education

There are 33.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS throughout the world. Today is World AIDS Day - a day of opportunity to raise awareness and educate about the disease which affects all nations at the most local level.

It’s not often that my work at IREX intersects with the Sundance Film Festival. Yet on September 24th, “Waiting for Superman,” a film about problems plaguing the American education system will hit theatres. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, the Oscar-winning director of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the film garnered the Audience Choice award at Sundance this year. Notably, it situates American schools in an international context. 

Sevcan is 23 years old. She grew up in Hatay, Turkey, a rare place in the Middle East where mosques, churches and synagogues coexist. Jamie is 25 years old and grew up in suburban Chicago. Sevcan and Jamie have never met, but they share a love of English literature and a desire to improve lives through education. Their divergent career paths point to differences in the way that Turkey and the United States prepare recent graduates for careers in the classroom.