Stories of IREX

As a 2007 Muskie fellow at the University of Louisville, Alona Dorosh studied public administration and took courses in non-profit management and project planning.  Now home in Moldova, Dorosh is putting those skills to use while leading an environmental awareness initiative.  With funding support from the ECA Alumni Small Grant Program and Project Smile, Dorosh im

At most conferences, even those focused on youth, it is not typical to see young people brainstorming changes in youth policy with government officials or young adults playing a lead role in organizing events, but this is exactly what happened at the Youth Initiatives in Action Conference held in Moscow on November 16-17, 2010.

When 14-year-old Gulnara moved from Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan to Tokmok, a small city near the capital of Bishkek, regional divisions made it difficult for her to integrate. Following violent conflict in the south, her parents had come north in search of work only to be greeted with suspicion by their new neighbors. While Gulnara excelled in school, some of her new classmates quickly seized upon regional differences, mocking her dialect. After she was involved in a physical fight with a classmate, she begged her parents to let her change schools.

Iraqi journalist Imad al Ibadi, a vocal campaigner on exposing corruption and promoting free and fair elections, was shot three times in the head, neck, and chest on November 23, 2009. As a recipient of IREX media training and director of Al Diyar TV, Ibadi used his TV program on Iraqi politics and current affairs as a platform for defending freedom of the press, while attacking the excesses of the Iraqi security forces and government corruption.

Sofia Zhadan was a shy 9th grader from a rural village in Ukraine when she was selected to participate in IREX’s Tech Age Girls program. Training she received in leadership, community project development, and online activism skills not only built her confidence, but also launched her career as an environmental activist.

After the devastating 2010 earthquake destroyed the only public teacher-training institute in Haiti, the already critical shortage of qualified teachers in Haiti threatened to get even worse. Fanfan Joseph, a Haitian English teacher and alumnus of an IREX-led teacher development program, seized the opportunity of an IREX grant to provide intensive professional development workshops to fellow teachers.

Throughout the spring and summer of 2010, sixty-three US secondary school teachers traveled overseas to one of twenty-seven different countries for a two-week professional exchange. These US teachers were hosted by alumni of the Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program (TEA) and the International Leaders in Education Program (ILEP).

Ukrainian 2010 business fellow Vitaliy Dubil’ isn’t waiting to share his Muskie experience with other Ukrainians.  In celebration of International Education week, Dubil’ collaborated with Osvita EIAC, a Ukrainian non-profit education advising center, to hold a webinar for Ukrainian undergraduate students who are interested in studying abroad.