Stories of IREX

In a school where fighting, bullying, theft and absenteeism were the everyday norm, one teacher had the vision to help change the status quo. Guillermo Lopez Ossa knew he could empower the 650 students at Deogracias Cardona School in Risaralda, Colombia to transform their harmful classroom dynamics, despite chaos there and in the community. In short time, he had decreased violent incidents by 25 percent at Deogracias, and looked to expand to schools around the region.

It was a festive atmosphere in late May 2012 as about two hundred people marched down the dusty streets of Fish Town, River Gee County, Liberia carrying placards that extolled the value of teamwork and the traditional African concept of communalism. It was a day of pomp and pageantry, punctuated by celebratory songs, congratulatory messages, and above all, pride in what had been accomplished.

The occasion: the official dedication and reopening of Radio Gee, the community radio station in this remote Southeastern Liberian town. And the residents here had good reason to be celebratory. In every respect their station had been brought back from the brink of collapse.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the central bank was dissolved and millions of citizens of the former USSR lost their savings.  The Ukrainian government has subsequently made several attempts to index and reimburse these savings. In April of this year, “Oshchadbank” launched an online system that allows citizens to register, update their data and book an appointment at the local branch of the bank to receive a reimbursement.

A cohort of 19 early career English teachers from Turkey will continue to refine their teaching practice through an intensive professional development program at the University of North Dakota with the Teaching, Excellence, and Achievement Program (TEA) Program. The teachers arrived in the U.S. last week to begin their  training at a Welcome Program in Washington, D.C., where they participated in training sessions on Cross-Cultural Communication and the U.S. Education System. In addition, the teachers traveled in small groups to visit schools and non-profit organizations working with English language learners in the greater D.C. area.

Across Azerbaijan there are 19 Community Information Centers newly graduated from United States government support to being fully operated by local NGOs. Although Internet access in Azerbaijan is growing, Internet services, particularly in the regions, remain expensive and much of the country’s Internet usage takes place in Internet clubs or at the workplace. To help bridge the gap, IREX, with support from USAID, partnered with local organizations and equipped 19 centers with computers, internet access and Wi-Fi spots. The centers offer courses and internet access to users, free of charge.

Muskie Alumna Ainur Nurtay is the CEO of a non-profit organization based in Kazakhstan, the Central Asian Center for Civil Society Research and Development (RDC). With a degree in public administration from Grand Valley State University, Nurtay contributes to civil society development and accountability across Central Asia. She recently took time to reflect on her fellowship, and how her work benefits from the experience.

Students at Minnesota State University-Moorhead got an unexpected ‘Journey to Pakistan’ this past semester, thanks to a young Pakistani woman, Zahra, who found her public voice after coming to the U.S. Though students had never before enjoyed a program hosted by an international student, Zahra quickly gained followers through what became a popular campus radio show.

As more and more librarians use ICT and internet in their daily work, their vision of their role shifts from traditional book-lending to community-centered knowledge management. This change is evident in the second Bibliomist survey of hundreds of Ukrainian librarians intended to measure the impact of the program on librarians’ perception of their own capacity, as well as that of their institution over the past two years.

Human trafficking, drug trade, police reform, and corporate graft were among the diverse topics debated and discussed by ten up-and-coming scholars at the 2012 IREX/WWC Regional Policy Symposium, "Transnational Crime and Corruption in Eastern Europe and Eurasia." Transnational criminal networks, and the domestic corruption that feeds them, represent one of the major foreign policy challenges facing the United States today.

Unlikely allies, Hudak Hendrix and Jose Douglas Martinez share a passion for globalizing education to broaden the horizons of students and educators in El Salvador and the U.S. In 2010, Hendrix, as part of the International Leaders in Education Program (ILEP), traveled to Indonesia for two weeks, where he was hosted by a local teacher and learned about the country’s education system. Martinez, as part of the Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program (TEA), studied teaching methodologies at Claremont Graduate University in California in 2011. Both Hendrix and Martinez found their careers and world views altered by these international experiences.