Help Our Peace Fellows to Serve and Learn!

This report is going to 310 friends who have given to our fellowship program, Fellows for Peace, through GlobalGiving. You have donated a combined $95,433 since we launched the appeal in 2015. This has allowed us to recruit 89 students from 45 academic programs to serve in 18 different countries.

This should be a moment to savor, as we prepare to send another cohort of committed students abroad this summer.

Apart from anything else, we are close to our target of $100,000. Adding to this, the value of our fellowships is constantly being re-affirmed. In one example, we received this recent note from a former Fellow who served in Africa and has just joined the US Foreign Service: “My time as a Peace Fellow continues to be a foundational start to my career and one of the most impactful experiences of my life.” 

But any sense of satisfaction must be tempered by dismay at the sudden suspension of US funding for development in the Global South.

We hope that the collapse of USAID is temporary, but it has already taken a heavy toll on some of the brightest and best who have volunteered under our fellowship program in the past. They signed up as students with some trepidation no doubt – these postings are never easy – but emerged stronger for the experience and deeply committed to development, peacebuilding, social justice, and human rights.

Motivated by the experience, many of them built careers in development after graduating. Several found work in USAID itself and it has been heartbreaking to read on Linkedin that they are once again sending out their resumes. The following post from a dedicated Fellow who served in Africa says it all:

“Last week I was notified that my duties (at USAID) were “no longer needed." It has been the honor of a lifetime to work on humanitarian programs in (Africa and the Middle East) with some of the most dedicated, intelligent, and mission-driven folks who have also made me a better person through it all. I cannot be more proud of my work and association with USAID. While the illegal dismantling of USAID is a stain on America’s history, I’ve witnessed unyielding resilience to adhere to humanitarian principles by my friends and colleagues that I will take with me into any future position. For any furloughed/terminated colleagues—please let me know how I can support you too!”

Social media has been full of such posts – dignified in tone but also displaying a deep hurt.

Right now, the short-term future for international volunteering looks deeply uncertain. Many expect funding for the Peace Corps to be suspended next year. Funding for the Fulbright program has already been suspended, leaving Fulbright scholars stranded abroad. European governments are also cutting their aid budgets.

We can only hope that common sense prevails and that the value of service in the Global South, both to the volunteers and to their host organizations, is once again understood and appreciated.

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In the meantime, we will do what little we can to fill the gap and are preparing for another challenging summer. This year, we are supporting nine community-based campaigns in seven countries: Nepal, Vietnam, India, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, and Bosnia. As in past years, they range from new initiatives (start-ups) to longer-term programs that are starting to produce real change.

It is possible that we will return to Bosnia, where we last deployed a Fellow in 2015 to help women weavers who lost family members in the war. This year, in contrast, we hope to support a campaign against the extraction of minerals that is uniting advocates who were on opposite sides during that brutal war. A second start-up will help our friends from Women in Action for Women (WAW) in Uganda to launch a tailoring business, using funds from a current GlobalGiving appeal.

Two other start-ups will build on our advocacy for partners in Nepal last year. Two graduate students will help Backward Society Education (BASE) develop a program to end caste discrimination. Two undergraduates will help the Network of Families of the Disappeared (NEFAD) establish the first-ever research center on transitional justice from the perspective of survivors and victims.

In addition to these four start-ups, we will also support four existing programs that may be familiar to you from earlier GlobalGiving campaigns. These aim to boost enrollment in Ugandan schools through WASH; help vulnerable women to compost food waste in the Kibera settlement of Nairobi; combat early marriage in Zimbabwe; and reduce the threat from malaria in tribal villages of Odisha state, India.

We also hope to expand our quilting and embroidery program by exhibiting and auctioning almost 40 new butterfly quilts from Uganda, and opening a new line of tea towels designed by family members of the disappeared in Nepal.

Finally, we will be helping high school students in Georgia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island to compost food waste in their schools and make soap in support of our partner in Zimbabwe.

It promises to be another busy year!

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This rich program of work will be even richer if we are able to deploy peace Fellows to partners.

We are currently in discussions with a wonderfully diverse group of eight students. They are studying at seven universities (in the US, Canada, and the Netherlands) and are nationals of the US, India, France and China. It is a testament to the universal appeal of service that we are able to attract such a varied group, and we look forward to seeing them at training here in Washington in May before they head out for deployment.

Our next report will bring you up to date on their exploits. In the meantime, we want to assure you that your donations are helping to keep the flame of service alive. Please visit our website for more on our programs and fellowships, and for news bulletins about our partners.

In deepest gratitude,

Iain and the AP team