My mother is from New Zealand and my father is from
Tunisia, and so I have always had international interests at
heart. Since early childhood I have always been lucky enough
to travel to visit family in various parts of the world.
This is how my desire to see the world began. In my travel
to some 36 countries, I have seen great suffering and it has
motivated me to try and do something about it.
I completed my first two years of university in the
United States and was completely unhappy with where it was
leading me. I began to look for schools in other countries.
While passing through Paris on my way to Tunisia one summer,
I decided to visit AUP. Whereas my former university
colleagues could not have even pointed out on a map where
Tunisia was, I found that AUP students came from all over
the world. I was immediately drawn to the diversity that I
found, and it made me feel at home. I decided to stay, and
have never looked back since.
The AUP classroom experience was great for me. I studied
with professors Rahnema and Nomani for economics, and Hägel
and Kobtzeff for politics. The intimacy that I was able to
foster with my professors was the key to my success. Every
week I met with them to ask questions and make sure that I
understood the lessons of the week. The small class sizes
were invaluable.
While at AUP I worked with a student-led research team
that went to Bosnia to investigate cultural genocide. I was
also the editor of Scripta magazine, and was the
International Affairs representative in the Student Senate.
I worked as a teaching assistant in the IA department and
was the world politics tutor in ARC. I also started and
coached the AUP rugby team at the time. What I loved most
about AUP campus life were all of the opportunities to get
involved. At larger schools, it would be hard to join
publications, and unthinkable to work with the SGA. At AUP,
if you want to do something, there is nothing stopping you.
What was my favorite neighborhood in Paris? I loved
Paris. All of it. I lived in the 7th which was nice because
it was quiet and close to school. But I loved the Latin
Quarter and the Marais. The 18th was also a lot of fun with
lots of immigrants from around the world. Studying in Paris
exposed me to many diverse cultures and fed my hunger to
travel.
After graduating from AUP I worked as a journalist for
InterPress services in the Palestinian Territories where I
also worked for the Palestine Medical Relief Society, and a
small media NGO. After a few months of this I moved to
London where I got my Masters from the London School of
Economics. From there a friend of mine and I rode our
bicycles 4,000 kms from London to Istanbul, passing through
the Alps and down through the Balkans (including Croatia,
Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Greece).
This was one of the best experiences of my life and it
taught me much about determination and what it means to
overcome seemingly insurmountable barriers. I kept a blog
with stories, photos, and videos at:
www.yallah2Istanbul.blogspot.com .
After this experience I moved to Berlin and worked as a
consultant with the Global Public Policy Institute and
worked on a book on UN peacekeeping. From there I moved to
Washington, DC where I worked as a communications associate
with the Development Gateway Foundation—an international
organization devoted to making development aid more
effective through information communications technology.
After spending six months in Washington I realized that I
needed to be out in the field and that a desk job was just
not for me. So I packed my bags and booked a flight for Sri
Lanka, where a 30-year-long civil war was just starting to
end. When I arrived I began networking and eventually found
a job working with Transparency International Sri Lanka.
While in Sri Lanka, I met up with former AUP student, Sean
Casey ‘04. Sean is the Director of International Programs
for an NGO called Heartland Alliance. While we had never met
each other before, we were introduced via Facebook by other
alum. During a lunch with him in Colombo (he was visiting to
try and set up a child soldier rehabilitation center) we
reminisced about our days at AUP, and promised to try and
work together in the future.
The future arrived when the
earthquake hit Port-au-Prince and the surrounding area on
January 12. Sean emailed me and asked me to come and work
with him in Haiti. Despite being offered a job to work in
development reconstruction in Afghanistan the week before, I
immediately accepted his offer and will be working in Haiti
as the Country Director for Heartland Alliance.
Our project
in Haiti has four main goals. The first is to provide
medical assistance to help with the overwhelming physical
trauma that was inflicted upon the victims of the quake. We
will do this by setting up medical clinics and working with
other organizations that are doing the same. The second goal
of our mission is to provide much needed psychosocial care
to the victims of the earthquake and to the first responders
who have been on the ground saving lives since day one.
Similarly, in post humanitarian disaster situations the risk
of violence against women and children is exponentially
increased. We will therefore be instituting gender based
violence programs that aim to reduce this risk.
Additionally, we will be working with other organizations
that are creating safe zones for children, and providing
mental health services to them.
Finally, due to the fact
that much of the country’s infrastructure was destroyed,
there are thousands of individuals who have been internally
displaced. These people have no communities left on which to
draw support from. Our project will work to support these
vulnerable groups by attempting to reconstruct supportive
community relationships that promote and support
psychological well-being.
For me, AUP was a place where
professors and staff were eternally supportive and friendly,
where opportunities to excel and participate were abundant,
and where friends from countries and cultures from around
the world met and melded into one. Going to AUP has without
a doubt been the best decision in my 25 years of life.
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