, as well as her political work, serves as a backdrop for the work she does at SIT.
Students on Dr. de Miranda’s public health program have the opportunity to observe issues of social justice and health disparity firsthand in Brazil. Dr. de Miranda conducts lectures on public health and human rights and also provides students with a chance to meet with local herbalists, doctors, and political activists. Through observations of Brazil’s public health system, she says that students gain the knowledge and skills to recognize inequality and fight for social justice and a more peaceful world. Dr. de Miranda notes that equal access to public health care has improved in the last few decades, but that institutional racism still causes the social exclusion of the majority of Brazilians. She adds, “The exposure to this experience provides SIT students with a unique understanding, which can be used, academically and personally, in their future endeavors.”
Last week 172 graduate students from 33 different countries arrived at the World Learning campus in Brattleboro, Vermont. Students in the SIT Graduate Institute’s incoming class traveled from as far away as Azerbaijan and Zimbabwe, with 26% of all students coming from outside the United States. Twenty seven of the students will enter the MAT program (Master of Arts in Teaching) while the remaining 145 will enter the PIM program (Program in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management). This year’s incoming class brings with it a wealth of national and international experience, including 26 US students who have participated in the Peace Corps or Americorps-VISTA programs.
On Tuesday, the incoming class attended an opening ceremony with Marge Bruchac, an Abenaki storyteller and anthropologist. Bruchac invited the students to be thoughtfully aware of their place in history, urging them to “be careful about what it is we are taking from the past, and what it is we are passing on to the future.” After her introductory remarks, students and faculty joined hands and danced to Abenaki songs, before breaking into small discussion groups.
To see more photos of the incoming class, click here.
Ann and her Italian host sisters in 2009
Ann Friedman, World Learning former Trustee, recently traveled to the shores of the Adriatic Sea for a family reunion, an Experiment host family reunion. When Ann was just a teenager, she participated on an Experiment in International Living trip to Italy where she took intensive Italian language courses and lived with an Italian host family on a small farm. “As an Experimenter I was emboldened to live far from home and learn to live in a very different culture and community,” says Ann. “I had to learn how to be flexible and adjust – important attributes for anyone to carry throughout life.”
Ann's Italian host sisters during her Experiment days
The recent reunion with her Italian host sisters was just another small way in which Ann has helped to spread the spirit and values of the Experiment and World Learning. After college, Ann was inspired to be an Experiment group leader to France, which eventually led her into the fields of education and international relations. “I wanted to make sure that the kids in my group learned about their host country and appreciated its history and beauty as much as I did,” she says. “I would say that the experience ultimately led to my developing a world cultures extracurricular program and then eventually becoming a classroom teacher.”
Ann’s passion for travel and experiential education has certainly rubbed off – not only on her students, but on her daughter Natalie as well. Natalie participated on the SIT Study Abroad Senegal: Lens on West Africa program in the summer of 2007. Though Ann has always believed in the importance of global citizenship and cross-cultural understanding, her daughter’s experiences have highlighted the growing need for young students to have authentic intercultural interactions.
Ann and her Experiment host family in Italy
“I think that because we’re all connected now to whomever we want to be connected, we face the very real danger of believing that those somewhat superficial connections are the equivalent of real connections – connections which you forge in homestays and by living or studying abroad,” says Ann. As a trustee Ann has donated substantially to the World Learning capital campaign, and has even started an Experiment scholarship program at the Iowa high school where she was a student. “It’s important to support World Learning.” She adds, “Only through the hands-on, lived programs provided by World Learning do young people gain intimate knowledge of other cultures and their own capabilities, interests and strengths.”
This belief, in the importance of real-world intercultural experiences, motivates Ann to continue to support World Learning. She has not only made the World Learning experience a reality for her own daughter, but has also provided many high school students with an opportunity they would otherwise not have.
World Learning/SIT is pleased to announce the creation of the Alice Rowan Swanson Fellowship Fund. This $100,000 fellowship fund established by the family of SIT Study Abroad Nicaragua ’06 alumna Alice Rowan Swanson, is a living tribute to Alice’s life, her passion for bridging cultures and helping others and the role that SIT Study Abroad played in her life. An Amherst ‘07 graduate, Alice was killed while riding her bike to work in 2008.
Alice’s family believes that Alice would have spent her life working for human rights abroad, particularly in developing countries. This fund will annually award fellowships to SIT program alumni who would like to return to the country of their program to pursue further development projects that benefit human rights in that region.
Alice Rowan Swanson always wanted to live abroad and experience cultures different from her own. She began traveling with her family at the age of 10 and continued to follow her passion for international learning at Amherst College. Alice spent the first semester of her junior year in Cairo. Although abroad, she lived in a traditional dormitory, spoke English in class and never felt immersed in the local culture.
Alice spent her second semester in Nicaragua as a student with SIT Study Abroad’s Nicaragua: Revolution, Transformation, and Civil Society. Through this program, she felt connected and engaged with the local community and fully immersed in Nicaraguan culture. She discussed with local community members the need for clean drinking water and improved medical help. Alice realized that she wanted to engage in development work with local partners to improve social conditions and human rights. Upon returning to the US, she applied for and received a grant to continue her work with local communities in Nicaragua following her senior year of college.
When Alice returned from her second stay in Nicaragua, she served a four-month internship at the Middle East Institute, and obtained a job at IREX, an international nonprofit organization. Her co-workers observed that Alice “helped to build bridges of understanding between often disparate cultures, a task for which her welcoming personality and sharp intellect made her uniquely and excellently equipped.”
To continue Alice’s legacy, her family has established the Alice Rowan Swanson Fellowship to support SIT alumni who seek to devote some months of their life pursuing a project that supports human rights: education, nutrition, medical care and freedom from tyranny. In so doing, each fellowship awardee will honor and pay tribute to the work that Alice had undertaken to make the world a better place and her desire to make a difference in the world for those less fortunate whom she viewed as part of her global family.
Ideal candidates for this fellowship will possess qualities resembling those of Alice Rowan Swanson, in the words of her family, friends and co-workers: “…intelligence and passion for learning; great warmth and friendliness; a smiling, welcoming personality, sharp intellectual rigor and fine writing, and an adventurous desire to experience untraditional locations, and through her personal initiative, to make the world a better place.”
Click here for more information or to download The Alice Rowan Swanson Fellowship application. For more information, please email alumni@worldlearning.org.
July 23, 2009 (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia): World Learning Ethiopia announced the launch of a three-year project entitled “HIV Prevention in Large Scale Construction Sites in Ethiopia,” made possible by a $4.75 million grant from the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS (PEPFAR) through United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The project aims to reach more than 33,000 construction workers, 2,900 commercial sex workers and 200,000 surrounding community members from a total of 25 construction sites located throughout Ethiopia.
Ethiopia is undergoing nation-wide economic development efforts that include large-scale construction throughout the country. Many of these construction sites are in rural and remote locations where HIV prevention and care efforts are often lacking. Working in collaboration with key government agencies, World Learning seeks to create workplace interventions and policies that will reduce high-risk behavior and HIV infection for workers and community members.
Local partners, World Learning staff and community members attended the launch event. The day included a keynote address by USAID Deputy Mission Director Nancy Estes and workshops by Dr. Abeba Bekele, chief of the prevention project and Ministry of Water Resources representatives.
Nancy Estes observed, “…this project implemented by World Learning is unique in that it works closely with government agencies to help institutionalize HIV prevention policies and programs in the workplace.” She continued, quoting a famous Ethiopian Amharic proverb hande bertu hulet medhanitu meaning “two is stronger that one.” “I could not agree more,” Estes noted. “It takes partnership-between government and donors, NGOs and communities, to make a lasting change…we believe that without the involvement of the government and the community, HIV prevention will not be sustainable.”
World Learning Ethiopia Country Representative, Adanech Kebede, said, “It’s my firm belief that with the commitment and expertise we expect from (World Learning,) we will be able to achieve our objectives and contribute towards the betterment of our country Ethiopia”.
By Jonas Jacobs, SIT Study Abroad Bolivia: Lens on Latin America Alum
My documentary film, NO WAY TO SAY GOODBYE, is about the disappearing Jewish community in Bolivia. In 1939, at the dawn of the Holocaust, Bolivia was one of only three countries in the world (Colombia and China were the other two) to allow Jews into its doors. The new immigrants settled there, doing their best to recreate the “Old World” they left behind. In Cochabamba, the city where the film takes place, they built a beautiful European style synagogue. Every Friday night it was filled to the brim with people. Today, you’re lucky to find ten people gathered for a Shabbat service there (ten is the minimum, according to Jewish law, for having a service). Since the community’s heyday in the forties and fifties, many people have moved away, seeking better educational and economic opportunities, and larger Jewish communities abroad. There were once 10,000 Jews in Bolivia, today there are less than 500.
The idea for making a documentary film about this community started in the summer of 2006, right before my junior year at Northwestern University. I was getting restless in the USA and looking for adventure and a place to hone my Spanish. Being a film major, I was interested in the documentary film program that SIT had in Bolivia. I really didn’t know much about the country, but its mystery appealed to me. I wanted my study abroad experience to be meaningful – not just one big party – so I racked my brain for a good essay topic that would keep me stimulated while I was away.
During that time, I was taking a few African American Studies classes. I’d always wanted to learn about the side of American history that our high school textbooks forgot. From the classes, I took an interest in the African Diaspora. This concept of being removed from your homeland, and forced to make a new home elsewhere, fascinated me. But since I wasn’t African American, I thought of ways I could relate my interest in Diaspora to my own identity. I didn’t have to look far since the inspiration was sitting right in front of me – the Jewish Diaspora. I was raised Jewish in Los Angeles, a city with over 600,000 Jews. Many of my friends were Jewish, so I never saw it as a unique identity trait. Instead, being Jewish was something I always took for granted. I thought learning about the Jewish experience in such a removed place as Bolivia would give me some perspective. So I asked myself, “Are there Jews in Bolivia?”
Here I am now and it’s 2009 – my obscure little idea has suddenly become a marketable film. Nothing regarding the film has gone exactly according to planned. I thought I’d finish the piece quickly and move on to the next project. However, that was merely my off kilter dream of being done with the project, receiving attention from it and moving on. Three years in to NO WAY TO SAY GOODBYE, I’ve been humbled by the filmmaking process and learned, first hand, all about the filmmaker’s journey. When you see a movie on the big screen, it’s so easy to imagine it was magically created for your enjoyment. But so much more goes in to making a film and getting it shown to an audience. Every step of the journey is a small miracle, from finding the money to make it to seeing the audience react and be affected by your film! It takes a lot of work, passion and faith to get your story out there.
I’m thankful for all those people who encouraged me to keep going along the way, especially my parents. I’m forever grateful to the folks at SIT Study Abroad Bolivia for believing in the project and trusting me to get it done way back in the baby stages. They helped me make connections and, most importantly, gave me the freedom I needed to turn the idea into reality. I’m currently in post-production, re-editing the piece based on both audience opinions and my own take on what exactly the film needs to be complete. I have a distributor, New Love Films, who believes in the project, and a non- profit organization, The Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity, who’s sponsoring it. It feels great to share this unique story with the rest of the world, and it’s been a joy to watch the film evolve. We are planning to release it in 2010, take it to different film festivals and get it out to the public.
After making NO WAY TO SAY GOODBYE, I feel much more connected to my Jewish identity, and I’m constantly thinking about what Judaism means in the twenty first century. I have a lot more pride in being Jewish, and I hope the film helps explain that and inspires people to take pride in where they come from as well. With the momentum from this project, I want to continue making films about subjects that are close to my heart. I’m interested in finding beauty where others might not – seeing the universal appeal in obscure subject matter. I think we have a lot of great technicians today in film, and a lot of social activists, but I want to tell simple, sensitive stories. While I’d like to start right away on a new project, I’m trying my own patience now and waiting for the next film to come naturally. As a friend once told me, you can’t force art.
To view a clip of the film NO WAY TO SAY GOODBYE, click here.
To learn more about SIT Study Abroad Bolivia: Lens on Latin America, click here.
To check out other films made by SIT Study Abroad Bolivia alums, click here.
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