Alumni Interview
Melissa Kizildemir, MA 07

Earthquakes, hurricanes, war zones. These are things from which most people flee. Unless you are Melissa Kizildemir, MA '07, in which case, you rush to the scene of devastation, or at least try to.

Case in point: In 1999 in Izmit, Turkey, fifty-five miles east of Istanbul, a massive earthquake killed 17,000 people. Kizildemir, then nineteen, was visiting her family in Istanbul, though sleeping on the street out of fear their own house would be hit by aftershocks. Only her parents' refusal to let her go kept her from rushing to Izmit to help the earthquake victims. So she did the next best thing: she joined a fleet of workers at McDonalds assembling 10,000 cheese sandwiches to ship to survivors.

But the next time Kizildemir wanted to rush to a danger zone her parents relented, moved by her desire to help. Kizildemir was hired to work for the Turkish Red Crescent Society (akin to the Red Cross), providing psychosocial support for disaster workers at the Turkish-Iraqi border just after the US invaded Iraq in 2003. One of her accomplishments was organizing a "best in field" soccer tournament between the United Nations workers and the Red Crescent Society to defuse mounting tension between the two organizations. The prize? The losing team had to serve baklava pastry to the winners. "I knew it was important to establish a relationship before disaster hit," says Kizildemir. The two organizations forged a new cooperative relationship.

Kizildemir then set her sights on working for UNICEF. She spent the next year visiting more than 4,700 villages throughout Turkey, implementing, monitoring and evaluating the Advocacy Campaign for Girls Education in Turkey. "Up until then, my disaster experience was very individual, for example, comforting a mother who had lost children in an earthquake," says Kizildemir. "What I discovered was that providing sustainable assistance was more than just an issue of helping individuals; it was a development issue. My interests started to shift from a micro to a macro approach."

Kizildemir had graduated from Tulane University in 2002 and was a New Orleans resident. In 2005 she decided to attend the Heller School to pursue her interest in policy and sustainable development. But before her belongings could be shipped to Waltham, Hurricane Katrina hit. She lost everything.

In the past, Kizildemir had placed herself in a post-disaster setting as a volunteer. Fleeing disaster was antithetical to her nature and she struggled with the right thing to do. Despite a great desire to return to New Orleans to help, she stayed put at Brandeis, persuaded by SID administrators that she could ultimately bring about more change by continuing her studies.

"Heller understood I could help more people in the long run by acquiring new competencies in the SID program," says Kizildemir. This prediction turned out to be true. "At Heller I learned so much from the real and practical experiences of my professors and fellow students."

To fulfill SID's internship requirement, Kizildemir worked at Oxfam America in Boston, focusing on disaster preparedness for the Gulf Coast in communities where residents were most vulnerable. For example, she assessed the number of disabled people living alone or the number of Vietnamese who needed translation services, in order to predict the resources needed in a disaster and triage those resources effectively. Since graduation, Kizildemir has continued to work with Oxfam as humanitarian program officer, writing the contingency plan for Oxfam America to ensure timely and effective humanitarian response to natural disasters in the US.

In the future, Kizildemir wishes to continue humanitarian work. She has already passed the exams to be an international professional with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Kizildemir dreams of some day studying international humanitarian law.

"I see myself wherever I can make the most impact," says Kizildemir. Which often means being in the wrong place at the right time.

This article was reprinted from reprinted from the Heller Alumni News and Views