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Impact Begins with the Individual

July 20, 2015

Stephanie Herzog, 2012-2013, Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to Romania (left, back row by blackboard) takes some of her students from her English Language Enthusiasts Club at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iasi, Romania to a local middle school English class to give her university students hands-on English teaching experience

About a year after I had completed my Fulbright English Language Teaching Assistantship (ETA) in Romania, I received an email from a student in one of the literary analysis courses I had taught at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi:

“…In the past few days I’ve been rereading Fitzgerald’s ‘Babylon’ revisited and ‘Cathedral’ by Raymond Carver and I actually got myself a copy of S. Anderson’s ‘Winesburg, Ohio’ because I had a very nice time reading the first short story of the collection. I am writing you this email because I really wanted to thank you for the wonderful opportunity you gave us to study these beautiful short stories and for the great way of discussing them in class. Your teaching method, academic and professional yet very warm and good-hearted, had a very high impact on me and made me actually look for more stories from those authors and even others. Thanks to you, I’m a little more into American literature than I was before, and I’m really grateful for that…”

Measuring the impact you have had on the local community you lived in while completing a Fulbright grant is not very easy, but this message reminded me that impact begins on an individual level. Everyone I had encountered and worked with while I was in Romania resulted in a very unique cultural and educational exchange that challenged my own mindset. It was nice to know, from the email above, that I challenged the mindsets of those I had met as well.

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U.S. Fulbright

Breakdown in the Kalahari

June 22, 2015

Daniel Koehler, 2014-2015, Fulbright National-Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellow to Botswana

Want a window into the day-in-the life a Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellow? Read 2014 Fellow Dan Koehler’s account of how he deftly handled a truck breakdown in the middle of the Kalahari desert en route to doing some filming for his project.

Interested in learning more about the Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship? Attend the webinar, Fulbright-Nat Geo: Introduction, this Wednesday, June 24 at 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. ET.

Live in the Washington, DC area? Come hear the first five fellows share their experiences on Tuesday, June 30 at 1:30 p.m. ET. For more information on how to attend this even, click here.

Mosodi shut the hood of the truck. “It’s the gearbox.”

Earlier that morning, we had departed New Xade for another round of filming in Metsiamanong in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Shortly after passing the border gate into the reserve, the engine of our truck started making a loud clacking noise.

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Enrichment Foreign Fulbright Fulbright-Millennial Trains Project

Fulbright-Millennial Trains Project: Preface

May 24, 2015

Disclaimer: As I write these words, I am in the middle of Texas (between El Paso and San Antonio) after more than 15 hours of enlightening, intense and humbling learning experiences with the MTP class of 2015. So yes, I am extremely tired, but my desire to share these feelings goes beyond my body entering autopilot mode.

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Enrichment Foreign Fulbright Fulbright-Millennial Trains Project

Fulbright-Millennial Trains Project Participants

May 13, 2015

The U.S. Department of State selected the following six Fulbright Foreign Students to participate in the third Millennial Trains Project (MTP) voyage across the United States — leaving from Los Angeles, California on May 21 and ending in Washington, DC on May 31— as an enrichment component of the Fulbright Foreign Student Program. The Fulbrighters will join 19 American riders on the MTP journey to gain an in-depth understanding of life in the United States and to strengthen their skills in leadership, social entrepreneurship, and communication.

Meet the six Fulbright participants:

Saja AlQuzweeni is a Fulbright Forieng Student from Iraq completing a Master's in Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Saja Al Quzweeni is a Fulbright Foreign Student from Iraq

Saja Al Quzweeni is a Fulbright Foreign Student from Baghdad, Iraq, currently pursuing a master’s in environmental science and policy at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Saja’s MTP project is an extension of research she completed last year at Growing Power, a nonprofit organization in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that works in urban agriculture as an approach to increase food security in lower income and food desert communities. Small plots of land are used for intensive growing to offer healthy, affordable food to inner city communities, while merging agriculture and wise environmental practices to revitalize urban areas.

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U.S. Fulbright

The 2015-2016 Fulbright-mtvU Competition is Now Open!

November 4, 2014

Garrett Rubin, 2013-2014, Fulbright-mtvU Fellow to Jordan (center), working at the Children’s Music Workshop at the Collateral Repair Project Refugee Community Center in Amman. To read more about Garrett’s experiences, visit: http://fulbright.mtvu.com/author/grubin/

Are you a U.S. citizen and interested in pursuing a Fulbright grant that explores music as a global force for promoting mutual understanding? Consider applying for a Fulbright-mtvU grant, now through February 27, 2015!

Applicants are encouraged to consider all aspects of the power of music in developing their proposals. Along with the study of music in a specific cultural context, proposals will be considered in other music-related fields including music and social activism, music in learning, music and the community, and musical performance. Applications for all countries where there is an active Fulbright U.S. Student Program are encouraged.

Applications for all countries where there is an active U.S. Student Fulbright Program are encouraged.

– See more at: http://eca.state.gov/fulbright/fulbright-programs/program-summaries/fulbright-mtvu-fellowship#sthash.yfsSuPh3.dpuf

Applications for all countries where there is an active U.S. Student Fulbright Program are encouraged.

– See more at: http://eca.state.gov/fulbright/fulbright-programs/program-summaries/fulbright-mtvu-fellowship#sthash.yfsSuPh3.dpuf

Applications for all countries where there is an active U.S. Student Fulbright Program are encouraged.

– See more at: http://eca.state.gov/fulbright/fulbright-programs/program-summaries/fulbright-mtvu-fellowship#sthash.yfsSuPh3.dpuf

To learn more about this unique Fulbright opportunity, please visit our website to obtain the details on the application requirements and the current Fulbright-mtvU Fellows blog.

Have questions? Feel free to contact us!

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U.S. Fulbright

Life After Chernobyl

October 17, 2014

Michael Forster Rothbart, 2008-2009, Ukraine, taking photos in the Semikhody graveyard less than a mile from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

The following blog post is by alumnus Michael Forster Rothbart, who coordinated the compilation and assembly of the current Fulbright Alumni Photography Exhibit, now showing in The Atrium Gallery at the Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, through November 10, 2014. Opening reception and gala to be held at the gallery on Friday, October 17 at 5:30 p.m. Visit the gallery’s Facebook page to learn more.

One month into my Fulbright U.S. Student Program grant to Ukraine, I moved to Sukachi, a village of 1,200, ten miles from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

What’s it like to live near Chernobyl? It depends who you ask. “Is it even safe?” they asked in Kyiv. “Why would you want to live up there, in the middle of nowhere?!” But when people in Sukachi asked where I lived, I said I rented a room from Nina. “Oh, how convenient,” they’d say. “That’s right in the middle of the village!”

I made friends. I drank vodka with my landlord Nina. I drank tea with Viktor. I photographed my neighbors. Sasha, a recovering alcoholic, taught me how to cut hay. Slava, a doctor at the Chernobyl plant, taught me to make borscht. I went to church. I lived my life like the locals as much as I possibly could.

My commitment to this project began when I discovered how most photojournalists distort Chernobyl. They visit briefly, expecting danger and despair, and come away with photos of deformed children and abandoned buildings. This sensationalist approach obscures the more complex stories about how displaced communities adapt and survive.

In contrast, I sought to create full portraits of these communities. I saw suffering, but also joy and beauty, endurance and hope. Living directly in the villages where I photographed gave me access to events and people with an insider’s perspective.

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