Letter from the Director
Advocacy During the G8
Accountability & the WB
Heston Scholarship
Faculty Updates
Careers Services
From Master to Doctor
Career News
Missing SID Alums

Archive: Aug 06 Newsletter

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ALUMNI NEWS

(click to enlarge photos)

Congratulations to Sara Johnson Steffey, MA 04, and her husband Steve Steffey on the grand entrance into the world of baby Jackson Charles Lynn Steffey on August 28.

Sherri Brokopp, MA 03, Sustainable Cities Program Director at the Urban Ecology Institute at Boston College, was a driving force in inviting 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate Dr. Wangari Maathai to speak in Boston on October 24. Sherri made arrangements so that SID students could attend the talk at a reduced rate. Over 35 students and alumni were able to hear the empowering words of Dr. Maathai. Thank you, Sherri! (brokopp@bc.edu)

Dan Updegraft, MA 05 and his wife Haydee Salgado, sent in a photo of their marriage in Veracruz, Mexico, on April 22. Best wishes! Haydee is the sub- principal at a secondary school and Dan has begun an English academy there. In the near future he hopes to get back into the field of Solar Energy.

Michele T Brzezinski, MA 05, and Steve Silverthorn married on October 7. Our colleague is now known as Michele Silverthorn.

Cynthia Valdes, MA 05, and her husband Guillermo Cejudo are celebrating the birth of their son Mateo. The almost Bostonian was born early in the morning on September 12. He weighted over 3.5 kilos and is more than .5 meters long.

Tate, MA 06, and Kristen Munro are thrilled to share with you that on August 22 their daughter Maya River Lee Munro arrived, weighing in at a beautiful 7lbs 5oz.

Letter from the Director

Welcome to the second edition of the SID alumni e-newsletter. Your response to our first edition was overwhelming. It was wonderful to hear from many of you who had been out of touch. Thank you for all your good comments and feedback. In this edition, we feature alumni who are working in the fields of advocacy, media and community organization. We also include updates from alums around the world and faculty members, Ricardo Godoy and Marion Howard, who have written about their recent work in Bolivia and Colombia.

For those who remember SID's beginnings in crowded space in the old Ford Hall or our years off campus at Turner Street, or even the last couple of years in the old Heller Building, I am pleased to tell you that we have moved into the new Heller School building. The old building is currently being renovated after which we will spread out even further with a dedicated SID library among other great amenities.

I am also pleased to report that we have hired Edward Kibirige (kibirige@brandeis.edu) as an expansion of our career services to support students and alumni in their careers in development in the US and internationally. As Edward settles into his new position, I encourage you to be in contact with him to learn about new services for alumni and the potential of an expanded website.
Read the rest of Professor Simon's letter> > >

Advocacy During the G8
Akiko Mera, MA 05

Greetings from Oxfam Japan. I often come across puzzled faces when I say that I work for an aid agency based in Tokyo. People's expressions seem to say, "yea, sure you do." However, there are efforts that can complement work done in field offices, namely advocacy and media. As a first year communications officer out of the Sustainable International Development Program, I had an opportunity to work with media officers from around the world to bring media attention to the issues that concerned Oxfam during the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia in July 2006.

First, let me say that it was very tough to get coverage on our issues during this summit. Much of the "freedom of expression" that often gets highlighted and produces very photogenic scenes was controlled. As a matter of fact, the entire city was contained during the summit: the airport was shut down and the railway stations were under tight security. I took the underground everyday to the media center, where journalists from around the world fished for something new, something different (which was almost impossible to obtain in a very contained situation like this). My organization's priorities going into the summit were more and better international funding for education and health in poor countries, tracking the promises made at the last summit in Gleneagles, and influencing the German agenda (Germany will host the G8 in 2007), which would then encourage our government to put our issues on the agenda of the summit they will be hosting in 2008. Our team worked to get feedback about these issues to the media. Read the rest of Akiko's article> > >

Accountability and the World Bank

Mustafa Talpur, MA 03, of ActionAid Pakistan, was a member of an independent inspection panel investigating accusations that the World Bank failed to manage environmental risks in the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) and the Pakistan National Drainage Program (NDP) projects.

In the mid 1980s, the World Bank and multi-lateral donors financed the LBOD project, a US$1.02 billion venture that aimed to address the problem of waterlogging and salinity in the Indus Basin in Southern Pakistan. To lower the water table and remove salinity, a huge network of surface drains was created between 1987 and 1997 to redirect surplus drainage from the Indus Basin irrigation system to the Arabian Sea. In 1997, the World Bank's International Development Association lent Pakistan an additional US$285 million to partially finance the NDP project, which was to continue the work of the LBOD project. Read the rest of the article about Mustafa's work> > >

Heston Scholarship

In Summer 2006, the first annual Mironda Heston Scholarship was awarded to Eric Anderson, MA 07. The awarding committee unanimously decided that Eric's intended work and ambitions reflected Mironda's values and dreams for the country of Haiti.

For his second-year practicum, Eric is working with Fonkoze (http://www.fonkoze.org/), the largest micro-credit organization in Haiti. So far, Eric has assisted in the evaluation of Fonkoze's Housing Microfinance program, which focuses on loans to build latrines, cement floors and tin roofs, three major factors impacting the health of families. He is also working on developing a social performance monitoring unit that will help the organization assess the impact of its programs, and the replication of BRAC's micro-credit program, which is designed to reach the poorest of the poor. To document the work of Haitian agronomists and small farming collectives supporting the revitalization of the country's nearly deforested environment in the face of on-going conflict, Eric will create a photo-essay. Read more about the Heston Scholarship > > >

Faculty Updates
Marion Howard, MA 05

Besides teaching at SID (which I love!), I'm also working as advisor to CORALINA, the agency of Colombia's National Environment System in the San Andres Archipelago. The marine protected area (MPA) project I coordinated and have since been advising on resulted in the declaration of the Seaflower MPA by the Minister of Environment in 2005. This project boasts a number of significant innovations, some of which are that the MPA was declared at the national level but is managed locally, was set up using a true community-based approach in which local users of the marine area had decision-making power, and is a very large protected area consciously planned to promote integrated sustainable development. Read the rest of Marion's update, news from Professor Godoy, and a memorial to Dr Morgenthau > > >

Career Services

The Student Services Cluster is pleased to welcome Edward Kibirige as an addition to the Career Services office. Edward will be working with students and alumni who are interested in careers in development in the US and internationally. He comes to Heller after 15 years of development work with USAID and other development agencies in Washington, DC and Africa. His contact information is (kibirige@brandeis.edu) and telephone 781-736-3813.

EASE (Electronic Application for Students and Employers), a comprehensive career management database that contains listings of job opportunities, was launched in October. Alumni can register to gain access to these listings as well as other employer information. Alumni can also post a resume that can be searched by employers, or sign up for e-mail alerts when a job of interest is posted. Access EASE now.

Heller alumni in the Boston area are welcome to any of the career events at Heller. Please check the calendar regularly.

From Master to Doctor

While many of our graduates have returned to their work as practitioners in development, a few SID alums have opted for more courses, papers, research, and group work in PhD programs. We hope this news inspires others who are thinking about the same career path.

Anna Skosireva, MS 06 (skosanna@gmail.com): I am in the PhD program at Clemson University, Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life. My major is International Family and Community Studies. My research interest is prevention of drug and substance abuse at the community level. Currently, I am involved in a project where we study the relationship between social capital and maternal and child health, and child well-being. If you have more questions, feel free to send me e-mail. You may also check the Web site (http://virtual.clemson.edu/groups/ifnl/) for more information. Read more about SID students who have entered doctorate programs> > >

Career News

Stacey Martin, MA 05, (Stayseemartin@yahoo.com) accepted a position as Program Coordinator at the AIDS Program with the Boston Public Health Commission.

Rebecca Pearl, MA 01, (rebecca@wedo.org) returned to WEDO as the Sustainable Development Program Coordinator, a position she also held from 2001 through early 2004. Since 2004, she has divided her time between work on energy, climate change, and community development on the California-Mexico border and on gender and sustainable development with IUCN, WOCAN, WGGAN, and other organizations. Read more about SID Career News > > >

Missing Alumni


Many SID alums have their alumni email account forwarding to their old Brandeis email address. To change this, register in the system, or get a new password, please click this link https://alumni.brandeis.edu/onlineservices/.

Also, if you have contact information for any of the following SID alums, please send it to (sid@brandeis.edu) or forward them a copy of this e-newsletter and ask them to get in touch with SID.

Harigalayalage Amararathna, MA 00
Mahbatsho Bahromov, MS 05
Brian Bean, MA 04
Shira Cohen, MS 05
Dmula Dissanayake, MA 97
Stella Egbufor, MS 05
Dalia Emara, MA 04
Ogbai Ghebre-Medhin, MA 98
Tseten Gyurmae, MA 04
Elizabeth Falconer, MA 99
Scott Hasselmann, MA 04
Ghulam, Janat (Firdous), MA 01
Sergey Kuratov, MA 97
Ulzii-Orshikh Luvsansharav, MS 05
Lalita Nakarmi, MA 02
Zakhele Ndlovu, MA 00
Trang Ngo, MS 05
Keyllen Nieto, MA 04
Ludmilla Samoilenko, MA 97
Sarah Shiundu, MA 05
Cedric Schuster, MA 98
Anand Smita, MA 03
Tseggai Teamrat, MA 96
Natsagdorj Tserendorj, MS 05
Beth Williamson, MA 04
Jia Xinning, MA 99
Yunzhen Xirao, MA 05
Oscar Zapata-Rios, MA 04