Blog Post

My trip to Tobago was like any journey to a lush tropical paradise - a long plane ride to another planet. First it is the hot moist air that clamps around your whole being - then it is the brilliant green-blue world that fills your vision - and then the adventure begins. I came to reconnect with Ms. Essie Parks, the Community Solutions leader that spent four months with my organization, Eco-Cycle Inc., in Boulder, Colorado to learn how to improve the waste management system on her home island of Tobago in the Caribbean. 

I am a teacher of teachers, living in Tanzania. I came six years ago to work with primary teachers, teaching them how to use a comprehensive literacy instruction approach and to integrate literacy strategies into content instruction.  Tanzania is an interesting country, balancing between a traditional subsistence farming culture, and a 21st century future.  It is rich in resources, and poor in economy.  Typical of most developing countries, it has huge potential and big problems.  Education is at the core of both the potential and barriers here.

When you think of a library, what comes to mind? Row after row of books? The Dewey Decimal System? Kids but no adults? Those stereotypes are outdated. Around the world, libraries are on the front lines of innovative development.

The lady at the Khan-Uul District Citizen’s Hall, a “Senior Specialist Citizen’s Representative,” was supposed to be showing us around the building. We had an appointment all set up and we were on time. She, however, was blabbing with some locals while we cooled our heels on hard chairs in the Hall for maybe half an hour. I was annoyed -- until I understood what was really happening -- but I am getting way ahead of the story.

Don Allan Mitchell is an assistant professor of English at Delta State University. The article below was an opinion column originally edited by Jordan Thomas and published in May 2012 in the Cleveland Current and the Delta Business Journal.

Recently at Delta State, we said farewell to our friends from the Global UGRAD program: Sirojiddin, Ecaterina, Susanna, David, and Akzer. The U.S. State Department sponsors global UGRAD in Cleveland, Mississippi and similar college towns like Kearney, Nebraska and Troy, Alabama. The highly selective exchange invites university students from Eurasia, to spend a year in residence at U.S. colleges, where they serve as ambassadors for their home countries and learn about American history, culture, and government. I, for one, have learned a lot from these five students.

When I was a young, gay rights activist more than two decades ago—the term LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) hadn’t emerged yet—I never thought I’d see the progress we’re witnessing on a truly global scale today. Now as a “seasoned” international development professional, this year’s LGBT Pride Month has a particular resonance with me.

Maple Razsa, a 2011-2012  Individual Advanced Research Opportunities (IARO) fellow, writes about his experience researching migrant activism among former Yugoslavs and how that led him  to witness the Occupy Movement in Slovenia.

Thank you to all who have submitted photos for IREX’s first-ever “Make a Better World Photo Contest!” With over 1,300 photo entries and still two weeks to go until the deadline on May 15, 2012, I’d like to offer some insights on what type of photos I think the judges and IREX’s president will favor.

Right now, nearly 5,000 leaders in cities, towns, and villages across Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus are working to advance democracy, spur economic growth, reduce poverty, improve health, bolster community services, protect the environment and human rights, and promote gender equality. These alumni from 20 years of the Muskie Program are using the new technical skills and professional knowledge gained from their studies in the United States to develop their countries and communities.  Fifty percent of the alumni are working in the public and non-profit sectors. Together they form a network of change-makers forging strong ties with the United States and improving their societies from the inside.

As spring arrives and graduation season approaches, I’m finding it hard to believe that it has been 17 years since I graduated from college.  Thinking back, I realize how much my perspective has changed over the years, particularly my idea of what constitutes the perfect job. Finally out on my own after graduating, I was ready to prove myself and in order to do that I thought I needed a job that offered me three things: