A street scene in Vienna, Austria, 1949. Photo by Mark McCormick.

For most amateur photographers, loved ones are a common subject.  For Experiment alumnus Mark McCormick, it took 16 years and a chance encounter half a world away to discover that the anonymous subject in one of his photographs taken on the Experiment was the love of his life.

McCormick traveled with the Experiment to Germany in the summer of 1949. Like many Experimenters, he captured the experience through photographs of Germany and the surrounding countries.

McCormick kept many of those photographs in a trunk that accompanied him on his frequent travels around the globe.

After the Experiment, McCormick spent over a decade working for the US military before moving to Buenos Aires to work for the Argentina subsidiary of Ford. Upon arrival in Argentina, he placed an ad the local German language newspaper in hopes of securing living quarters where he could also practice his German.

The rest of the story is best told in McCormick’s own words.

A couple of weeks after moving in I had learned that my host family were Viennese – a woman my age and her mother. Both had come to Argentina since the war, and I was shortly to have some pleasant conversations with this interesting lady.

After learning that she had worked for the French Occupation Headquarters in their zone of Vienna, specifically for the French officer in charge of civil affairs as his secretary by virtue of her knowledge of the language…It was in one of those chats that I went to my trunk and took out some photos I had taken in Vienna – just 16 years earlier.

A painting of Ari Gyongy by Mark McCormick.

She soon discovered one – a street scene in the western part of Vienna she knew quite well. The street scene included many people, but in the very center, just about to arrive where I was taking that picture, was a woman in a white coat and rather distinctive other clothing and some sort of grip or briefcase. She examined that figure instantly.

Yes, it was the woman I was talking to, the woman who rented me the room!

Here I have her picture I painted, in 1968, a year after our marriage in Buenos Aires.

Read more of McCormick’s handwritten notes about meeting his wife Aranka Gyongy and see his Experiment photographs on our flickr page.

Brian Swanson and Ruth Rowan

Sometimes, hope for the future grows out of a tragic event in the past. Such was the death of Alice Rowan Swanson, killed in 2008 while riding her bicycle in Washington, DC. It led to the 2009 establishment of the Alice Rowan Swanson Fellowship.

“The first thing I thought of was to establish an SIT fellowship in her name,” explains Alice’s mother, Ruth Rowan. “This fellowship is all about Alice. The SIT experience changed her life. It showed her how much she wanted to be out in the world, working with people on the ground. Her ambition was to be a peacemaker.”

Alice, who was fluent in Spanish and proficient in Arabic, spent a college semester abroad in Nicaragua with SIT’s Revolution, Transformation, and Civil Society program. She also studied Arab societies in Cairo. A grant from her alma mater, Amherst College, enabled Alice to continue her work with communities in Nicaragua following her senior year. She worked with the Monimbo council of elders to conduct an oral history of the revolution.

“The SIT program that Alice experienced was so well thought out, so well designed,” says Rowan. “The fellowship is our way of giving graduates of this program an opportunity to expand their work, to ‘do more’ for the community that had become their home for one semester.”

The six recipients of the Alice Rowan Swanson Fellowship to date have all been young women. “I think of those girls as six Alices going off to transform the world,” says Rowan. Their stories have also inspired growth of the Alice Rowan Swanson Fellowship Fund through additional gifts. The recipients, their SIT Study Abroad programs, and areas of follow-up are:

• Michelle Eilers, Chile: Cultural Identity, Social Justice, and Community Development, researched culturally appropriate maternal health care for Aymaran women in 2009.
• Salome Vanwoerden, Nepal: Development and Social Change, provided art and photography therapy for mental health rehabilitation in 2010.
• Dara Carroll, Uganda: Development Studies, supported mental health patients and facility construction in 2010.
• Sonya Shadravan, Senegal: National Identity and the Arts, focused on neighborhood- based youth empowerment programs in 2011.
• Laura Sprinkle, Bolivia: Multiculturalism, Globalization, and Social Change, worked to support the Kids’ Books Bolivia project in 2011.
• Stephanie McKee, South Africa: Social and Political Transformation, will begin her fellowship, focusing on art therapy for prison inmates in South Africa, in May 2012.

SIT Study Abroad alumni are encouraged to apply, and the next deadline for proposals is March 1st. Click here to read the guidelines and download an application.

Salome Vanwoerden

Documentary filmmaker Jay Shapiro first traveled to Africa in 1999 with the Experiment in International Living. He is currently creating a film about the Ugandan little league baseball team.

I didn’t know where I wanted to go. I just knew I wanted to do something different.

I was 15.  I didn’t know much about the world other than what I saw on TV.  I don’t remember exactly what I searched for on a young and clunky internet, but I found a group called The Experiment in International Living.  I saw the words homestay, travel, education, community service and small groups.  It was exactly what I was looking for.

I printed out brochures for Thailand and Ghana.  Truth be told, I had to check a map just to be sure where each of them was.  There were a few pictures showing American teenagers, surrounded by local kids in classrooms, digging trenches for construction of schools, hanging from zip lines in some tropical setting, or deep in conversation with local community leaders.  Perfect.

Jay Shapiro (right) in Uganda filming the Ugandan little league baseball team.

I plopped both of them down on the dinner table the next night.  My parents took a moment to gather themselves.  I asked, “So, what do you think?” Now, my parents are wonderful for many reasons, but this was one of their better moments.  Fighting through the fear that I had successfully invoked, they both said “these look awesome.”  So, one question lingered, where should I go?

The answer was rather simple for them.  We lived in Pennsylvania, a two-hour drive from JFK Airport where the Ghana trip flew out of, or a two-day drive to LAX where the Thailand trip departed from.  “You’re going to Ghana,” my Dad said.

There were ten of us teenagers on the trip and I believe all ten of us now would describe something different.  But I think we would all agree that the trip altered the way we think and the way we grew to understand the world.

I remember landing in West Africa as a teenager and being intimidated.  I remember leaving West Africa as a teenager and being frustrated.  I wasn’t frustrated because my experience was in any way lacking.   My experience was incredible.

My frustration came from an awareness that I was going through a process of understanding Africa, maybe understanding poverty in general.  I had gone through some initial stages of anger, doubt, and fascination when I was exposed to this world so different than the one I had left behind in America. I was only in Ghana for five weeks that summer but I recognized that understanding a place like Ghana is a long process. I had, and still have, a hunch that it is a worthwhile process.

I went back to Ghana three times over the next five years of my life, including one summer in college where I had received a grant to film a documentary there.  I never stopped going through the process I started on that trip, and I probably never will.  In college, I began to study development as well as film production.  I became fascinated with the notion that trajectories of communities or even nations can be drastically shifted when you change the way people identify themselves within a nation, especially those people at the lowest economic levels.  That idea may read as academic jargon, but years later when I learned about a small baseball program in Uganda, I saw firsthand that it wasn’t just a theory.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the past three years I have been privileged to document the story of that small baseball program in Uganda.  This past year they overcame the odds and won the Middle East/Africa Regional Little League Tournament to become the first African team in history to qualify for the Little League World Series.  Their visas were ultimately denied due to sub-par documentation, which cancelled their trip and changed their feel-good story into a much more complicated journey.  This story led to a Canadian spear-headed donation effort to put on “the game that should have been” and to help support Ugandan baseball in the future.

This film and the story it tells are a continuation of my process of understanding that began at the dinner table with my parents when I was just 15.  I will be forever grateful that I received their support for that trip and even more grateful that a program like The Experiment in International Living was out there for me to find.

Learn more about the feature length film Opposite Field or watch a CNN video feature about Shapiro’s film.

Secretary Clinton meets with the Brazilian Youth Ambassadors. Photo courtesy of the US State Department.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Brazilian Youth Ambassadors Program by hosting 45 Brazilian high school students at the US State Department today.

Secretary Clinton said the US greatly values its relationship with Brazil, and the youth ambassadors can play a key role in creating a cross-cultural “superhighway” between the two countries.

World Learning administers the program, which is funded by the US State Department’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs and the US Embassy in Brazil. The program is carried out in partnership with Brazil’s Council of State Secretariats of Education, the US-Brazil Bi-national Centers Network, and the private sector.

For three weeks, the Brazilian youth learned about leadership, volunteerism, responsible citizenship, and US culture while visiting and living with local families in one of five US cities: Charlotte, N.C.; Bozeman, Mont.; Tulsa, Okla.; Seattle, Wash., and Cleveland, Ohio. The students were selected among 7,500 applicants for outstanding academic achievement and community involvement. A similar group of US students will enjoy their own educational exchange to Brazil this year.

The Brazil Youth Ambassadors Program has been so successful over the last 10 years that the State Department now considers it a model for promoting youth leadership and mutual understanding between US and Brazilian citizens. The program is being duplicated in more than 25 countries in the western hemisphere.

Watch or read Secretary Clinton’s remarks to the Brazilian youth.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Almaz W/Senbet helps children in need as a SCOPSO care coordinator.

After thirty-eight years as a teacher, and only two years away from retirement, Almaz W/Senbet remains as dedicated as ever to her students. A music teacher at Misrak Ber No-1 primary school in Addis Ababa, W/Senbet has also taken it upon herself to provide food and care to students in need. Every day she brings in bread and brews a large pot of tea to serve to children in her school who might otherwise go hungry.

W/Senbet is working to expand these efforts and help even more children through her role as the care coordinator for Misrak Ber No-1′s School Community Partnerships Serving Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (SCOPSO) project. Sponsored by USAID and administered by World Learning, the program has already provided food and support to more than 130 students at the school.

“Last year we only fed 37 children among so many and were afraid our resources might not last,” she said. “But today we manage to accommodate not only the 37, but 63 more of the most needy children with no fear of resource constraints whatsoever.”

With support from members of the SCOPSO core group of organizers and the school staff, she was able to raise 12,000 birr (about $695) for the program in just four months. That money will go a long way toward providing food for students in need, both in school and at home.

“People have been so kind to the children,”  W/Senbet said. “Now with the added resources, I have plans to serve decent meals to the children. I can even plan to provide their parents with nutritious food items like beans so that my children don’t have to think of how they will eat but instead can think about their education.”

W/Senbet calls all of these students “my children” and they call her “our mother.” When the students come for their meals, they bring her their test results, just as they would to their own parents. W/Senbet said she has seen them make remarkable progress in school since the start of the program.

“I keep being amazed by how small actions, such as providing a cup of tea and a piece of bread has installed hope and academic improvement in my children,” W/Senbet said.

Brazilian Youth Ambassadors arrive in the US. Photo courtesy of US Embassy Brazil.

World Learning will host hundreds of Latin American youth in the United States this year, as part of huge expansion of educational exchange programs featuring new programs with Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. The first group of 45 students arrived in early January from Brazil to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Brazil Youth Ambassadors Program.  Participants learn about responsible citizenship, leadership, and community service, as well as social justice and volunteerism. They will also build ties with Americans through mentoring by business and civil society leaders. The US State Department and the US Embassy in Brazil sponsor the program in cooperation with Brazil’s Council of State Secretariats of Education, the US-Brazil Bi-national Centers Network, and private sector partners.

In 2012 World Learning will help Mozambique take a critical step forward in fighting its HIV/AIDS epidemic. The new project aims to strengthen the country’s Ministry of Health and Ministry of Women and Social Action so they will be able to  independently manage millions of dollars in potential funding from the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). World Learning will help the ministries self-identify gaps in administration and financial management and design a custom training program to aid in compliance with PEPFAR regulations. The organization will work in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and ICF International on this program.

Frustration with Egypt’s stagnant economy and high youth unemployment fueled the country’s recent revolution. Now World Learning is partnering with Egypt’s Ministry of Education to strengthen teaching, curricula, and management at a new high school in Cairo focused on science, technology, and math—subjects vital for competing in the global marketplace. The goal is to create a successful model for specialized schools across Egypt. The project grew out of 2011 exchange hosted by World Learning that brought Egyptian education authorities to the United States to learn about innovations and best practices in the US educational system. The US Agency for International Development funded that exchange, as well as the current project.

Field work is a key component of the new study abroad program in Argentina.

To meet growing student interest in global health, SIT Study Abroad is launching a new program in Argentina this fall, which will include coursework on the country’s epidemiological profile, chronic diseases in urban environments, health equity, and social determinants of health. This health program will join other SIT Study Abroad programs based in Buenos Aires. SIT Study Abroad will also return to Cuba this fall with its History, Culture, and Identity program. Students will participate in an immersive cultural examination of Cuba’s rich artistic traditions, ethnic heritages and identity, and historical developments. The program will be based in the political and cultural capital of Havana with field-based learning throughout the country to give students a chance to experience Cuba’s geographic and cultural diversity.

SIT Professor Jeff Unsicker works with partner organization BRAC in Bangladesh.

Over the past few years, SIT Graduate Institute has expanded its intensive field course offerings to provide students more experiential learning opportunities. This year it will offer a Policy Advocacy Course in Bangladesh through a partnership with BRAC, a development organization dedicated to alleviating poverty by empowering the poor. In addition, students in the Leadership, Community, and Coalition Building course are currently in the field in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. These short courses offer current graduate students a chance to study theory and at the same time observe and work with organizations in the field.

Explore Baja's marine ecosystem with a new Experiment trip to Mexico.

Finally, The Experiment in International Living celebrates its 80th anniversary this year and continues to offer extraordinary summer programs in 30 countries. This year The Experiment is adding a program in Mexico on Marine Biology on the Baja Peninsula. High school students will work with local marine biologists to explore Baja’s unique marine ecosystems, swim with sea lions, and snorkel along the reefs. Students will also improve their Spanish language skills and experience local customs with their host families.

We hope you’re as excited about our new endeavors as we are. Check back here for updates on these programs and information about more projects and offerings we’ll be debuting in 2012.

Tekalegn has become a "Monthly Star" with help from SCOPSO.

Tekalegn Haile dreamed of playing soccer with the other students at school. However, the 10 year old didn’t feel accepted by his peers because his family could not afford school uniforms, workbooks, and other classroom supplies.

“I rarely had the opportunity to play football [soccer] with the others,” Tekalegn said. “I could only touch the ball when it was kicked out of the playing field. Even just touching the ball and giving it back to the players was like winning the lottery to me!”

Tekalegn attends Ras Tesema primary school in Bedele, Ethiopia. An orphan who lives with his aunt, Tekalegn used to be a problem student with poor grades and frequent absences. He had to take on a lot of responsibility at home to help his family, which left little time to do homework, prepare for exams, or even attend class.

In April 2010 however, Tekalegn began participating int the School Community Partnerships Serving Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (SCOPSO) project at his school, funded by USAID and administered by World Learning. The larger SCOPSO project provides care and support to approximately 52,000 orphaned and vulnerable children at 400 primary schools throughout Ethiopia. Through the project Tekalegn received a uniform and school supplies, as well as a community support system and life skills training. Everyone at Ras Tesema soon began to notice improvements in his behavior and attitude at school.

“Now, not only does he have the uniform and school materials that he needs, but we are also getting closer and closer to Tekalegn,” Principal Ato Muluneh said.

After he had been part of SCOPSO for about four months, his grades had improved so much that he was named one of the school’s Urija-Ja, or “Monthly Stars.” The Monthly Star program is a tool used by SCOPSO schools to motivate children to bring up their grades. At the end of each month the names of the class’s high-achieving students are posted on the Monthly Star board.

“Frequent discussions about his problems with Tekalegn and his aunt have created the ladder for his success and now he has become an Urji-Jia, a Monthly Star,” Muluneh said.

Cochabamba, Bolivia

Christine Elizabeth Horansky is an advocate for global education and a 2002 alumna of SIT’s Study Abroad program in Cochabamba, Bolivia. She was recently named a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum. She earned her bachelors degree in International Relations from Mount Holyoke College and her masters degree in International Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

There are places you will go in your life that leave a lasting mark, and even years later you can close your eyes and walk the streets in your dreams. For me, Cochabamba, “The Garden City” of Bolivia, where I studied abroad in college, is one of those indelible places in my mind that forever changed my understanding of the world. I can still see the mountains in the night as the city lights of the surrounding hills twinkle like fallen stars punched out of the darkness. Nestled at the foothills of the Andes, halfway between soaring peaks and tropical jungles, Cochabamba’s warm climate year-round enables a vibrant street culture that teems with life as it wrangles with the discontents of modernity. In these same streets, the face of poverty shows among the many children working and begging late into the night.
 
The prospects of a nation lie in its youth: a bellwether of any country’s development is its ability to offer opportunities for young people. In Bolivia, as in many low-income countries, children make up a large portion of the population. As I made my way from the green plazas of Cochabamba into graduate school and beyond, what I learned abroad led me to a career advocating for global access to educational opportunities. In the fight to end poverty, education is one of the best investments that can be made. It has a multiplier effect on a range of development goals, from maternal and child health, to gender equality, democracy, peace, and stability. It is the key that unlocks the true wealth of nations, its people.
 
At its core, education is the opening up of one’s world view. It teaches us all to think critically, to bravely imagine new worlds. As the inspirational author J.K. Rowling once said, the ability to read enables us to empathize with people we have never met, thousands of miles away and, in turn, create new stories. As students of World Learning, our global education helps us see the transformational change that comes from investing in people-centered development. Likewise, the opportunity for a good quality education helps empower individuals and communities around the planet. Today, it is estimated that 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty if all children in the developing world left school able to read.
 
In the past two decades, international movements such as the UN Millennium Development Goals have helped get an unprecedented number of children into school, many of them girls and members of other vulnerable groups. But as the clock ticks down on the 2015 deadline to achieve universal primary education, 67 million children still remain locked out of the classroom, many of them the poorest and most at-risk, like those who walk the streets of Cochabamba. Our challenge is to find ways to better work in global partnership so that all youth have the chance to become their own agents of change.

Alice Rowan Swanson in Nicaragua

The Alice Rowan Swanson Fellowship returns SIT Study Abroad alumni to the country where they studied to conduct short term human rights projects. The fellowship is a living tribute to Alice Rowan Swanson, an SIT Study Abroad alumna who had a passion for human rights. Proposals are reviewed twice annually, and the next deadline for applications is March 1st.

Click here to read the official announcement, review the complete set of guidelines and download an application.

Since 2009, World Learning has awarded six fellowships. Most recently, Stephanie Mckee received a fellowship to pursue an arts rehabilitation project in South Africa’s prison system. Mckee will begin her project later this year.

SIT Study Abroad Bolivia alumna Laura Sprinkle recently returned from her fellowship with the Kids’ Books Bolivia project in Cochabamba. The reciprocity project, initially started by SIT Bolivia academic director Heidi Baer-Postigo, seeks to build a library of bilingual and trilingual books on Bolivian culture written by SIT students. Sprinkle was working with libraries and primary schools to design educational programs that utilize the books.

Laura Sprinkle in Bolivia

“These books serve as a concrete connection between all that Bolivia has given us, knowledge and love and appreciation for culture, as well as a heartfelt thank you and a useful, long lasting tool for education and cross-cultural understanding,” said Sprinkle.

Earlier in 2011, Sonya Shadravan traveled to Dakar, Senegal to work with artists, musicians, poets and activists to create neighborhood youth empowerment groups. Watch a video by Shadravan about the project.

The first three recipients of the award, Michelle Eilers, Dara Carroll, and Salome Vanwoerden, pursued health projects in Chile, Uganda and Nepal respectively.

Komljenovic wanted to share her experience with others so she forged a partnership between SPE and the US Drummers Collective, a group of American college marching percussionists from ISU and Missouri Southern State University. Together they organized the US-Serbian Drumline Exchange which, with the support of the US Embassy in Belgrade, brought members of the US Drummers Collective to Serbia in the summer of 2011. The trip included workshops, clinics with professional musicians, and public performances at the EXIT festival and BELEF, Belgrade Summer Festival.

Hear more about SPE from Komljenovic and watch their recent performance at TEDxYouth@ISB conference in Belgrade.

Click here to view the embedded video.