Blog Post

I am not a big fan of tater tots. But last week at a cafeteria in Arkansas, I agreed to eat some in order to continue a conversation. I was sitting with an eccentric high school teacher and, as we ate, she told me how Walmart and the chicken industry had led many new citizens to settle in Northwest Arkansas.

I realized just how incredibly far media development has come as myself and some colleagues entered the bunker-like submarine tunnels the Soviet navy built to withstand 20 kilotons of nuclear explosion (roughly twice the power of those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.) The tunnels are encased in a stone mountain in Balaklava, Ukraine, just south of Sevastopol in Crimea, and offered both a secret spot for s

Having recently come across an essay by former USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios, I’ve been thinking a lot about what contributes to a successful civil society program. In the piece, Mr. Natsios argues – strongly – that accountability mechanisms originally designed to measure the impact of democracy and governance programs have become over emphasized to the point where they actually interfere with achieving development goals.

Firdavs thinks I can’t see his mouth moving. I’ve asked him and the other teachers not to tell the youth at our theater camp in Tajikistan what to say, and to let the campers create scenes and dialogue on their own. The group is having fun, rehearsing their skit to make the characters’ movements as big as possible. But Firdavs keeps whispering under his hand, feeding them lines. What would these young people be saying if he wasn’t there putting words in their mouths?

A survey of the latest discussions in the library blogosphere quickly reveals that public libraries in many parts of the world are struggling with an identity crisis.

I’m writing this week from Rwanda, where I’m working on our Civil Society Strengthening Project. Although the project is not specifically focused on conflict, working with our staff and meeting with many Rwandans has given me the opportunity to think about the different ways we describe conflict programming – and how all of them are insufficient.

It’s not often that my work at IREX intersects with the Sundance Film Festival. Yet on September 24th, “Waiting for Superman,” a film about problems plaguing the American education system will hit theatres. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, the Oscar-winning director of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the film garnered the Audience Choice award at Sundance this year. Notably, it situates American schools in an international context. 

One of my favorite things about working for IREX’s media development division is the chance to learn more about what kind of media makes people tick all around the world. In Ukraine, one television station we worked with developed a strong following for a series on the history of World War II and its impact on southern Ukraine.

"I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." --Dwight D. Eisenhower

Those that have worked with me before know that I’m a fan of planning and systems. (Accusations that I have control issues aren't entirely without merit.)

From time to time since I started focusing on youth development projects at IREX, I’ve thought back to my first day of ninth grade. I went to a big public high school with around 2,000 students, and I was a little lost, not really sure what to get involved in, or who my friends were going to be anymore.