Seeing the chamber pot

I was recently asked to write about a memory of my mentor and friend Buzz Alexander for a book being compiled for his upcoming birthday.  (I don't believe he reads this blog so I'm not worried about it spoiling the surprise!)  Buzz is the founder of the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP), whose mission is to collaborate with incarcerated adults, incarcerated youth, urban youth and the formerly incarcerated to strengthen our community through creative expression.  I know them as the organization that gave me the gift of being a part of workshops working with women in a prison and girls in a juvenile detention center to create theater art.

Here is my Buzz memory.  Happy birthday, Buzz.

I can't remember the exact moment I first met Buzz Alexander, but I do know that by the time I met him, he'd already been way talked up by my friends Megan and Molly.  And he definitely exceeded expectations, which is usually hard to do. 

I had just joined PCAP for the summer, since I had found out I didn't need to be a University of Michigan student to join in a training session to lead workshops in Michigan prisons and juvenile detention centers.  Molly and Megan told me all about their experiences and I knew I wanted in.  I participated in an orientation and training session and the next step was to shadow an existing workshop and I would then be assigned my own workshop as a co-facilitator for the summer season.

For my shadowing session--the first time I'd ever entered a prison and the first time experiencing a PCAP workshop, I had the good fortune of being placed with Buzz and Suzanne's group, and then I think someone dropped out or they needed a third person for some other reason and... I got to stay in their group, in addition to working with another workshop at Vista Maria.  It was incredible. 

I experienced not only what I'd expected--Buzz as skilled workshop facilitator, but also all of the less tangible things.  The things you can't learn from reading a handout or hearing someone lecture.  I witnessed the care Buzz showed and enacted with each and every participant in our workshop.  The way he clearly demonstrated that none of us was better than another, whether we were incarcerated or not, whether we were "leading" the workshop or "participating" and no matter our gender, race, class or age.  We were all participants and all bringing genuine pieces of ourselves to the work.  This experience has influenced me in everything I've done since.

During that summer workshop, the play "Urinalysis" came into being.  The play focused on a group of aging people in a nursing home who realize their urine was being secretly collected and sold to a manufacturing plant, after the head of the home stumbled upon it's value as a radioactive fuel.  The nursing home residents quickly realized they were being exploited and given no part of the proceeds.   It was hilarious.  It was allegorical.  It was deep.  And most importantly, it was good. 

On the day before the play was to be performed in the prison rec room for other prisoners and a few select people from outside the prison, we found out the warden was reversing a ruling that we could bring in props, all of which had been meticulously sorted and approved by the prison.  We faced a dilemma of what to do.  We'd planned on those props and rehearsed with them in mind, from mumus to chamber pots.  Could the show go on? 

No one who has ever been involved in PCAP will be surprised to hear that of course the show went on.  And it went on stronger and ever more heartfelt.  There was a sense of emotion in the air from all of us performing that day because we knew we were creating together.  We could all see the mumus and chamber pots and I feel confident our audience could too.

And this is what Buzz is all about.  The ability to inspire each of us to bring the pieces of ourselves to the fore who can see the chamber pot even when systems of oppression have taken them away.

Thank you Buzz.  And happy birthday!

With love,
Heidi Rosbe (PCAP, summer of 2004)

Women and issues in the international forum

The New York Times came out with an article today "The Internationalization of Women's Issues". In the article Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile and current executive director of UN Women, is quoted as saying: "Women issues are world issues... Today there is greater awareness than ever before that women’s full participation is essential for peace, democracy and sustainable development." What does it mean to frame "women's issues" as "world issues"? And is there a difference between "women's issues" and "women issues"?  Bachelet may have misspoken or been misquoted but may can also be a distinction here: the difference between issues that are only relevant to women and issues that are related to women but relevant to all.

Take the issue of violence against women or femicide. Increasingly, groups of women and men are speaking out against it. This is evident in the reaction in India against the recent brutal gang rape of a young college student in Delhi. And crucial work is being done in Jordan by journalist Rana Husseini, who has made incredible strides in educating both women and young men--who are often called upon by their families to commit the acts of violence--about rights and laws, teaming up with local imams to spread the message.

What will we herald next year as we usher in 2014? Perhaps that we no longer need to even have this conversation, because it is a given that women issues are issues of importance to all.

Women and early warning: An unequal and missed opportunity

The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue just put out a report Women's involvement in conflict early warning systems by Mary Ann M. Arnado.  The report argues that despite the forward movement involving women in peace process after the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325, women and women's work has still be generally ignored in conflict prevention and early warning systems. In practice, this means that most early warning systems, which rely on collection, analysis and dissemination of data on conflict factors, have not provided women with equal opportunity to contribute.  The result is that crucial data is missing from the analysis and what is determined a "security threat" ignores some threats to women. Notably, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines have specifically designed their early warning systems as gender inclusive and the benefit has been clear. However, Arnado writes, "The involvement of women in conflict early warning systems is more pronounced and defined at the community level than in prevailing formal structures." Unsurprising since this is the case in so many instances.

The main arguments for calling for women’s participation in arenas like this one hinge on one of two tenets—the basic right of women to be included and the idea that women are actually better at anything related to peace simply because women are more peaceful. The first argument is absolutely true that we women should have the equal right to participate in all walks of life, and particularly in those that affect our lives. However, asserting that one has the right does not always bring about change.

Moving to the second argument, I find the idea that women are inherently more peaceful to be unhelpful, but also not true. There are numerous cases in which women have actually fueled conflict, often from behind, supplying materials, food, housing to combatants and sometimes using rhetoric to goad men around them to take up arms. Some women actually take up arms themselves and fight among the ranks. In fact, in the United States, women have fought hard for the right to join the military. And we don’t have to reach far to come up with examples of women heads of state who were just as hawkish as their male counterparts. So it’s an unhelpful assertion that women are just better at being peaceful and one I feel it largely based on and fed by stereotypes of women and of their perceived role in the home.

This is not to say that there are no differences between men and women (excuse the binary for the sake of this argument), as clearly there are both biological and cultural factors that impact the way our genders manifest themselves. And of course to some extent, stereotypes can be self-reinforcing and culture plays a huge part in laying out the rules for our spheres of influence as well as our expected roles in all aspects of life, including conflict. My main problem with this arguments is that it’s grossly oversimplified and often serves to pit genders against one another, getting us into the game of who is better than who, which is not helpful. All this said, because of the clear delineation of women’s and men’s roles in many societies, excluding women and the data they would bring into the early warning process means missing whole parts of the picture. All areas of society in which men are the ones excluded would be discounted in the early warning analysis, a dangerous omission.

What is needed?  A resolution for women's participation in early warning?  When will the men in power realize they're missing the important and unique potential of the women in their community?  What is most effective in affecting change?

Unexpected inspiration

What does innovation look like? Is anything ever really new?

I worked as a UNDP-contracted group facilitator last week at a conference in the UN administered buffer zone in “the last divided capital in the world”*—Nicosia, Cyprus.  But this was no ordinary conference with the usual speeches from the usual suspects and participants split between those madly scrambling to scribble down notes and ask the most intelligent questions during Q&A and those snoozing in the back rows and checking their email and Facebook accounts. This conference set out to achieve innovation, both in conference style and in the outcomes for its participants.  Was it successful? Judge for yourself…

I arrived to Cyprus in late evening on the Thursday before the conference, equipped with my usual enthusiasm for any kind of facilitation work and particularly excited to be working with participants hailing from a wide range of countries, from Romania and Bulgaria to Iraq and Egypt. It’s always a challenge and reward to work with diverse groups, and in this case, local experts with years of experience working in civil society. What I hadn’t expected was the inspired outlook I’d be holding with me as I left Cyprus 10 days later—inspired by the enthusiasm and forward-movement from the participant projects, inspired to strive for more in my own work, and generally inspired by a sense of hopefulness for the future of which I often feel bereft in this current state of American politics, world economy and the numerous violent conflicts world-wide.

The facilitation team

What came together to make it work? 

• Participants 
• Process 
• Money!
• Support--from the organizers and local hosts  
• A fabulous facilitation team and fearless team leader with more energy on three hours sleep as most of us have on eight
• And lots of caffeine for the rest of us...

The success of the conference hingled largely on the design and on buy-in from the entire organizing team, who put a lot of trust in all of us.  Borrowing on one facilitator's experience in the field of technology conferences including Random Hacks of Kindness, this conference artfully balanced cooperation with competition. 

The goals of the conference included inter-regional cooperation and sharing of knowledge between three regions--Central and Eastern Europe (post-Soviet and Warsaw Pact states), the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and Cyprus, which as host was considered to be its own region.  We had 150+ participants (~50 from each region), all civil society leaders, and our goal was to get them from Point A [they have never met each other] to Point B, where they are collaborating on inter-regional project proposals (with representation for each region) to compete for six seed funding grants.  It was a tall order, but it happened, and only because had carefully planned out every second of each of the three days.

Power of One Ning site

It all started with the Ning, a great social networking platform where participants could start sharing ideas, connecting and even forming project groups pre-conference.  When the conference started on Day 1, we quickly moved them into smaller groups of 25-30, pre-arranged to ensure diversity of region, gender and issue area. After introductions in these groups, we brainstormed like crazy on the role of civil society in transitions and discussed at length what the priorities should be.  Reading this now that might not sound exciting, but the participants engaged in these discussions brought to the conversation lived experiences of revolution, of societal shifts and courageous activism.  In the afternoon, participants moved to issue-specific discussions, choosing to focus on topics like "The role of social media", "Youth empowerment" and "Public participation in influencing policy".  This was the time to think together with other experts in the field about what works and what doesn't and about innovative new ideas.  I heard a Palestinian woman complain that it was impossible  to change the Palestinian educational system and this was quickly countered by a woman from Lebanon who said "That's exactly what I'm working on--let's talk!"  Participants from Bulgaria shared best practices from their experiences with participants from Iraq and Cyprus.  And Egyptian activists talked over their ideas with activists from Bosnia. The magic was starting to happen. But we still faced what we knew was the crucial make-or-break point: The Sparks.

Spark presentation

Before breaking for the evening, we announced the idea of sparks--innovative ideas for change.  Participants who had spark ideas were to give a "spark presentation" the next morning at 9am, in order to convince other participants (at the very least one from each of the three regions) to join their spark groups, each of which would then turn into project proposals. Those with spark ideas were termed "spark champions" because it was their job now to "champion an innovative idea for change."  Spark presentations could be no longer than 5 minutes and were guided by a set of 20 slides that advance automatically every 15 sections.  After some initial concern (I'm being generous--there were some heated words exchanged!), the participants went off for the night to put together presentations. By the next morning, we had 28 of spark champions signed up, well above our target of 18.

Negotiations over a spark idea

After the presentations, we moved the group to a souk (marketplace) of ideas where the spark champions literally hocked their ideas. The idea was that if after an hour, a spark idea didn't have at least one participant signed on from each region, it would "burn out" and the group could join other sparks. At one point, recognizing he only had participants signed on from the MENA region and Europe, a spark champion stood on his chair and called out "I need someone from Cyprus!  Come join our group!" Upon entering the souk, some participants bee-lined for a spark and other milled around, inspecting the wares until they settled on one they liked.  Some sparks realized their ideas were similar or complementary and merge groups.  At the end of the souk, we were down to 20 ideas.

At the souk

Over the course of the next afternoon and the following morning, sparks turned into project ideas which become project proposals.  Groups submitted concept notes and came up with 5-minute presentations. And here's where the genius of the cooperation (within inter-regional project teams) and competition (for the grants) comes in. There were 6 total grants available, but 3 projects would be fast-tracked in the grant process by plenary vote. After the final presentations, each participant cast three votes, for their top three projects. Of course, many probably voted for their own projects, but then they had to cast two other votes for different projects for their ballot to be valid.  This countered the unfair advantage larger project groups could have over smaller ones. Concerned that some participants were already not convinced the process wasn't rigged from the start, we announced an open ballot-counting process, inviting any participants to effectively serve as election monitors. We weren't sure anyone would actually take advantage of this, but one participant actually came and video taped us counting the votes. Am I out there on YouTube somewhere cursing over someone's poor handwriting: "Is that a B or a P??"

Graffiti wall at the souk

By the end of the conference, the energy was high as participants waited to hear who had won the top three spaces for funding. A bus of participants had to leave for the airport before we were scheduled to announce the results to the large group so we made a compromise—I would follow them out to the bus and just as the bus doors were closing, I’d give them the results. I found myself with an excited and enthused group traveling home to Egypt and and one to Gaza. After a few wholehearted attempts to get me to spill the beans early, and when it became clear I was taking my marching orders to heart, we moved on to explore their takeaways from the conference. All were glowing in their feedback to me: “This was great”, “I loved it!” and “I want to do this again.” When two Cypriot police came scurrying over to us, concerned at the large suitcases a few participants were transporting out of the buffer zone and into the Greek Cypriot-controlled southern half of Cyprus, I started to explain that it wasn’t a problem, that they’d come from their hotel in Greek side and brought luggage into the buffer zone with them that morning since they were going straight to the airport from the conference.  One daredevil young Egyptian man said with a winning smile, “Excuse but we were just bringing in bombs in these suitcases.” I gave him a “it’s not the time for these jokes!” look and he laughed and let up.  The Cypriot police did not seem amused, but they let the group go.

I knew the process had worked when I told the bus group the results. The "bombs in these suitcases" young man was a member of the project group that won first place, but none of the others were in winning groups. It didn't seem to matter. They all knew they still had another month of developing a project proposal in the hopes of winning one of the remaining three grant spots, and they knew they had contributed to something greater--they'd shared their knowledge, made new connections and had a new experience.  No one could go home saying they spent three days at a conference in Cyprus sleeping at the back of a lecture hall.

Project group at work

To hear from participants directly check out these videos:
Sali (Egypt): http://youtu.be/RvW4CWAwLAw
Orestes (Cyprus): http://youtu.be/PEg21PQ63I8
Goran (Bosnia): http://youtu.be/h_n0armh9Kk 
Ellada (Cyprus): http://youtu.be/SKxggbJpo68

And for me?  Well I've come away from it with new inspiration and ideas and I met an incredible group of people--the fantastic facilitator group, the amazing staff of UNDP-Action for Cooperation and Trust in Cyprus, the incredible representatives from the Peace It Together network of Cypriot NGOs, and the inspiring conference participants.  And I have a bunch of new friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Maybe it doesn't really matter whether something is new or not.  It's the way one borrows ideas and uses them in new ways with new people and new places.  What's next?  Who will take the next step forward?

To read more about the Power of One conference, check out my fellow facilitator Helena's blog, Let Them Talk.

*This is said often but not exactly true. What are the other previously-divided capitals?  Berlin probably comes immediately to mind. No, check again. Bonn was West Germany’s capital city.  

The common language of dance

Project Common Bond

Language is a challenge to peacebuilding projects and cross-cultural dialogue. It just is. And most often English becomes the lingua franca of the programs, clearly advantaging those of us native speakers.  I worked last summer at Project Common Bond, detailed more fully in the post below. The program brings together youth from around the world who have the "common bond" of having lost a family member to an act of terror. They come to the camp to meet other youth from countries as far away from each other as Sri Lanka, Russia, Argentina, and Morocco, among others, to process what they've been through with others who can relate, and to imagine together and work towards a better future. The camp's activities all run in English and most of the counselors and staff are American, however some of the youth have only a basic knowledge of English and rely on chaperone-translators to participate in the more verbal activities.

This year, our amazing dance instructor, Marcia, led the group in participating in a Project Common Bond flash mob (see video at right). All 120+ of us practiced the choreography for day to "Twist and Shout", "Call Me Maybe" and other pop songs. For some, this was great fun, and for others, not as used to shaking their hips, the practices were torture. But everyone did it, and it culminated in a flash mob performance on a hot summer day in Boston with onlookers clapping and taking pictures.

But the truly amazing thing is the large impact it had on the group. This was only my second summer working on the program, but others shared the same observation: This group was a dancing group and they did it all together.

Free time dance party

Every evening during free time, the counselors would set out board games, arts & crafts areas, a foosball table... and turn on the stereo.  Without fail, every night turned into the craziest, most fun dance party you've ever seen--with Irish youth teaching Irish line dances and some "Rock the Boat" dance I'm told is done at weddings, conga lines erupting spontaneously, Russian dance classes, and one of our young men from Sri Lanka inevitably finding his way onto a table and creating a makeshift microphone from a salt shaker or whatever he could find. And everyone danced--youth, staff, the whole group.

Marcia told me she thinks of dance as a language, and that in teaching dance, you're teaching a group how to speak to each other through movement. I think she's right. It's not that dance itself is one common language and in fact I saw at PCB the distinct differences between Nigerian and Ossetian dance and between Kandian (region of Sri Lanka) and Palestinian dance.  But through the use of dance in practicing for the flash mob, these young people were all learning a set of common phrases, from "the twist" to the moves we learned set to "Peace, Unity, Love... and Havin' Fun".  When free time set in and the music was on, they all had a basic vocabulary that got them moving.  And from there, it took off.  The language gap had been bridged for the group.

PCB handmade puzzles

Beyond the dance, this group was cohesive and really came together as one, trusting each other and opening up, making true connections across national and linguistic boundaries. There were many other crucial factors, from the Dignity Model workshops we led in the mornings, and the Peace In Action sessions, to the incredible drama, arts, sports, music and dance classes after lunch. There was the great care taken by the lead staff, who had put months of meticulous planning into the camp, and the genuine care shown by all of the counselors and other support staff. But I can't help but wonder whether the common language of the flash mob might have been that final magic ingredient to pull it all together, like that extra pinch of salt in a marinara sauce moving it from delicious to the best ever.

Peacebuilding and intercultural programs should never underestimate the power of the arts, and movement in particular, as a major catalyst, enabling real breakthroughs and real change. Sign me up for the flash mob next year. 

Let Our Past Change the Future

How can we end cycles of violence?

I've recently been inspired by my work with a summer camp called Project Common Bond for youth who have lost a family member to an act of terrorism or political violence.  Youth come together from all over the world and both connect with one another, healing from their losses and are empowered to imagine and work towards a different reality where these acts of violence do not exist.  

I was incredibly impressed with these young people who had endured the most heinous of travesties--the loss of a loved one and consequently a loss of safety, security and stability.  Some had even been the recipients or witnesses of direct violence.  And yet, I saw youth from Pakistan, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, and the United States among others think creatively together about what they can do to work towards a new reality.  I think sometimes what is needed, in addition to role models, is to simply turn it back to the youth and ask "what do you think?" and "what can you do?" since all too often youth voices are marginalized. Instead, we can encourage youth to think about their own power and possibility.  

One American 14-year-old related to our group the story of when her teacher had told the class that all Arabs and Muslims were evil and that Islam was a religion of hate. The young woman expressed her frustration at her perceived inability to do anything, recognizing the power dynamics and the fact that this teacher had the ability to fail her in the class. As a group, we brainstormed her options and she outlined steps she could take both in future situations and the conversation she could have with this teacher now that the woman no longer holds the same power over her.  One thing this amazing young woman said to me stood out:
"You would think that we of anyone [families who lost loved ones in 9/11] would hate, but we don't.  We recognize that all people in a group or a religion are not represented by the actions of a few extremists.  How could my teacher say that?"

The motto of Project Common Bond is "Let Our Past Change the Future" and I'm a little more confident now that it will...  

AmeriCorps: Spending that pays off

I just spent two years in graduate school studying conflict—indicators to predict it, factors that influence it, ways to resolve it.  Almost all conflict literature points to a common crucial factor: unemployment, and more specifically, youth unemployment. Sure, unemployment in the United States is nowhere near that of Sudan or the Ivory Coast.  But our 9.8% unemployment rate is nothing to laugh at and neither is our youth unemployment rate measured at 19% last July.  What would my student essays have offered as a potential remedy? The obvious answer is programs that generate jobs, particularly those that provide training to young people.  This is why I was shocked to hear that the House of Representatives voted last week to eliminate the AmeriCorps program.

In 2005, I was an idealistic young graduate looking for work and I wanted to find a job that served some greater good.  I joined AmeriCorps and worked at a fledgling community center, tutoring kids and teaching English to new immigrants.  I gained teaching experience and management skills and went on to work as a full-time salaried staff member there for almost three years after my AmeriCorps service year was over.  Thanks to the institution of AmeriCorps, providing the center with energetic free staff members, it grew exponentially and was able to serve a wider community.

AmeriCorps is no free ride.  As an AmeriCorps “volunteer”, I earned a living stipend of just $10,500/year, but was provided healthcare and an education award.  My AmeriCorps training cohort was diverse: We were recent high school and college graduates, current part-time students, mothers looking to rejoin the work force and career changers seeking experience. What we had in common: each of us needed employment and wanted to contribute to American society.  We truly embodied the AmeriCorps pledge, particularly, “I will bring Americans together to strengthen our communities.”

The programs AmeriCorps members staff provide afterschool activities and safe spaces for teens, and they tutor children who would otherwise fall through the proverbial cracks in our system.  They provide job training and placement for adults and build houses for Katrina victims.  They run food banks, set up health clinics and counsel survivors of domestic violence.  These are programs that strengthen the fabric of our society.  I would suggest an AmeriCorps-like program as a conflict prevention mechanism for any of the “fragile states” I studied last year.  Is this really an institution we want to remove from our country?

In January 2011, national unemployment was at 9.8%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some states have been hit much harder, with my home state of Michigan precariously perched at 11.7%, only recently down from 13%.  Factoring in the number of people not included in these statistics because they are no longer looking for work, and the many underemployed people getting by on part-time jobs, the numbers are much higher.  Only six months ago, the Joint Economic Committee reported a 19.6% unemployment rate for young people ages 16-24. It’s important to again emphasize that this only includes youth actively seeking employment. This is a dangerous number for a nation worried about crime and security.

Enter this new plan to cut all funding to AmeriCorps.

President Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act on April 21, 2009, renewing and expanding the national service program that houses AmeriCorps. Among other things, the Act approved gradually expanding the 75,000 AmerCorps members then serving to 250,000.  This is 250,000 people who, like me, will find employment strengthening our country’s underserved communities.  Or this is 250,000 additional jobs that could be lost and countless people who will not benefit from the programs these members would have staffed.

I know many will argue, “But we have to make spending cuts somewhere.”  Yes, there will be cuts, but cutting one of the major American innovations that provides jobs at present and supports organizations to grow and generate future jobs is not the answer. It’s simply faulty reasoning. The positive cycle of growth will be stopped in its tracks if AmeriCorps is taken out of the equation. 

At the end of 2009, the House voted to continue funding AmeriCorps at $1,149,721,000 per year.  This cost amounts to just 0.03% of the total federal budget for 2010. In Michigan alone, there are 1,824 AmeriCorps members serving (excluding the many involved in sister programs like the Senior Corps) and the total cost is only $12,551,137.  In terms of “bang for your buck”, this is a clear success.

As the Senate prepares to vote on this issue, let us support institutions that further what we Americans pride ourselves on—The American Dream.  AmeriCorps members pledge, “I am an AmeriCorps member, and I will get things done.” Senate, let’s get things done.

Gettin' Down in Vayetown

This post is from a blog I wrote in 2010 while working on a project with vocational training centers in Liberia.

Monrovia, Liberia
 

The project is going well. Which is surprising me because I really wasn't confident in it when we left New York despite our months of planning. I’d had so many questions and doubts, most of which centered on whether we were capable of adding any value to the programs here in Liberia. What do we know about vocational training? About vocational training in West Africa? In Liberia in particular? What do we know about market assessments and even about training people here? There were so many unknowns and yet so much trust and so many resources had been put into this project already.  The temp video was a rinky-dink production using borrowed cameras, poor lighting, no external mics, our team-members as actors, scripts written by us, and editing in a single 10-hour day by me and Nora. I was tempted to tell the rest of the group that we hadn’t been able to produce the video after all to avoid the embarrassment of showing it here.

But to my surprise the training and the video and our written short guide have been a wildly popular activity here. And participants told us our hands-on activities were “fun”, “useful” and that they’d use them again in the future with the youth. I’m still skeptical of the larger impact we can have but the thing I’ve realized is how dedicated the staff here are to their vocational training programs. And how committed the students are to learning vocations and to succeeding. And this means they want to learn. We’re welcomed more warmly that we could ever expect and everyone listens attentively, waiting patiently for us to finish a section to tell us that we’ve spoken waaaay too fast and they haven’t understood a word!

Today, Charles, who is around 14 or 15 years old, adeptly went through the steps of a practice interview in our role-play activity. He introduced himself to the staff member pretending to be a “Restaurant Manager” and took care to thank him at the end, shaking his hand. He's so motivated to succeed and listened to every word today, synthesizing the information perfectly in the focus group later. Charles has a large scar, close to five inches on his neck and I can’t help but wonder about his past. What was his life like during the war? Is the scar an accident… or a wound inflicted by another human being? What does Charles dream about at night?
On the drives each day to vocational training centers, we pass by ruins of houses again and again, with no roofs and half-walls. Many of them have families squatting in them or they’ve been converted into corner stores. We drive by billboards with text: “Grow the food you eat. Eat the food you grow,” “Stop Rape” (with drawings of a man on top of a protesting woman and a large X through it) or “Use treated malaria nets.”

If can't tell, there's a lot of laughter in this picture.

Today was a special day. Vayetown is a small remote village about 45 minutes drive on a pothole-riddled dirt road from Tubmanburg. The vocational training center there has mostly older students and I’ve leaped to the conclusion that this town was heavily hit in the war, which would also account for why so many young adults here have not attended school. (Only those not in the school system are eligible for the VT programs. This is an attempt to address the problem of the thousands of young people who missed years of schooling while living in refugee camps during the war.) We had a great training session, despite some small setbacks—the generator went out and we had to suspend our video showing and jump to a different section of the training until a new generator could be found. It had also taken us an hour longer to arrive than we’d anticipated due to the poor condition of the roads. But the staff and students were receptive and I feel I can safely say we’ve left them with motivation to do a market assessment for their area and improve on their programs. At the end of our training, the director told us the students wanted to welcome us in their special way by performing traditional Liberian dance. While the 140 students from the entire center piled into their large classroom, drummers set up and the dancing began--first, a group of four young women around 14 years old and later three young men of the same age. After the dance (which was amazing) we thanked everyone, exchanged contact information and took some photos. As we started to enter the car, with the music still running through my head, I unconsciously did a few steps of a two-second version of their dance and a few of the girls noticed and started laughing. Nora quickly joined in, and within seconds we had a large crowd and drummers materialized. We did our thang for a few minutes and judging by the faces of our onlookers in the photos, we’ve provided some laughable memories for the students for at least the next few months. My conclusion: My lack of shame was clearly a winning quality today.

Only stray dogs pepe here

This post is from a blog I wrote in 2010 while working on a project with vocational training centers in Liberia.
Monrovia, Liberia

What am I doing here?

As part of my capstone project for my Master’s Degree (International Affairs) along with a group of other students, I’m working for the Women’s Refugee Commission who in turn partners with the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in Liberia. We’re working to make the “Market Assessment Toolkit for Vocational Training Providers and Youth” more user friendly. The Toolkit is a 130+ page manual for how to link vocational training (VT) programs with market assessment, thereby ensuring that the youth trained in various vocations actually exit the program are able to actually use the skills learned. For example, if a VT program trains all their youth to be carpenters and tailors and floods the market, not all those young people will earn a living in this way. But a market assessment might highlight the need for mechanics and opening up a new training program in mechanics could ensure that young people can get jobs. Our task is to make this Toolkit easier to use, through a training we’re developing that can be replicated by VT program staff, a shortened version of the Toolkit and instructional videos. We’ll be visiting four VT programs coordinated by the NRC in our time here and piloting our preliminary training tools, including some very amateur videos we’ve filmed and edited back in New York as stand-ins until we could film on location at the centers in Liberia. That’s pretty much the deal. 

Initial thoughts:
The streets are lined with people pretty much everywhere. Markets look like the pictures I’ve been downloading online for our videos. Next to the government ministries, people are hanging around, selling gum and fruit. I’m so used to traveling and working in other countries where most people don’t speak English or if they do, it’s only to me, not to each other, so sometimes I forget that the language they’re speaking is English. It’s also sometimes hard to understand because, as McNeil told us, “We drop letters. We speak quickly and don’t say the whole words.” McNeil is from Monrovia and has a permanent smile. He works for the NRC.  When I asked McNeil if people danced a lot in Liberia (basically trying to get us an invitation to go dancing somewhere) he said “What?! What?! Hahahahaa”. He then launched into a monologue about how you can’t ask questions to Liberians, because they’ll only answer with a question. McNeil giggled for the next half hour and we joined in. It’s impossible not to smile when around McNeil.

Outside of the NRC compound, there are words painted on a wall. Nora looked at it and said, “What does that say? ‘Only stray dogs…’ Oh!” Someone had written in blue paint, “Only stray dogs pepe here.” We all laughed, along with Fred, our NRC supervisor. Fred is from Uganda but has been living and working in Liberia for the past four years and he is a wealth of experience and knowledge. Nora had seen this phrase written on a few different walls. I guess it’s a reminder for people not to pee on the wall? I’m thinking of adopting it as a new phrase that can mean anything from “That bar? I’m not going. Only stray dogs pepe there” to “My house is a mess. Only stray dogs pepe there.” An all-purpose phrase that can be adapted to any occasion.

The NRC compound seems lavish in comparison to the houses nearby. There is a pool in the middle and air conditioned buildings. But paint is cracking in a way that reminds one of the remains of luxury in Cuba… or the UNRWA buildings in Palestine. The NRC is settled amidst a herd of UN and NGO headquarters. The road there is an adventure in alphabet soup: UNICEF, UNFPA, IRC, NRC…

Our apartment building, which houses only expats, most of whom work at the NRC, contains large apartments with air conditioning and keeps us sealed off from the malaria-carrying mosquitoes. We even have a TV, and off-again-on-again wireless internet. The tall wall around our apartment building has barbed wire and sharp glass at it’s top, preventing intruders and there is a 24-hour guard. Across the street, people mill during the day and after dark outside a broken-down building, reminiscent of Detroit, selling water we’ve been warned against drinking and candy. There is a building curfew of midnight on weekdays and 2am on Saturdays. We’ve been told never to walk around after dark. From the 2nd floor of our building we can see the ocean but have also been warned against the beaches, both because of “crazy people” and an intense undertow which can pull you down even if you only wade up to your knees.

Lebanese business owners appear to run this town, or at least control it financially. I opened up google on my computer and was confused then it came up in Arabic, wondering if it was detecting some setting from when I’d been working on my Arabic homework a week before, even though this didn’t really make sense. I clicked on the button to switch it to google English and saw that I’d been directed to www.google.com.lb, “Google Lebanon”. Fred told us that Lebanese families are the privileged class in Liberia and they own a lot of property in Monrovia, many apartment buildings, restaurants and hotels, a challenging power dynamic to say the least. We passed by Leela Café and Salaam Store.  I wonder if I’ll end up practicing my Arabic while in Liberia, quite unexpectedly.

On our ride from the airport to Monrovia last night with Sharif, who also works for the NRC, the radio announced that Charles Taylor’s wife had given birth to a baby girl that day. The commentator asked the informant, “So Charles Taylor has time to see his wife?” “Oh yes, he has all the freedoms of a regular person.” The commentator went on to ask more questions insinuating conjugal visits at which point all of us in the car started laughing, Sharif laughing the loudest. The informant assured the commentator that he would share with the Liberian people the name and birth weight of the child as soon as he found out more details. For some reason the commentator was intent on extracting this particular information. Sharif told us many people are happy that Taylor is in the Hague, but many others are not, because they enjoyed kickbacks during his regime and now, without these privileges they have a harder life and must find work. Others believe Taylor should be tried in court but are not happy he’s been taken to Europe for the trial.
It’s interesting to finally experience the type of market we’ve been talking about “observing” as part of the Toolkit. We marveled at the live giant snails being sold and the fish, dried and with their mouths locked in a bite onto their tails and sold in rings. We bought a mélange of fruits and vegetables to make a pasta sauce and will be trying some white half-tomato-half-potato-like vegetable tomorrow. One of my favorite things to do when in new places is try new foods, though I'll admit its led me to some "mistakes" at times (I'm referring to the cockroach I ate in Thailand). I’d brought along the video camera to shoot some footage for our market observation video and little kids and teenage boys came flocking to me, all willing to be in the video. Older women held their hands in front of their face, saying, no, not me. I felt like a tourist and wanted to call out “No, it’s for an actual project, I’m not just a tourist.”

My first thoughts: Liberia is very hot, and very green and people wear colorful clothing with great style. And you can buy "Chucky", "Bride of Chucky", "Scary Movie" and "Scary Movie II" all on one DVD for $5.

On Syrian TV

This is an excerpt of the Aghla Shabab program episode that aired on Syrian TV on August 14, 2009. (I'm the one on the left not saying anything in this clip.) The video clip features participants, mostly college students from the United States and Syria, and staff from the 2009 United States-Syria Grassroots Diplomacy Program. 

"How will your project help me?"

This post is from a blog I kept in 2009 while working in Jordan to conduct a conflict assessment of the country. 

Last week I headed back to a community center in East Amman that works with a combination of Palestinian-Jordanians and Iraqi, Somali, and Sudanese refugees. They center mostly holds classes for youth and adults in English, Arabic, computers, art, sports, etc. It's mostly for youth who don't go to school for whatever reason. Some of them are refugees and have been out of school for quite some time (until 2007, Jordan did not provide free education to non-Jordanian-citizen children); some of them don't go to regular school because they need to help work to support their family. Some of them have simply dropped out. Adults come to improve their literacy and computer skills. M, the director, had told me earlier that from the beginning he laid down the law that "Here, we are one people, not Palestinian or Iraqi or Somali, just people." He told them, "I don't want to have to fire anyone. Or kick anyone out." From then on he claims they hadn't had any problems, but he said that many of the other centers in other areas had a lot of problems between groups of students or teachers.

M had kindly set up a focus group with some of the Iraqi teachers and one Palestinian-Jordanian teacher. From the beginning they were friendly but guarded. The Palestinian teacher, Menal, asked me at the beginning, "What is the point of this project? What will it do to help me? How can it improve things?" I was at a bit of a loss. Probably nothing, I thought. I told her I wasn't sure but that hopefully someone would read our report and at least understand better the challenges facing her community. And perhaps an NGO would provide more helpful assistance. That was all I could offer. Menal went on to stress the vast divide between the Palestinian and Jordanian community and the great amount of discrimination she felt. She wasn't very hopeful for the future and couldn't envision anything that would make it better.

When it came to the plight of the Iraqis I felt even less useful. Was I just pouring salt on wounds by asking these questions? I hoped it was helpful to give them a forum to vent. They can't get jobs, even with their master's degrees. The one young male teacher told of playing guitar at a coffee shop and being kicked out by the police, because he is Iraqi, literally thrown out the door, in front of his friends. The older female teachers told of how their husbands couldn't get work, and sat around becoming more and more depressed each day. How their children were harassed in schools. How they just didn't feel at home, even after six years. They were just waiting for resettlement in America. And what could I do for them? Could they take my contact information? Of course I gave that but hoped they didn't assume that would help them gain resettlement. One woman looked as if she were going to cry. What can I say? No, my research won't solve their problems. Any of them. All I can do is sit there and listen.

What will they find in America?

June 15, 2009

This post is from a blog I kept in 2009 while working in Jordan to conduct a conflict assessment of the country. 

Today was a new day. A busy frantic getting-lost getting-lost again talking asking listening learning seeing going feeling day.

We conducted three interviews, one with a high up politician man in the major Islamic opposition party (IAF), one with representatives from Al Jazeera Amman and one with an English class of Iraqi refugees living in East Amman. Basically West Amman is wealthy and has lots of foreigners and cute cafes and East Amman gets less services, less water, it's where the Palestinian refugee camps are and where many Iraqis live--those who don't have the money that most Jordanians perceive Iraqis to have.

Amman, Jordan

All were interesting interviews, but I was most affected by our trip to East Amman where we'd been told not to go after dark. The streets are narrow and we saw trash on them for the first time in Amman. We drove by one of the refugee areas and there are children in tattered clothing running the streets at sundown, something you NEVER see in West Amman. Everyone in West Amman seems to be wearing the newest Gap and Zara and Adidas. (Clearly i'm exaggerating but it's my impression). We weren't sure what to expect as we drove off into the netherland of East Amman this afternoon at 6, already exhausted from a full day.

After getting lost five or six times (now the standard), we finally were able to meet up with Rami*, an Iraqi who is being resettled in Tennessee in a month, thanks to his help as a “mutarjim”, a translator, for the American army. He hopped in the backseat and instructed us on how to get to Kumiko’s apartment where the English class was being held. I wasn’t sure how on earth they’d expected us to find this place, given the sparse directions we’d been given, but I’ve given up being surprised by the directions in Amman. People seem to assume you’ll just ask around 6-7 times until you find some landmark someone can meet you at. This is the third time we’ve had to resort to this method. I have to say that probably a tenth of our time here in Amman has been spent lost in our Toyota Camry. Poor Israr had to keep rolling down his window to ask "Where is Hashemi?" or "Where is Plaza Mall?" and decipher the cryptic answers for me as I skirted death by crazy driver and dodged people leisurely crossing major roads mid-traffic. 

And who is this Kumiko? We weren't sure. We’d met a Syrian-American guy the week before, doing medical research on refugees, who’d put us in touch with Kumiko. She turned out to be a Japanese woman who’s been living in Jordan for 14 years, speaks Arabic as well as English and hosts English classes in her apartment every night for refugees. She’d invited us to come by tonight and we’d said yes of course, hoping to get some information on the Iraqi experience in Jordan, but knowing we might not have any formal interviews.

We were right about that. But had a much more rewarding experience. And saw a window into the lives of Iraqi refugees in Jordan. Rami led us in and introduced us to the class. I dazzled them with my meager Arabic skills “Ismee Heidi. Ana min Amerka. Sakne fee New York. Ana taliba fee jama’a Columbia, buss sanke fee saef fee Amman.” From that moment I was a celebrity. We then switched over to English as that is after all why they were there. Abdul explained that he was being resettled in Illinois, where his daughters already lived. He’d been rejected once before for resettlement, because of his service in the Iraqi army, even though he’d done work for the Americans, but finally had gotten his papers and now was leaving in five days. Hussein was leaving for North Carolina in 8 days, and Ali for Ohio in a month. Samer and his daughter Aliya were still waiting for resettlement. Rami told us how he’d been angry for a while at how long it took to get his resettlement, even though he’d work for years for the American army, but he said with a grin, “Now I’m leaving in a month for Tennessee, so I’m not angry anymore.”

A focus group

Rami was the teacher for the day, having excellent English skills. During the middle of the class, as students were struggling to pronounce “p” versus “b” (Arabic doesn’t have a “p” sound), I tentatively raised my hand, remembering a trick from my teaching-English days, and offered to help. I was invited up to show them how holding a piece of paper in front of one’s mouth when speaking could demonstrate that when you say “book”, the paper doesn’t move, but when you say “park”, the paper moves with the air from the aspirated P. For the next 20 minutes, I was invited to continue teaching the class, as a guest teacher. We went through “C” words, “D” words (dinosaur was the first suggestion, from eight year old Aliya tagging along with her dad to class), and “E” words. Somehow “era” came up which fortunately an Iraqi woman with excellent English who was helping out the class was able to translate. It was both deeply rewarding to spend time doing hands-on work again, and also heartening to see the work of not only Kumiko, opening her home and giving energy to the places where help was truly needed, but also the comraderie between students, with those who knew English volunteering to teach the class every day. They offer two levels of English as well as men’s and women’s classes. And two hours each day. It’s really a great group. But it was also very depressing for me to think of the lives ahead of these Iraqis, most from Bagdad, but one from Basra and one from a smaller town I’d not heard of, all educated with lives from the past that were no longer possible. I thought of those headed to Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina. What will they find there? Each are struggling with English and I know Americans aren’t particularly patient when it comes to people who can’t speak English. And I know they’ll face racism and anti-Arab—particularly anti-Iraqi sentiment at times. I’m worried for when Aliya is resettled. Where will she end up? Will her classmates make fun of her accent? Will they call her “the enemy”? I told them that they were going to nice places. And I asked them if they had any questions about America, but they just looked at me with anticipation for what was coming and smiled at me and thanked me for visiting. I do believe my country has many wonderful aspects. And the children of these men will probably live a good life, and will hopefully be fortunate enough to travel to visit their parents’ homeland some day, but it made me incredibly ashamed to represent this “great country” that had bombed their towns, killed their friends and family, and which was now hesitantly opening it’s doors to them only to throw them racial slurs and hard work when they arrive. I know the situation is more nuanced, but the facts remain... Maybe it’s the air tonight, but I’m feeling a bit disappointed in the world. Right before I left, Kumiko said “You study human rights? I need so much help. So many problems. Please come help.”

*all names in the above blog entry have been changed, because I didn’t ask permission to use names in any writing. 

On a separate note: 
Link to an interesting gender study of the small town of Sahab, produced by JOHUD (the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development): http://www.johud.org.jo/Latest/why-don-t-women-join-the-work-force.html