Stories of IREX

In 2011, IREX implemented "Camera as Voice" training with the goal of empowering Azerbaijani women to express themselves through film making. More than 100 girls from across 10 regions in Azerbaijan attended and began engaging in conversations surrounding critical issues, through documentary film making. 

Watch how 14-year-old Aytan, participant in the 'Camera as Voice' training is now following her dream of becoming a film maker and breaking down barriers. 

Whether the villagers want to prepare for an exam, learn more about childcare, health issues, farming or just to knit a sweater, all this and more is available when they sit down at the Internet kiosk in Fatalikand’s post office. They have free access to Internet thanks to IREX Azerbaijan’s Electronic Village project. They are using a purpose-built computer kiosk installed at the local post office last October. The manager of the post office is trained to help visitors browse the Internet and encourage them to explore the world online.

“Where are all the women?” That is the simple yet profound question Community Solutions Program (CSP) Alumnus Patrick Temera asked himself when he returned to his work at the Ugandan Ministry of Defense in December 2011. Temera, a Social Development Officer who worked with the wives and widows of soldiers on income generation projects, is no stranger to women in the workplace, but he had never before noticed how few women held positions of power in his own. Fewer than five percent of the leadership positions within the Ugandan Ministry of Defense are currently held by women. “I doubt without my experience in the U.S., I would have been able to see the need to make a change.”

In honor of International Women's Day, IREX sat down with Nobel Peace Prize laureate and women's rights activist Leymah Gbowee to get her views on the opportunities and challenges facing the global women's movement as well as the role of men in the struggle for gender equality.

Laura Steinbach, has a new priority for her school: global education. As an administrator for Rawson Saunders School, a school exclusively for dyslexic children in Central Texas, she is busy overseeing everything from bus schedules to curriculum. Now she is adding to her to-do list: Steinbach is supporting one of her teachers, Tina Thammavongsa-Brunson, as she travels to Brazil as part of the Teachers for Global Classrooms (TGC) Fellowship.   

Remote villagers across Azerbaijan now have access to free Internet at 30 community-centered kiosks installed throughout the region. The kiosks offer an invaluable bridge to people and places far away, and give villagers the opportunity to reach further and access more than ever before.

An innovative partnership between IREX and Visa Europe has resulted in more than 2,300 Romanians trained in the fundamentals of financial literacy in just a few short months. By learning about personal budgeting, savings, managing credit and debit, and other topics, the participants are now able to make more informed choices about their futures.

Determined Mozambican journalists have a new forum to express, share and unburden with fellow colleagues and community leaders. For more than thirty years now journalists there worked amid threats and bureaucratic hurdles for freedom of expression and access to information with little support.

When post-election violence broke out in Cote d'Ivoire, in April of 2010, Aka Blehou, knew that he must continue to teach, no matter the circumstances. Blehou, an English teacher, and current Teaching Excellence and Achievement (TEA) Fellow recalls: “During the conflict, the village school was closed, but I gathered the students there, and I taught them twice a week, unofficially… so when the school opened, they would not forget.” 

Nine professional journalists and university lecturers from Azerbaijan, awarded a media fellowship by IREX, are on a study tour in the United States of America. They are learning about online news platforms and social media to inform new media courses they will teach upon returning home.