Project Updates

After participating in a semester-long, in-service teacher training program at various US universities, a group of international teachers selected to participate in the International Leadership in Education Program (ILEP) concluded their program in Washington, DC, where they received additional training on teacher leadership and how their indiviudal professional development experiences could be transformed and applied in their classrooms, schools, and communities back home.

IREX unveiled the inaugural edition of the Media Sustainability Index (MSI) for Africa in June, with presentations at both the Canadian International Development Agency in Ottawa and the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington. Covering 37 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the MSI represents the most comprehensive study of African media in one source.

A USAID-funded community improvement project linked the communities of Dorotcaia and Grigoriopol, situated on opposite banks of the river Nistru, which separates the two cities in the jurisdiction of Moldova and the separatist region Transnistria respectively. Despite their political divisions, the estranged citizens joined efforts to integrate their youth. Each day, three buses carried 200 students to Dorotcaia’s high school so that students could study their native language Romanian with Latin characters (instead of Cyrillic ones).

After participating in a Model United Nations project as an exchange student in the United States, Georgian UGRAD 2006 alumnus Giorgi Tskhekhani knew it was something that could be of great value if he could replicate the project in his home country. With dedication and assistance through the ECA Alumni Small Grants program and the support of United Nations Association of Georgia, Giorgi was recently able to do so, giving an opportunity to more than 230 students from 10 Georgian universities.

Greyscale, a dynamic publishing and production company, is launching a new and innovative web-based television channel in Jordan with IREX support. As Jordan’s first WEB TV channel, this citizens’ journalism project will create an Arabic language platform, offering video clips and features on Jordanian popular current events, targeting youth but appealing also to older age groups.

Over 3,000 Ukrainian children and teenagers submitted drawings, collages, videos, articles, and even fairytales to an All-Ukrainian Art Contest entitled “I Say NO to Drugs!” for children aged nine to 15. The USAID-funded Ukrainian Media Partnership to Combat HIV/AIDS (UMP) partnered with corporate sponsors and governmental authorities in organizing this nationwide initiative to raise awareness of drug use—a major factor contributing to the growing HIV epidemic in Ukraine.

ECA alumni recently organized a series of training courses on renewable energy for the children of Boarding-School #2 in Balkhash, Kazakstan. In cooperation with Kazakh National University, Sofya Tairova (UGRAD ’06) led a group of alumni to teach children about renewable energy and how to apply this knowledge in practice. During the seven days of the course, the boarding school hosted professors from Kazakh National University, Kazakh National Technical University, The Institute of Botany, The Fish Institute of Balkhash, independent scientist-inventors, and businessmen working in the renewable energy area.

In May, Dr. Elizabeth Anderson, newly appointed Assistant Professor in International Training at American University, took advantage of an IREX grant to embark on a journey aimed at understanding a major educational transition. As a specialist in international education and former Peace Corps volunteer in Moldova, Dr. Anderson sought to better understand the transition from the old Moldovan history curriculum to the new one, adopted in 2006.

Two facilitators and IREX staff recently conducted a workshop in the turbulent city of Tripoli where tension between Sunnis and Alawites erupted in violence that killed 16 people a few days before the workshop took place. Despite the unstable security situation, the workshop attracted over 40 Sunni and Alawite youth, successfully bringing together members of opposing groups. The event was part of the IREX-administered Youth Civil Society and Leadership Program (YCSL) funded by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of the US Department of State.

Until recently, visually impaired visitors to a local library in Iasi, Romania had to hire someone to read aloud for them at selected hours. Thanks to IREX and the Association for the Visually Impaired, a new public access computer center enables the community to scan documents and books and use special software to listen to the text as it is read aloud.