Help Our Peace Fellows to Serve and Learn!

The Value of Service

This is the fourth time we have reported back on our program to recruit 40 graduate students to serve as Peace Fellows with our partner organizations around the world. After two years the number recruited now stands at nineteen. Nine have been selected for positions this summer, and all attended a week of training at Georgetown University last week. The photo above shows them relaxing at the end of training – you can see the relief on their faces!

As in past years, the 2017 Fellows will support innovative campaigns that were launched by their hosts with funding through AP. Much of the money was raised through Global Giving - if you contributed we are most grateful! Our recent appeal for Nepal was particularly successful.

Here is a rundown of the 2017 Fellows and their assignments:

• Lauren studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. She will help the Gulu Disabled Persons Union (GDPU) to build an accessible toilet for students with disabilities at the Ogul School in northern Uganda.
• Talley (George Washington University) will help the Children Peace Initiative in Kenya to promote conflict resolution between warring pastoralists in northwest Kenya.
• Jacob (The Fletcher School at Tufts University) will help the Association for Persons with Disabilities (AEPD) in Vietnam to support families that were poisoned by Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. AP and AEPD have funded four families so far through microprojects on Global Giving. Jacob will work with a fifth - Tran Thi Thao. her husband Ngo Gia Hue, and their severely affected children.
• In Nepal, Rachel (Sciences Po in Paris) will work in the remote district of Dhankuta, where her host Care Women Nepal screens women for uterine prolapse.
• Also in Nepal, Cynthia (University of Maryland) will accompany field officers from CONCERN as they follow up with 50 children who have been rescued from the brick factories and placed in school.
• Vicky (The Fletcher School, Tufts University) will team up with Kirstin (Georgetown University) to work with the network of families of the disappeared in Nepal (NEFAD). Vicky (pictured below) will help 35 wives of the disappeared to produce embroidery for sale in the district of Bardiya, while Kirstin will work with NEFAD’s founder to advocate on their behalf in Kathmandu.
• Alberto (The School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University) will serve at Peace Labs in Lebanon. Peace Labs helps communities to overcome religious tensions and deal with the influx of refugees from Syria.
• Reina (University of California, Santa Barbara) will work at the Hope Workshop, an inspiring group of women refugees from Syria and Iraq who have made two striking quilts depicting the refugee’s story.

In a departure from past years, we are asking all partners to recruit a local university student (AP Associate) to support their Fellow in the field and continue to volunteer after the Fellow leaves. We hope this will enrich the experience for the 2017 Fellows and expand our fellowship program to students from the Global South. The first Associate to be selected this year is Prabal (photo), a student at Tribhuvan University in Nepal who will accompany Kirstin and Vicky to Bardiya and Kathmandu.

This year's cohort brings the total number of students deployed under AP's fellowship program to 294 and we were delighted that several past Fellows were on hand last week to remind us that peace fellowships can lay the foundation for a stellar career in peace and human rights. One trainer, Ash (photo), developed a passion for blogging during his 2008 fellowship in Peru and puts his skills to good use today by producing podcasts for the UN World Food Program. Many other Fellows have benefitted from the experience, as you can see from this page.

This year’s Fellows will shortly start posting blogs and we invite you to follow their progress by clicking on their profiles. They will be backed up from Washington by Karen Delaney, AP's fellowship coordinator, and three talented interns. We welcome your feedback and suggestions!

With our best wishes and thanks

Iain and the AP team.