The alumni website is currently undergoing changes, and we hope to back up soon. In the meantime, if you’re an exchange alumni, check out exchangealumni.state.gov to connect with fellow alumni, join groups and events, search for job opportunities, and more! And check out eca.state.gov to find out more about our exchange program opportunities.
In the Liberian capital of Monrovia, the government mandates that all citizens must wear face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Mandela Washington Fellowship (MWF) alumna, Thelma Teetee Ahamba, noticed that ill-fitting masks often forced people to touch their nose and mouth to adjust the masks. It gave her an idea. As founder of the fashion brand, Ahamba Clothing, Thelma knows that comfortable, well designed clothes make a big difference. Using her entrepreneurship, leadership, and business experience, Thelma came up with a more fitted and comfortable mask design that allows people to talk and breathe freely.
Since April, Thelma’s team of six have supplied more than 2,000 masks to individuals, institutions, and communities through partnerships with Mandela Washington Fellows and others in both Liberia and the United States -- promoting brand awareness through community service! While the mask profit margins aren’t generous, Thelma says the publicity has been invaluable. Thelma and her team also believe that a properly designed mask will promote increased compliance with the government-mandated mask wearing safety precautions as well as attract customers.
You can learn more about Thelma and her masks on Instagram at @ahamba_klothing.
Mohamed Ariq Mokhti, a 2019 YSEALI Professional Fellow alumnus and Founder of Persatuan Kebajikan dan Pendidikan Kuala Lumpur (the Education and Welfare Association of Kuala Lumpur), is doing his part to flatten the curve in his local community. To date, he has raised about $3,500 to fund the sewing of 5,000 sewn Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) gowns. These gowns have been distributed to five local hospitals, based on the severity and number of COVID-19 cases the hospitals are dealing with.
The money Mohamed raised is also supporting mini projects, such as setting up mobile screening stations at Tanjong Karang Hospital Selangor, which serves 40,000 people in the area; assisting the Pekan Hospital Pahang to organize a Psychology First Aid Unit to serve and support patients and family members suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; and providing groceries, such as rice, poultry, cooking oils, eggs, sugar, to B40 (low income) families for their Eid celebrations.
In war-stricken South Sudan, education is not always easily accessible. Jok Abraham Thon, an alumnus of the Mandela Washington Fellowship program and winner of the 2019 Ron Kovac Peace Prize, is determined to rewrite that story -- and he's getting support from fellow exchange alumni.
In 2017, Thon began his campaign of changing minds through “Bullets to Books” - an effort to refocus local youth on opportunities for education as a path towards a brighter future, and ultimately, peace. Thon founded the Promised Land Secondary School as part of his Youth for Peace through Education initiative. The school, just outside of Juba, makes the best of limited resources to provide educational opportunity.
BULLETS TO BOOKS is the winner of the Ron Kovic Peace Prize, Best Short in the Humanitarian category, Best Music, and My Hero Prize. The film also received best short documentary film at the Big Apple Film Festival in 2020. In addition, it has also been selected for screening at the Global Impact Film Festival, the Manhattan Film Festival, and the Vero Beach Wine and Film Festival.
Thon believes his work is far from over. “Nothing is impossible. Something done by a human being can be changed by a human being. I can still make something,” he says in the trailer for the documentary.
Thon continues to speak out about the importance of, and connection between education, peace, and disarmament. He was recently a featured presenter on “The Disarmament Emergency” online panel.
We look forward to hearing more about the impact of Thon’s work, and how the BULLETS TO BOOKS documentary by exchange alumni Gail and her team is helping Thon with his mission in South Sudan.
Republic of Korea National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee Meeting Room
Origin Story
In Summer 2018, I participated in a little-known exchange program funded by the United States Department of State, and implemented by the Meridian International Center, called the United States Congress-Republic of Korea National Assembly Exchange Program. Every summer, this exchange takes 10 young American leaders and 10 young South Korean leaders to each other’s countries, to learn about one another’s government, foreign policy priorities, to explore the past, present, and future of our important bilateral relationship, and to take a deep dive into each other’s rich and diverse cultures.
Full cohort before meeting at the United States Department of State in Washington, D.C.
It is an understatement to say this exchange program was a turning point in my life. I was interested in foreign policy before, but as a topic of conversation at the dinner table. I never knew I could make a career out of foreign policy, but after this exchange in South Korea, I felt confident in working toward a job in the international relations field.
Our Congress-National Assembly Exchange Program commenced right after the 2018 North Korea–United States Summit in Singapore. There was a lot of hope that a peaceful resolution to the Korean Peninsula conflict was in sight, and this narrative was a mainstay in the headlines for the duration of our exchange. It was incredible to set foot in the DMZ, which is the border between South and North Korea. We had additional meetings at the Ministry of Unification, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), and Hanawon—where North Korean defectors go to prepare to transition into South Korean society. We even visited Pyeongchang—not to be confused with Pyongyang—where the 2018 Winter Olympics had recently been hosted.
Photos from visit to the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in Seongnam, South Korea
One of my favorite aspects of the program was the cultural experiences. For example, on our last night in South Korea, we went to South Korean karaoke. It is different than karaoke in the United States; in South Korea, you rent a “noraebang,” which is a private room large enough for 15-20 people. My absolute favorite was trying many different foods in South Korea. We ate a lot of Korean barbeque, hot pot, teok-bokki (which I pronounce “toe-poke-ee”), and desserts. I tried hotteok, which is a pancake with different types of fillings. I also loved bingsu, which in its original form is plain shaved ice with condensed milk, topped with red beans. However, to be honest, I do not like red beans, so we went to a bingsu chain called Sulbing, and I ordered the green tea and brownie bingsu. It was delicious!
Becoming an Alumna
Soon after returning to the United States, I followed the instructions of our Program Director, Bogdan Banu, on how to formally register as a Department of State International Exchange Alumni. It begins on the website, alumni.state.gov. Once I created my account, I was thrilled to join this global community of over 300,000 international exchange alumni. At the same time, I followed the International Exchange Alumni social media accounts, on Facebook and Twitter.
As my first follow-up program, I participated in the U.S. Alumni TIES in March 2019 in Kansas City, Missouri under the topic of “Stronger American Cities: Closing the Skills Gap and Building Entrepreneurial Ecosystems.” This workshop was equally as life-changing as my original exchange program. I learned that entrepreneurship is not only for people who are starting a business, but rather that the entrepreneurial mindset must be learned by every human on the planet because it is imperative to constantly innovate and ideate creative solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.
In Kansas City, I had the privilege of joining American alumni from dozens of different exchange programs, who work in a variety of industries, of all different ages. Prior to the kickoff of the Alumni TIES programming, we were fortunate to attend an event called Road to GES Heartland. GES stands for Global Entrepreneurship Summit. GES is an annual event organized by the Department of State that brings together entrepreneurs from all over the world. In June 2019, GES was hosted in The Hague, Netherlands; therefore, the event in Kansas City was a lead-up to the actual GES, and was a forum to discuss entrepreneurship in the American Midwest. During the Road to GES Heartland, we were in the audience to hear both Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon speak.
Participants of U.S. Alumni TIES in Kansas City, Missouri
During Alumni TIES, we heard from an amazing lineup of guest speakers, both from the State Department and leaders in the entrepreneurship field at-large. The best part was the site visits, and my favorite site visit was to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which is the largest non-profit organization in Kansas City. The inspirational individual for whom the foundation is named, Ewing Marion Kauffman, went to community college, raised $5,000 USD to start a pharmaceutical company, and eventually sold his company years later for $6 billion USD. When Mr. Kauffman sold his company, he rewarded his loyal employees by making 7,000 of them millionaires, which dramatically helped Kansas City overall.
ALLI Indo-Pacific Summit
Later in 2019, I came across another opportunity for both U.S. and foreign alumni. It was organized by the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo and facilitated by Cultural Vistas, and was called the ALLI Indo-Pacific Summit. ALLI stands for Advancing Long-term Leadership Initiative. I applied, and was fortunate to be selected for this workshop in Tokyo, Japan. It convened 40 young international exchange alumni from countries within the Indo-Pacific region.
Photos taken by Jarret while exploring Tokyo: (from L to R) Sensō-ji Temple, Shibuya Crossing, view of Tokyo Tower and surrounding neighborhood from Roppongi Hills Tokyo City View Observation Deck
During the Summit, we had many beneficial breakout sessions and workshops on best practices for community engagement, sustainability, public-private partnerships, project management, negotiations, disaster resiliency, cross-border collaboration, and entrepreneurship. At the end of the Summit, we were split into multi-country groups of three or four, and had several hours to put together a pitch for a project that advances the Indo-Pacific identity. Our closing activity was to present our proposals to staff from the U.S. Embassy. Every team’s project proposal was remarkable!
U.S. delegates to the ALLI Indo-Pacific Summit in Tokyo
Small Grant Recipient: Indo-Pacific Youth Dialogue
After returning from Tokyo, my teammates and I decided to develop our project proposal further and apply for a small grant. We collaborated to complete the grant application, and in February 2020, we were notified that the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo had selected our project to be funded.
Our project is called the Indo-Pacific Youth Dialogue. It will be a three-day policy workshop for young leaders from the Indo-Pacific region, in conjunction with the twice-yearly ASEAN Summit. ASEAN is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and its secretariat is located in Jakarta, Indonesia. We have decided to focus throughout our event on six main policy areas:
Climate change and natural disaster risk management
Digital society and the Internet
Entrepreneurship and jobs for youth
Public health preparedness
Religious tolerance, countering violent extremism, and peacebuilding
Security and transnational crime
Every year, the member nations of ASEAN rotate which country serves as Chair. The Chair country hosts the two ASEAN Summits, as well as other Ministerial-level meetings throughout their host year. In 2020, Vietnam is the ASEAN Chair. We plan to host our inaugural Indo-Pacific Youth Dialogue (IPYD) in late 2020 in Hanoi, Vietnam, in advance of the 37th ASEAN Summit and 15th East Asia Summit. Our key output will be a Youth Policy Communique that the participants will collaborate to author and present to leaders of the Indo-Pacific countries. Crafting the Youth Policy Communique will be an exercise for young leaders to practice being solutions-oriented, and learn the steps of solving issues in their communities and countries through policy. The goals of our project are to promote youth involvement in governance and spread awareness about the Indo-Pacific as a unique and consequential regional bloc. As a team, we express our gratitude to the Department of State for the opportunity to design and implement our own exchange program for young leaders after having benefited from State Department Exchange Programs ourselves.
Alumni of the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellows have been sharing their impact stories and work during the COVID-19 pandemic, and inspiring each other through their actions.
Humphrey alumna Nazla Mariza, who was part of the 2017-18 cohort, saw Humphrey alumni in the Philippines discussing their work during the coronavirus and was inspired to share the same.
So she created a video with members of her Humphrey cohort discussing how they each have responded to COVID-19 in their countries. Check out her video, which features Mariza (Syracuse University; Indonesia), Tan Wee Hoe (Penn State University; Malaysia), Zaira Zambelli Taveira (Virginia Commonwealth University; Brazil), Ranjana Das (Cornell University; India), and Bernardo Antonio Perez, (MIT; Nicaragua):
We are living in unprecedented times with many people in society facing challenges. While there are many in need, there are those rising up to the challenge and making a difference, like Godfrey Mokaeane, an alumnus of the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) program and board member of NGO Breadline Africa, and fellow IVLP alumna Lucinda Evans. Through Breadline Africa's implementing partner, Mokaeane and Evans have helped thousands in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the announcement of lockdown, Breadline Africa immediately focused all of its efforts towards feeding programs in poor communities to help alleviate hunger. Currently, Breadline Africa's Lockdown Feeding Crisis plan includes 27 feeding sites, across four provinces, delivering 69,000 weekly meals.
Responding to the shortage of face masks in underserved communities of Pakistan, Fulbright alumna Salima Hakim came up with a solution to produce 55,000 masks for those in need: mobilizing women empowerment program (Mumkin) trainees.
Thanks to Hakim’s efforts with the trainees, she has been able to give masks to the trainees and donate masks to those in need, thanks to good citizens who made donations or bought extra masks that could be then given away for free.
Revenue generated from the sales of masks has also been distributed among the trainees who were involved in the production.
Recently, TechWomen alumni Josephine Ndambuki (2013) and Chepkemoi Magdaline (2019) helped organize and execute “The Great COVID-19 Innovation Challenge” -- an international hackathon that challenged individuals, startups, and organizations to apply innovative tech solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya. Josephine served as the co-lead, and Chepkemoi worked as the project manader. The hackathon was hosted by Josephine’s employer, Konza Technopolis, as well as the Association of Countrywide Hubs, of which Chepkemoi’s company, EldoHub, is a member.
Over the course of 72 hours, the hackathon brought together 316 innovator communities from 47 countries to harness the power of technology and demonstrate how partnerships can solve leading challenges. Each hackathon group was tasked with addressing one of three challenges-- Kenya’s health systems, food systems or economy-- and finding ways to leverage technology for change. Submissions were judged by a distinguished group of panelists, including the British High Commissioner to Kenya, and three winning teams were chosen. “We congratulate our outstanding teams,” Josephine wrote. “We look forward to working further to make these homegrown brands.” The project also included other TechWomen alumni, Ruth Kaveke (2017) who served as a mentor, and Maureen Macharia (2018) who served as a judge.
Photo of Cassandra Pantel courtesy of The Stevens Initiative.
In spring 2019, Cassandra Pantel participated in the Global Solutions Sustainability Challenge, a virtual exchange program implemented by IREX. This virtual exchange connected groups of undergraduate students at U.S. community colleges with students in Jordan to study how hospitality and tourism intersect with sustainability.
During this 10-week virtual exchange, 15 binational teams and more than 315 students investigated the impact of global hospitality and tourism issues in their local communities, collaborated with team members in another country, and developed sustainable business concepts in response to a challenge prompt inspired by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Cassandra’s team was one of three finalists to present their concept at an in-person summit in Washington, D.C., where they were selected as the overall winner of the challenge.
After graduating from Kirkwood Community College last spring, Cassandra began a role at Cedar Ridge Winery & Distillery located in Swisher, Iowa, where she is in charge of the day-to-day operations behind the bar. A year after her program, Cassandra continues to use the skills she developed during her virtual exchange every day.
Sharing an example of sustainable practices used at her job, she points out, “All of our spent grain from distilling is given to a local farmer to feed their livestock. This not only helps the environment, but also in turn helps feed families.” In addition to knowledge about sustainability practices, other skills developed during her program contribute to her career success, including improved communication, project and event planning, business concept development, collaboration, and teamwork.
This story was originally published on the Stevens Initiative website, where you can continue reading more about Cassandra's story.
Dr. Oussou started a program to train several villages in Cote D'Ivoire about COVID-19 preventative measures. Through support from the U.S. Embassy and the local government, Dr. Oussou and his team have gone to eight villages to give presentations on symptoms of the disease and proper hand washing techniques, and to distribute face masks and hand sanitizer. Dr. Oussou hopes this campaign shows people that COVID-19 is a serious threat to people of all ages, as well as the importance of preventative measures.
Dr. Oussou was a 2018-2019 Humphrey Fellow at Penn State University. He was on the Fulbright Roster as a Specialist for Internationalizing Institutional Capacity from 2011-2016.
