Fletcher Magazine Winter 2017

Fletcher

For Alumni and Friends of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University Winter 2017

Magazine

THE UNWANTED Dispatches from the front lines of the refugee crisis 716841_fc_ibc_bc.indd 1

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Envoy

HELP ESCAPING THE TALIBAN When the Taliban killed his uncle and father, Arslan Muradi, F17, could not afford to collapse in grief. His mother and five siblings were still in danger, and he had to get them out of Afghanistan.

Although Muradi wasn’t sure how to do that from the United States, where he was pursuing his education, the Fletcher School community—as well as a small army of immigration lawyers and local politicians—rallied around him to help. The group raised more than $130,000 so that

Muradi’s relatives could buy a home in Istanbul, where they are now safely settled.

Muradi was granted asylum in the U.S. and can apply for a green card in 2018, which will allow him to reunite with the family he has not seen since 2013.

“My sister was 6, 7 years old when I left, and now she’s almost 11. I’ve seen her grow up in pictures,” Muradi said.

“I really dream of the day when I’m able to get on a plane and knock on the front door and see my family.” —KRISTIN HUNT

PHOTO: ALONSO NICHOLS

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Contents

WI NTE R 2017 VO L U M E 3 9, N O. 1

Features

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#METOO IN AID AGENCIES A new report suggests that sexual assault is pervasive within the ranks of humanitarian groups. BY MONICA JIMENEZ

Spotlight on the Refugee Crisis

BY HEATHER STEPHENSON

10 CITY OF THE UNWANTED

In one of the world’s largest refugee camps, a Fletcher graduate tries to protect the rights of nearly 240,000 people fleeing war.

20 HARD WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT

Livelihoods programs promise refugees a path to economic self-reliance, but they may not suit everyone.

23 LOVE AND TROUBLE

LGBTI refugees face discrimination in many host countries—and the safety nets to help them are stretched thin.

24 CHANGING MINDS

How leaders in Augusta, Maine, are helping refugees integrate into a skeptical community, with assistance from a Fletcher team.

In Every Issue 2 3 4

Cover photo

by Alonso Nichols

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LETTERS DEAN’S CORNER

News from Around the Globe 27 CONNECT Keeping Up with the Fletcher Community DISPATCHES

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CLUB NEWS CLASS NOTES IN MEMORIAM

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Letters species but, hopefully, as we weave together conservation efforts across the university, we can save Jumbo’s relatives.

ELLEN MCDONALD GINN LIBRARIAN MEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS

INVESTING IN UKRAINE

FELLOW JUMBOS In light of the article about my work with the African Wildlife Federation (“Wildlife’s Champion,” Summer 2017), I thought I would share this photo. It was taken when I was recently in Zimbabwe to meet with government officials about preserving space for wildlife, and I had the chance to visit some “Tufts Jumbos” in Mana Pools National Park.

KADDU SEBUNYA, F02 NAIROBI, KENYA

SAVING THE ELEPHANTS Thank you for your terrific article on Tufts’ efforts to help protect elephants in the wild (“A Jumbo Mission,” Summer 2017). I was pleased to see this reporting about the ongoing struggle to rescue these creatures from further devastation.

On the international front, there is some good news to report: China’s recent decision to ban its domestic legal ivory trade and to close all retail outlets by the end of 2017 will continue to drive down prices. The challenge ahead will be cracking down on the illegal markets which are enjoying increasing profitability.

Here on the Medford campus, the Tufts Elephant Conservation Alliance is continuing its work with the Vision and Sensing Systems Laboratory within the Tufts Electrical and Computer Engineering Department to further develop and support a drone project to detect and monitor particular elephants in the wild. And faculty from every campus will be contributing to an undergraduate course on elephants being offered again this spring. Time is short for this

I was pleased to see how “The Reformers” (Summer 2017) highlights the ongoing struggle in Ukraine against the status quo. As a Ukrainian-American working to promote investment in and trade with Ukraine, I believe this struggle presents no less formidable an obstacle to delivering on the promise of Maidan than Ukraine’s war with Russia. Therefore, Ukrainians must campaign against endemic corruption in the same breath and with equal vigor as their armed forces fight in the Donbas.

Countries Ukraine might emulate to guide reforms are anchored by common social and business norms enforced by the rule of law. Equally significantly, multinational Western corporations and investment houses dominate the internal economy of each Western “first world” country and control the largest portion of trade among them. Ukraine cannot join the West as an exception, because the desired outcome must spring from sharing Western norms and the legal framework for enforcing them.

The patience of Ukraine’s citizens is running thin and Western resolve is less steadfast than the Kremlin’s. For Ukraine’s current leadership to deliver on the demands of Maidan, deter Russia, and protect Ukraine against future aggression, Western and Ukrainian governments (and business interests) must work in a coordinated manner to drastically and expediently increase the presence of Western multinationals and investment houses in Ukraine to break its dependence on local oligarchs and thereby speed the “Westernization” of its economy.

ALEKSANDER MEHRLE NEW YORK

Fletcher Magazine welcomes your letters. Send them to Heather Stephenson, Editor, Fletcher Magazine, Tufts Publications, 80 George Street, Medford, MA 02155 or email heather.stephenson@tufts.edu. Letters are edited for length and clarity.

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V O L U M E 3 9, N O.1 W I N T E R 2 017 Editor HEATHER STEPHENSON heather.stephenson@tufts.edu Editorial Director JOHN WOLFSON john.wolfson@tufts.edu Editor-in-Chief FRANCIS STORRS francis.storrs@tufts.edu Design Director MARGOT GRISAR margot.grisar@tufts.edu Designer LAURA MCFADDEN Deputy Editors COURTNEY HOLLANDS TAYLOR MCNEIL Senior Editors LAURA FERGUSON JULIE FLAHERTY MONICA JIMENEZ HELENE RAGOVIN GENEVIEVE RAJEWSKI Staff Photographers ALONSO NICHOLS ANNA MILLER Multimedia STEFFAN HACKER Contributing Editor KARA PETERS Editorial Advisors JAMES STAVRIDIS Dean, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy KATE RYAN Senior Director, Development and Alumni Relations LEANNA KAKAMBOURAS Interim Assistant Director, Alumni Relations Stay connected with Fletcher.

School website: fletcher.tufts.edu Online community: tuftsalumni.org/olc LinkedIn: fletcher.tufts.edu/Alumni/ LinkedIn Fletcher Magazine is published twice annually by the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. The opinions expressed in this publication are the authors’ own and do not necessarily represent those of the Fletcher School.

Send correspondence to: Heather Stephenson, Editor, Fletcher Magazine, Tufts Publications, 80 George Street, Medford, MA 02155 or email heather.stephenson@tufts.edu. © 2017 TRUSTEES OF TUFTS UNIVERSITY Printed on 25% postconsumer waste recycled paper. Please recycle.

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Dean’s Corner

BUILDING BRIDGES ACROSS BORDERS challenges we face today are transnational. Environmental degradation, climate change, pandemics, cybercrime, the trafficking of people and illegal drugs, and the scourge of terrorism: These are not threats that concern a single country.

They cannot be boxed in by borders on a map. To tackle such challenges, we need leaders who think globally and act collaboratively. We need people who can convene partners from around the world to work together based on our shared values.

And we need nations that do the same, understanding the necessity of building coalitions rather than trying to go it alone.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the ongoing refugee crisis unfolding around the globe, a humanitarian crisis larger than any Europe has seen since World War II. That’s why I was pleased when NATO approved a naval operation in the summer of 2016 in response to the massive flows of refugees leaving Syria. By using its resources to monitor the dangerous waters on which many refugees were fleeing, the alliance helped manage the flow of people and offer greater protection to those in need. But I urged my former colleagues at NATO to do more, not only to aid the refugees, but to tackle the root cause of their exodus: the ongoing war in Syria and the rise of violent extremism. Given the scale of SOME OF THE GREATEST

the suffering, I also joined with other national security leaders to call on the United States to reaffirm its commitment to hosting and helping refugees.

In recent years, thousands of refugees have died seeking safety and millions are still struggling to survive. The refugee crisis is straining the resources and infrastructures of host countries overwhelmed by an influx of newcomers. We in the United States—in partnership with other countries—must do more to help these innocent victims displaced by persecution and calamity. It is the right thing to do in the face of human suffering. It is also the best way to safeguard the stability of those host nations and advance our own national security interests. Similarly, we must reject the anti-Muslim bigotry that too often arises in immigration debates, both because it is wrong and because it can seem to validate the clash-of-civilizations propaganda of violent terrorist groups and alienate the very people whose help we need to fight those groups.

Fletcher alumni and faculty are on the front lines of this crisis, offering immediate aid to refugees in need and working with global partners to forge long-term solutions. I’m tremendously proud of their skill and dedication. And I’m proud to helm a school at which we train such leaders, who reach across borders and build a better future for us all.

Sincerely,

JAMES STAVRIDIS, F83, F84, Dean

PHOTO: KELVIN MA

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Dispatches

#MeToo in Aid Agencies

A new report suggests that sexual assault is pervasive within the ranks of humanitarian groups. BY MONICA JIMENEZ

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providing humanitarian assistance to others, many aid workers are experiencing sexual harassment and assault themselves, with the attacks most often coming from colleagues and security officers, according to a new study by a Fletcher professor and student. “In terms of preventing and responding to sexual harassment and assault against aid workers, this report finds that the sector as a whole is failing in its duty of care to aid workers,” wrote Dyan Mazurana, an associate research professor at Fletcher, in the 66-page report summing up the results of the study.

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Mazurana, who is also a research director at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts, began researching the problem two years ago, noting that no one had enough information about what was happening. For the study, she and doctoral candidate Phoebe Donnelly, F14, interviewed 30 male and female humanitarian aid workers.

They also reviewed 78 academic and media reports, as well as results from surveys by the Women’s Humanitarian Network in 2016 and Report the Abuse in 2017, which combined had more than 1,400 respondents. This research spanned 70 international aid organizations, including the United Nations, government agencies, and contractors.

Their study found that the “vast majority” of survivors of sexual assault were women. It also found that LGBT humanitarian workers suffered sexual identity harassment, blackmail, threats, and assault. Mazurana said a larger sample size is needed to estimate the specific rates of abuse, but her research indicated that the problem is pervasive.

For example, 55 percent of respondents to the Women’s Humanitarian Network survey reported persistent romantic or sexual advances, and 48 percent reported unwanted touching.

“It spans the whole scope of people,” Mazurana said. “Volunteers with very little education, medical doctors, people very high up and low down.”

As for the perpetrators, the study found that they are mostly men— and that they are more likely to be a victim’s colleagues than not. The extra challenge of being harassed or attacked from within a humanitarian agency was expressed by one interviewee, a new project manager who received sexually threatening texts. “I was in tears for several hours,” reported the woman, who was not named to protect her identity. “I was paralyzed because

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NEWS FROM AROU ND TH E GLOBE

I knew it was someone from my own team, my national team.”

Perpetrators also tend to be supervisors or in higher-level positions than their victims, or they are hired security providers. “The more power imbalance you have, the more vulnerable people are going to be,” Mazurana said. “Security officers have the weapons. They are the people who can make life very unsafe.”

The fact that the threat often comes from the very people tasked with protecting workers makes it more difficult to address, with most existing guidelines assuming sexual assault will be perpetrated by someone outside the agency.

The culture of humanitarian aid work may contribute to the problem. The stress of the job can lead to destructive coping behaviors such as

alcohol and drug abuse. At the same time, a “macho form of masculinity” dominates the industry, Mazurana said. “The hard-drinking, smoking, risk-taking guy who has all the stories to tell is held up as a model, when in fact that kind of person is dysfunctional and not handling stress well.”

Another factor is the environment.

Humanitarian workers are often stationed where the rule of law has broken down, conflict is ongoing, and the connection with the outside world is tenuous—and where colleagues not only work but live together in a self-contained bubble. Mazurana said these characteristics are similar to other locations where high levels of sexual harassment and assault have been found, such as the military.

WHY OCEANS MATTER

Fletcher’s dean makes the case for sea power.

Even in today’s world of cyberwarfare, our ability to control the seas remains key to global security, Fletcher School Dean James Stavridis argues in his new book, Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans. A retired U.S. Navy admiral and former supreme allied commander of NATO, Stavridis describes the strategic importance of each of the world’s oceans, weaving together history, personal anecdotes, and policy recommendations. We asked Stavridis, F83, F84, why maritime power is essential today.

JAMES STAVRIDIS: Great empires rose and fell depending on their ability to control the seas. Even today—consider the Korean peninsula: Our ability to keep deterrent forces there depends largely on aircraft carriers. We would defend against North Korea’s ballistic missiles by shooting them down from our ships, which can move and adjust.

Navy fighter jets are dropping bombs on the Islamic State

PHOTO: STOCKTREK IMAGES

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Some of these factors may take a long time to change, but there are actions agencies should take immediately, Mazurana said. Aid agencies need to establish formal systems to prevent, report, investigate, and respond to sexual harassment and assault, and enforce those policies, she said. They also must hold perpetrators accountable and support survivors—including protecting them from retribution when they report incidents, she said.

More in-depth studies should follow, Mazurana said, but she hopes the report will inspire agencies to act.

“We can’t have people assaulting and harassing others and causing people to leave their jobs,” she said. “We need really highly qualified, good men and women in these positions.”

in Mosul and Raqqa today. Navy ships are moving Marines and all their supplies ashore into Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and the Islamic State. Our ships are at sea screening the migrants that are flowing from these conflicts and ensuring that terrorists haven’t infiltrated them.

Our Navy not only is part of our geopolitical response to Russia and China, and not only part of our tactical military warfighting, but it’s also highly useful against terrorists.

Humanitarian aid is also of extraordinary strategic value. It’s relatively inexpensive to do these operations, and it allows us to portray the United States in a very different way: Not as a massive military power but on a very human scale, where doctors and nurses and engineers come off these ships to build clinics and wells and schools. It creates a real wellspring of respect and affection for the United States that we can’t get any other way.

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Dispatches

Keeping Cool

Meet the Fletcher School grads behind a new zero-energy refrigeration unit that could change lives in the developing world. BY MOLLY MCDONOUGH During an entrepreneurship course in 2013, Quang Truong’s professor posed a lofty challenge: Come up with an idea that can help one billion people.

With a background in agricultural development work for nonprofits, Truong, F15, immediately thought of food spoilage, a problem in developing countries where refrigeration can be scarce. Without refrigeration, he knew, produce quickly goes bad, which for rural families can mean frequent, costly journeys to faraway markets.

In his work in places like Nigeria, Kenya, and India, Truong had seen variations on a simple, inexpensive refrigeration device that ran without electricity: a ceramic pot encased in sand, and situated inside a larger pot. When the sand between the pots was saturated with water, the water would evaporate, pulling heat from the inner chamber of the pot.

“We’re in Boston,” Truong thought, “a place with smart engineers and interesting materials we can experiment with.

Can we take this traditional device and improve it somehow?”

That question eventually led him to cofound Evaptainers, a

company based in Somerville, Massachusetts, that in 2015 began shipping prototypes of lightweight, portable, low-cost refrigeration units to families in Morocco. Using minimal water, the Evaptainer units reach internal temperatures that are fifteen to twenty degrees Celsius cooler than the surrounding air, which can triple the shelf life of fruits and vegetables.

“Every prototype has proven that this can work,” said Serena Taylor, F14, the company’s chief strategy officer.

The potential benefits of Evaptainers go beyond food. The units could store electronics, cosmetics, even shelf-stable pharmaceuticals. The company is seeking partners to distribute Evaptainers in refugee camps and post-conflict areas. Having already raised more than $500,000 in grant funding, they’ll soon begin looking for investors to support a consumer launch (the units will cost around thirty-five dollars each in developing countries). First, though, the company will test the latest Evaptainer model, the EV-8, by distributing five hundred units to homes in Morocco with the help of USAID. The company may not be helping a billion people just yet, but that’s an impactful start.

HOW THE EVAPTAINER WORKS When saturated, a special membrane draws out heat from the interior chamber as the water evaporates, creating a cooling effect.

To activate the EV-8, pour in up to 1.5 liters of water. On average, one day of operation requires one liter.

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Fiberglass stays fold into the unit so that it collapses for portability and easy shipping.

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Maryland, the organization is represented at more than 50 colleges and universities, where Athlete Ally enlists student athletes, coaches, “There are and administrators to uphold hardly any openly the principles of respect and gay athletes in sports, inclusion in their athletic because there’s still communities. Taylor has bias,” said Mike co-authored an NCAA Balaban, F75. handbook on LGBT issues that is now mailed to athletic directors and coaches at every American university. A year ago, Athlete Ally joined other advocacy groups in providing guidelines to the NCAA for fostering “inclusive environments” in athletic programs.

Balaban, who is gay, knows the pain of being an athlete in an atmosphere of homophobia. He played football at Brown University, but didn’t come out until he was 24. While continuing his three-decade career as a business and financial advisor focused on Asia, he joined Athlete Ally’s volunteer board to help expand its reach. In 2014, Athlete Ally helped to persuade the International Olympic Committee to amend the Olympic Charter so that it bans discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. More recently, the group helped convince the NBA to pull its 2017 All-Star Game out of Charlotte and the NCAA to pull seven of its

BY ANDREW FAUGHT 2016-2017 national collegiate sporting championships from North Carolina HILE THE AMERICAN LGBT community continues to fight after the state passed a law requiring in the courts for equal protection under the law, Mike that transgender people use public Balaban, F75, is waging the battle for fair treatment bathrooms that correspond with on another front: the country’s athletic fields. their biological sex. Athlete Ally also “There are hardly any openly gay athletes in mobilizes some 150 athlete “ambassasports, because there’s still bias,” said Balaban, who dors”—including big names like Andy just completed a five-year stint as co-chair of the board of Athlete Ally, Roddick and the late Yogi Berra—to a New York City nonprofit that works to end anti-LGBT discrimination stand up for LGBT rights outside of in college and professional sports. sports.

Balaban, who remains on Athlete Ally’s board, cited an Outsports.

While Balaban is proud of Athlete com survey that found that 83 percent of gay and lesbian athletes have Ally’s successes, he said more work heard gay slurs from teammates. And the Women’s Sports Foundation remains. “It’s becoming unacceptable calls homophobia “the plague of female sports teams.” to use the F word, same as the N word,” Athlete Ally is attempting to change all that. Founded in 2011 he said. “That doesn’t mean people’s

by Hudson Taylor, an All-American wrestler at the University of views have necessarily changed yet.”

OUT ON THE PLAYING FIELD Fighting discrimination against LGBT athletes.

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PHOTO: ALYSSA GREENBERG

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Dispatches

SUSTAINING TRADITIONS

Tsering Gellek, F00, preserves Tibetan Buddhist culture, while fostering East-West dialogue to solve problems. BY HEATHER STEPHENSON

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language programs in Sanskrit, Pali, spiritual leader and a French-Egyptian poet, Tsering and Tibetan, three classical Buddhist Gellek, F00, grew up bridging Eastern and Western cullanguages, to strengthen the study and tures. She is doing the same as director of an international practice of Buddhism. SINI is funded Buddhist institute in India that she opened in 2013. by private donations and provides “I’m an apple that didn’t fall too far from my own scholarships to monastics selected to tree,” she said, explaining that her efforts follow those of participate. her father, Tarthang Tulku, who has founded several organizations dedBefore directing SINI, Gellek orgaicated to publishing and sharing Tibetan Buddhist teachings. For her nized the restoration of the Swayambhu work directing the Sarnath International Nyingma Institute (SINI)—as stupa, located near Kathmandu, Nepal. well as her commitment to Buddhist cultural preservation throughout Seventy artists participated in the Asia—Gellek received the Henry J. Leir Human Security Award at the two-year renovation of the religious Fletcher School in September. structure, which is believed to be SINI is based in the city of Sarnath, India, where the Buddha is said to about 1,500 years old, and more than have first shared his teachings. About twenty Tibetan Buddhist monastics 40 pounds of gold were used to gild currently take part in a comprehensive three-year program at the instithe dome. Beyond the practical need tute, continuing their monastic practices while studying English. They for historic preservation, completed also explore global topics in seminars with visiting students and scholars. in 2010, the effort had symbolic value.

“They’re not just learning the ABCs,” said Gellek, who splits her time “According to the Buddhist perspecbetween India and her home base in California. “They’re learning about tive, stupas are repositories of blessings human rights, democracy, environmental issues.” and virtues,” Gellek explained. “When The monastics serve as advanced teachers in the Tibetan you work on one, you revitalize “We Buddhist tradition, but many have had limited exposure that aspect for the community are building to other fields of study. The institute helps them learn to and the world.” Since 2001, bridges not just share their traditions in English and consider, in conGellek has also overseen the between cultures and people, but between versations with lay people, how those ancient teachings installation of large peace different periods of time,” may be relevant to modern-day problems. It also offers bells at Buddhist holy sites. said Tsering Gellek, center Gellek’s father is with blue shawl, at the a leader in Tibetan institute she leads.

Buddhism’s Nyingma tradition, which includes teachers who are not celibate monastics. Gellek is the youngest of his three daughters, each of whom carries on his work in her own way. At SINI, she aims to inspire creative thinking about how Buddhist teaching can help address today’s pressing problems. “We are building bridges not just between cultures and people, but between different periods of time,” she said. “We’re considering the traditional as it applies to the modern day, on a practical level.”

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Celebrate people, places, and cultures 2018 Destinations Expedition to Antarctica Colombia Rediscovered Cuba: People, Culture, Art Journey Through Vietnam Tanzania Safari Iceland Getaway

2018 Tufts TravelLearn 716841_ifc-09.indd 9

New Zealand Adventure China, Tibet & The Yangtze River Village Life — Italian Lakes Dutch Waterways Croatia & Slovenia Scottish Isles & Norwegian Fjords Village Life — Dordogne Exploring the Canadian Rockies Alaska and the Inside Passage Cambridge, Oxford & the Cotswolds Iceland Panorama Waterways of Russia Treasures of Southern Africa Cruising the Rivieras: Italy, France & Spain Cruise the Heart of Europe Cruising Patagonia’s Chilean Fjords Apulia — Undiscovered Italy Israel: Timeless Wonders Island Life in Cuba

For our 2018 catalog or specific trip brochure, please contact us at travel-learn@tufts.edu or 617-627-0633, or visit our website: tuftstravellearn.org

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Spotlight on the Refugee Crisis

City of the Unwanted

BY HE ATHER STEPHENSON PHOTOGR APHS BY ALONSO NICHOLS

The Dadaab refugee complex in eastern Kenya is now home to about 240,000 people, almost all of whom fled war and famine in nearby Somalia or were born in the camps.

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which after twenty-five years of hosting one of the world’s largest refugee camps is now trying to shut the whole thing down. Under this looming threat, the U.N.’s Denis Alma Kuindje, F07, works to project hope in what just may be a hopeless situation.

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enis alma kuindje’s job is to protect the rights of the nearly 240,000 people who live in what, until recently, was the largest refugee camp in the world. But what does that mean? As near as I could tell, after following Kuindje for five days in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, it means embracing a kind of chaos.

Kuindje, F07, is a senior protection coordinator with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In 2015, he began working in Dadaab, where he oversees a staff of about seventy-five.

The camp was created in 1991 to house tens of thousands of people fleeing the atrocities of the civil war in nearby

Somalia. Of course, calling Dadaab a refugee “camp” is misleading. It’s more like a city, or rather a collection of villages. Located near the eastern border that Kenya shares with Somalia, it was supposed to have been a temporary solution to a temporary refugee crisis, but more than twenty-five years after it opened, Dadaab is the only home that

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That’s a drop in an ocean of need.

Kenya, meanwhile, has resisted allowing Somali refugees to live anywhere in the country other than the camp because, it has said, the refugees pose a security threat. For many Dadaab residents, then, the only legal alternative to the camp is to go back to Somalia, a country still overwhelmed by war and the threat of famine. So rather than being on the move, these refugees are stuck where they are—and now Kenya is threatening to close even this refuge, claiming that it is being used as an organizing base by Somali terrorists.

Across the globe, as the residents of Dadaab have come to learn, no one seems to want the people fleeing war, persecution, hunger, and violence in their homelands. So where are these people to go? It’s a question the world is trying to answer in real time, often with heartbreaking results. Some refugees have set out in rickety boats for Europe. Others have simply started walking, their children in tow, their possessions strapped to their back, and their destination uncertain. Against this backdrop, and for as long as the camp stays open, someone has got to look after the people in Dadaab.

Denis Alma Kuindje, F07, is surrounded by refugees seeking his help in Dadaab.

many of its people have ever known— some of the original residents now live there with children and grandchildren who were born in the camp. There are shops and schools and health centers.

There are black markets and gangs and violence. In other words, a city—yet one where no one actually wants to live.

Nearly everyone I spoke with told me that they longed to leave Dadaab and start over somewhere else. But where?

A few thousand camp residents, at most, are able to resettle each year in North America, Europe, and Australia.

one morning in march, kuindje and I sat in the back of an air-conditioned SUV that bumped through the refugee camp. Kuindje, who is forty-seven, taught law and worked at the national human rights commission in his native Cameroon before joining the U.N., where he helped determine the refugee status of people fleeing the Rwandan genocide and the violent conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic. “From morning to evening I was interviewing refugees,” he recalled. Since then, he has worked in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Cote d’Ivoire, Chad, Algeria, Senegal, Niger, and Switzerland.

In Dadaab, Kuindje works six

days a week, drinking lots of coffee and eating the beignets that his wife makes and freezes for him back home in Nairobi. Every six weeks, he gets five days of R&R to visit her and their three young children. Kuindje said he was in Dadaab to help protect refugees’ rights. But as I watched him gazing out the window, I began to think that keeping everything together in this time and place of desperation— projecting hope in what just may be a hopeless situation—is what Kuindje’s job is really all about.

We came to a stop at a field office in the camp, and Kuindje got out of his vehicle to check on colleagues at the repatriation desk, the place where refugees who want to go home start the process. Outside the office, about one hundred refugees circled around him in the hot sun to voice complaints: they were being forced to move from one part of Dadaab to another, they had not received the relocation assistance they’d been promised, the help desk was not fully staffed. “Ask them to be patient,” Kuindje said in English to a colleague, who translated to Somali. “Someone will come here. We will make sure it happens.”

Kuindje remained composed amid the clamor, seeming to listen with his full attention yet also making it clear he could not stay. “I’ll follow up,” he said, heading to the SUV. As the vehicle pulled back onto the dusty road, he was already on his mobile phone. “We need to send someone.” the creation of the dadaab refugee camp was the indirect result of armed opposition groups overthrowing the Somali government in 1991.

The fighting drove tens of thousands of people out of the country and into Kenya. In accordance with international law, Kenyan authorities worked with the UNHCR to establish a refugee camp in the town of Dadaab, then a sleepy settlement in a region of

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seminomadic herders located about fifty miles from the Somali border. The complex is managed by the UNHCR with the help of partner agencies like the World Food Program, which coordinates rations.

Dadaab was initially designed to provide temporary housing for ninety thousand refugees, but its original residents and their children were joined in 2011 by 130,000 more people fleeing widespread drought in Somalia.

At times, as many as one thousand Somalis a day arrived malnourished and weak. The complex expanded, eventually covering about twenty square miles of red sand.

To get to Dadaab, aid workers take the one-hour flight from Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi. A thirty-six-seat U.N. plane makes the trip on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Donor countries such as the United States, Sweden, and Norway provide the funding for the camp, but never as much as the U.N. says it needs. As of October, for instance, the U.N. had received only 29 percent of the $231 million budget

it requested for Kenya operations this year. Each family in Dadaab is supposed to receive a monthly distribution of grains, beans, oil, and enriched flour, and a cash transfer for buying food in local markets, but those rations had been cut in half when I visited because of insufficient funding.

The threat of the camp closing is ever-present, and a sense of impermanence hangs over the place. Dadaab residents live in tents made of thorn tree branches covered in plastic sheeting. A U.N. effort to build more durable mud-brick homes was halted

by Kenyan authorities because only temporary housing is allowed. When new asylum seekers arrive, they are supposed to be registered and fingerprinted in order to receive ration cards and aid. Kenya wasn’t doing this when I visited, however, apparently because the government didn’t want to acknowledge that new people were arriving. Which may explain the 3,750 or so people that the U.N. said were living unregistered in Dadaab in June.

Kuindje assured me that his team was

tracking the newcomers and making sure the most vulnerable received assistance.

Over the years, Dadaab has been plagued by overcrowding, disease, and seasonal floods. And while people come to the camp to flee war and hunger, the threat of violence and instability continues to hover over their existence. Domestic violence, rape, and coerced sex for money are constant concerns, as are early marriage, suicide, and drug abuse. Gunmen, meanwhile, have abducted six aid workers over the past six years—eventually releasing all of them unharmed. U.N. staff are kept under curfew in a compound encircled by high walls and razor wire, and secured by armed guards. Most aid workers don’t venture into the camps without armed police escort.

Despite the menace that is sometimes in the air, Dadaab in many ways resembles a normal set of villages, with a surprisingly bustling economy. Aided by loans from friends and family in other parts of the world, some refugees have built coffee shops, restaurants,

THE DADAAB REFUGEE CAMP THROUGH THE YEARS 1991-1992

The first three camps open at the Dadaab complex to house refugees fleeing civil war in Somalia.

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2011

Two additional camps open to host 130,000 new refugees escaping drought and famine in Somalia.

October After al-Shabaab is accused of kidnapping two aid workers in the camp, the Kenyan military joins the campaign against the Somali terrorist group.

2012

June Four aid workers are taken hostage in Dadaab and their driver is killed.

2013

September Kenyan politicians call for Dadaab to be shut down after al-Shabaab militants kill 67 people in a Nairobi mall.

November Kenya, Somalia, and the U.N. sign an agreement for the voluntary repatriation of Somali refugees.

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In Focus: The Dadaab Refugee Complex Dagahaley Ifo2 East & West

Ifo

N E

W S

The Five Camps of Dadaab

U.N. Dadaab compound

Hagadera

Kambioos (closed in 2017)

2015

2017

April Al-Shabaab-linked gunmen kill 147 people at a college near Dadaab.

Kenyan officials announce that the camp will be shut down and refugees have three months to leave.

February Kenya’s high court halts the plan to close Dadaab, ruling it unconstitutional.

The government vows to appeal.

MAP: MIKE LEMANSKI

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U.N. Field Office

SOMALIA KENYA

Mogadishu

Nairobi

First established: 1991 Size: About 20 square miles Peak population (2012): About 485,000 Current population: About 240,000

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and stores that sell everything from shampoo and sandals to pasta and fresh tomatoes. Many residents sell the grains and beans they receive as rations in order to buy foods they prefer or to pay for other necessities. Then there’s the black market fed by cartels that smuggle in sugar and other goods from Somalia. Some Dadaab residents even own motorcycles or cars, although they are barred from traveling outside the camp unless they’ve been granted special permission.

Of course, the typical resident of the camp doesn’t run a small business.

Life for most of Dadaab’s refugees can be pretty bleak. Women walk for hours daily to gather firewood, traveling in

serves as a base for terrorist attacks linked to the Somali militant group al-Shabaab, and although Kenya’s high court ruled in February that the planned closure is unconstitutional, the government presses on for closing Dadaab, even as it says it will fulfill its international obligations to refugees. The UNHCR shut down one of Dadaab’s five camps earlier this year, and another is scheduled to be closed in March. Kuindje said that more than one hundred thousand people were cleared from Dadaab’s rolls in the first eighteen months he worked in the camp, a reduction he said was attributable to both residents returning to Somalia and a verification process.

In 2016, some 33,000 Dadaab residents returned to Somalia, apparently deciding that they had a better chance in a country ravaged by war, drought, and famine than in a refugee camp with steep cuts in food rations and operating budgets. groups because of the fear of rape.

One woman told me that latrines were overflowing throughout the camp, so people relieved themselves in the fields, heightening the threat of a cholera outbreak like the one that killed ten Dadaab residents in 2015. (Just weeks after my visit, another cholera outbreak left three residents dead and more than five hundred sick.)

As difficult as the conditions in Dadaab can be, for its residents the camp at least provides some semblance of safety, and education for their kids.

Which is why the constant threat of its closure can be so stressful for the people who live there. One reason that Dadaab is no longer the largest refugee complex in the world is because Kenya has set a deadline to close it. Although Amnesty International has said that there’s little evidence that the camp

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All of which brings us, inevitably, back to this question: If Kenya does close Dadaab, where will the people who live there go? Resettlement options, always thin, seem to be further dwindling of late. In the United States, President Trump signed an executive order in January that temporarily barred people from seven majority-Muslim countries, including Somalia, from entering the country, and that halted all refugee resettlement for 120 days. (The policy was revised after court challenges, and in October refugee admissions were permitted to resume, but with enhanced screening.) The Trump administration also announced in September that it would allow only forty-five thousand refugees to be resettled in the U.S. in the coming year, the lowest number in decades. Meanwhile, many

European countries have fortified their borders with fences and guards to prevent unauthorized entry after more than a million migrants and refugees streamed into the continent in 2015. And several European Union countries—including Germany, which famously welcomed many refugees earlier in the migration crisis— declared this year that they would start returning some asylum seekers to Greece.

Whether or not Kenya is able to completely shut down Dadaab, changes in the camp are already having an effect. In 2016, some thirty-three thousand Dadaab residents returned to Somalia, apparently deciding that they had a better chance in a country ravaged by war, drought, and famine than in a refugee camp with steep cuts in food rations and operating budgets.

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Muhamed Mohamood and his wife, Rodha Mohamood, decided to leave Dadaab and return to Somalia because reduced rations had left their eight children hungry at the same time that changes in U.S. policy dashed their hopes of resettling elsewhere. Clockwise from below: The family waits to be fingerprinted and receive their repatriation funds. The family inks its paperwork, relinquishing their refugee status in Kenya.

Rodha Mohamood holds her youngest child as they prepare to board a plane to Mogadishu.

In that context, I asked Kuindje just how voluntary the decision to return is. “That’s a tricky question,” he said.

He pointed out that the U.N. is not promoting repatriation, but will assist those who choose freely to return to certain regions of Somalia that are deemed safe.

For now, many remain in the camp.

One morning, I met Saludo Mukter, a thirty-year-old mother who sat in the shade of an acacia tree nursing her baby. She told me that each day she is able to cook just a single meal of rationed grains and beans. Her six children had to be treated for malnutrition, she said, even though she washes other women’s clothes to earn money to occasionally buy meat. Her children wake up asking for spaghetti and rice, she said, but “I have nothing to give but sweet words.”

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he truth is that camps aren’t a good solution to the refugee crisis and the UNHCR knows it. That’s what Dania Khan, F12, told me when I met with her in Nairobi shortly before visiting Dadaab. We were at a café in the upscale Westgate Mall, the site of a 2013 attack by armed gunmen associated with al-Shabaab that left sixty-seven people dead. Khan, a U.N. protection officer who focuses on migration, was headed to Uganda the next day to organize a regional conference on Somalia and the refugee crisis. “There’s a new way of working at UNHCR,” she said.

“It can’t stay like this.”

Camps are set up to be temporary, she said, but the wars that lead to them continue to rage, and displaced people get stuck in what was meant to be a short-term fix.

Of course, the best solution to refugee crises is prevention. Khan and Kuindje both told me that if the international community could address the root causes of conflicts, stop the flow of money and weapons that sustains them, and increase local people’s ability to cope with natural disasters, we wouldn’t see such massive waves of displacement.

Since none of that is likely to happen anytime soon, Khan said it’s important to begin questioning how we address the refugee challenge. Is it fair, for instance, that the nations bordering conflict zones shoulder more of the burden of assisting refugees? And are there smarter ways to help refugees rebuild their lives?

One new trend has been the move away from camps and toward giving dislocated people cash so that they can

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pay for their own food and lodging.

Then there’s what’s happening in Uganda, where refugees can work, move freely, and even buy land, Khan told me.

Other innovations focus on jobs.

In Jordan, which is currently home to about 650,000 Syrian refugees, special economic zones are starting to attract foreign investment and create employment for refugees. Britain, the European Union, and the World Bank, meanwhile, announced a plan last year to build industrial parks in Ethiopia, which hosts more than seven hundred thousand asylum seekers, mainly from South Sudan, Eritrea, and Somalia. Of the one hundred thousand jobs to be created in the industrial parks, thirty thousand will go to refugees.

I

f khan is right that camps are not the solution, closing Dadaab might seem like a worthy goal. But the problem is what to do with the quarter-million people who currently live there. The primary solution being offered is for them to go back to Somalia.

One day, Kuindje’s SUV pulled into the Dadaab airstrip, where he was scheduled to meet with about two dozen refugees who had been chosen for a “go-and-see” trip to Somalia.

These volunteers, some of whom hadn’t set foot in their homeland for decades, would spend five days checking out the conditions in Somalia. Then, during a series of meetings at the camp, they would tell people considering a move back exactly what they had seen. “Use

this opportunity to ask all the questions the other refugees would want to ask,” Kuindje said, waiting as his words were translated over the whir of an airplane engine. “The drought is generating a lot of concern. People will ask you what the situation looks like.”

Some Dadaab residents believe that the visits are little more than propaganda meant to persuade them to leave.

When I described this sentiment to Kuindje, however, he insisted that it was inaccurate and not the opinion of most of the camp’s residents. That may well be the case, but when I asked Mohamed Bishar whether refugees should be returning to Somalia, he said, “No. Capital No.” Bishar, who was nineteen, left Dadaab for Somalia with his aunt and uncle in the summer of 2016. Within weeks, he told me, al-Shabaab militants began pressuring him to join them. Believing that they would kill him if he refused, he returned to Dadaab alone, and he now was living with the family of a friend.

He told me he had seen other boys from Dadaab conscripted into al-Shabaab while he was in Somalia, including one who was only seven. “People are being told a fairy story,” Bishar said of the push to return to Somalia. “They’re told it’s a safe place, you can continue your education. When you get there, you see a different reality.”

And yet, for several days each week, the waiting area near the airstrip is

Over the years, bustling economies have sprung up in the Dadaab refugee camps, fueled in part by refugees selling their rations to buy items they prefer. In one of the markets run by enterprising refugees, vendors sell food, clothes, cosmetics, and medicine.

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filled with families who have decided to go back. On a day when I visited, more than 550 refugees were there, pressing inked fingers onto their paperwork. The families were given $200 per person, as well as some food and water, to get them started in their new lives.

Most were making the trip by bus, but the sixty or so headed to Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, were flying on a U.N. airplane because the land route was deemed too dangerous.

“I’m happy to be going back to my homeland with a new president-elect,” Rodha Mohamood told me, referring to Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, whose election earlier this year has raised hopes for a more stable Somalia.

Still, Mohamood said, she was leaving the camp mostly because the reduced rations had left her eight children hungry, and because President Trump’s refugee stance had dashed her hopes for resettlement.

As the refugees got ready for the journey to Somalia, I spoke with Ali Jumale, a twenty-two-year-old who had come to Dadaab alone at age fourteen.

He told me that he had been separated from his relatives in the war and didn’t know if any were still alive. Now that he had finished school, the camps had little to offer him and he was willing to try his luck in Somalia. “There’s some hope with the new president that it might be peaceful and there’s a possibility of jobs,” he told me. He said he dreamed of being a schoolteacher or working with youth in his hometown.

He wanted to help lead his country out of the chaos that has plagued it since before he was born.

When it was finally time to board the brightly painted buses that would take them across the border, Jumale and the others rushed in order to get a good seat, like vacationers going on a sightseeing tour. Watching, I wondered

Residents of the Dadaab complex have access to schools. Here, at the Ifo Secondary School, refugee students gather in a classroom before taking an exam.

if some of the young men would be recruited by al-Shabaab, or if the families, perhaps encountering the same fighting and drought that had forced them to flee in the first place, would wind up returning to Dadaab. My face must have betrayed my thoughts.

“They’re happy,” a bus driver said to me in English. “Nothing to be sad about.” And they were gone.

To comment on this story, please write to heather.stephenson@tufts.edu.

For more about Dadaab, plus additional stories about how the Tufts community is responding to the international refugee crisis, please visit go.tufts.edu/refugees.

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Hard Work If You Can Get It

Livelihoods programs promise refugees a path to self-reliance, but how much they can truly help remains an open question. BY HEATHER STEPHENSON ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX NABAUM

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etting up tents and dispensing food, water, and medical care isn’t a sustainable way to address today’s refugee crisis. With more than 22 million refugees displaced around the globe—and many unable to return home for decades, if ever—such handouts require massive funding, which donor countries have proven unwilling to provide indefinitely. They also ignore the desire of many refugees to be

self-reliant. Meanwhile, giving direct aid or cash assistance to refugees may encourage resentment in host countries, where locals can be worse off than the newcomers seeking asylum.

One increasingly popular alternative is to help refugees get jobs or start

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Spotlight on the Refugee Crisis

businesses in their host countries so they can pay their own way. These efforts, called livelihoods programs, often include job training and opportunities for citizens as well, to boost both social acceptance of refugees and economic development of host nations.

“Livelihoods programs sound so appealing—help refugees become self-sufficient, reduce aid costs, and help the host countries too,” said Karen Jacobsen, the Henry J. Leir Professor in Global Migration at the Fletcher School and director of the Refugees and Forced Migration Program at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts.

“But we don’t have enough evidence to prove they work.”

The biggest challenge facing livelihoods programs is that many host countries do not allow refugees to work legally, despite international conventions protecting access to work. And even if refugees are allowed to hold jobs, they may find local opportunities are limited or employers are unwilling to hire them. Critics also argue that the jobs offered are often low-paying and that the governments of developed countries promote them in hopes that refugees will stay in their initial countries of asylum rather than migrating elsewhere, such as to Europe.

Still, efforts to get refugees working abound around the world. Starbucks has committed to hiring 10,000 refugees in 75 countries over the next five years. In late 2016, the furniture retailer IKEA pledged to open production centers in Amman, Jordan, that will eventually employ 400 people— half Syrian refugees and half local Jordanians—to make goods like rugs and blankets. IKEA has so far hired about 100 women, paying at least the Jordanian minimum wage of $310 a month. The start-up NaTakallam (“we speak” in Arabic) was launched in 2015 to provide work to Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, and other countries. The business allows Arabic

language learners, including students from Tufts, to connect with refugees over Skype or WhatsApp to practice their conversation skills, for a fee of about $15 an hour. The start-up, while small, is having an effect—it says it has about 60 instructors, who collectively earned more than $110,000 between 2015 and May of this year.

Livelihoods are also a focus for international aid agencies, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which created a dedicated livelihoods unit in 2008. Since 2011, the UNHCR has partnered with a university in Ecuador on a business

are to the market context, and what problems they create. She said we need to know the proportion of refugees they help in a particular context, and which refugees are unable to access these programs.

The report also argues that a focus on hard skills and qualifications can overlook other barriers refugees face in obtaining work, such as discrimination and mental health issues. In response to such concerns, the UNHCR and others have moved to pair economic development goals with broader social supports through what is known as the Graduation Approach, a step-by-step (or “graduated”) set of interventions.

“Livelihood programs sound so appealing— help refugees become self-sufficient, reduce aid costs, and help the host countries too.” incubator to help refugees and asylum seekers from Colombia as well as local residents. The incubator has supported twenty-six businesses so far, with just 15 percent failing, compared to the 95 percent that organizers say is typical in the region.

While these efforts provide individual jobs or start-up capital for some refugees, it isn’t clear that they make a significant difference for them, or that these programs can expand to reach the huge numbers of refugees who need income. In a 2016 report Karen Jacobsen co-authored for the Migration Policy Institute, she argues that the success of livelihood initiatives is too often measured by how many beneficiaries they serve rather than by their actual impact on refugees’ lives. Jacobsen called for a much more rigorous assessment of how effective the programs are, how well suited they

Starting with providing food or cash to address immediate needs, these programs then move to financial literacy training, mental health counseling if warranted, and other steps on the way to full independence.

One nonprofit that has pioneered a similar approach is RefugePoint, founded by Sasha Chanoff, F04, N04.

The organization’s pilot program on refugee self-reliance, based in Nairobi, first helps stabilize people by ensuring they have shelter, medical care, food, and counseling. Then RefugePoint offers business training and grants of up to $200 to start or expand a business, with ongoing monitoring and support, including connections to larger loan opportunities. RefugePoint makes up to 220 grants to refugees in Nairobi each year—and tracks the impact on refugee lives. “In an average of two years, we have been able to

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The nonprofit RefugePoint helps refugees start and scale up businesses in Nairobi. Above: Michael, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, sews custom shirts and dresses. Below: Henri, another refugee from Congo, and his wife chop and package vegetables to resell.

responsibly disengage from providing support,” Chanoff said.

One graduate of RefugePoint’s business training program is Henri, a thirty-nine-year-old who fled fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that killed his mother and has lived in Kenya since 2010. (The names of refugees in this story have been changed for their protection.) A former clothing salesman, Henri started a business in Nairobi selling packages of chopped vegetables door-to-door in his poor neighborhood. At first, he and his wife, a fellow refugee from Congo, could only afford five packages’ worth of vegetables per day. In 2013, Henri

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connected with RefugePoint, which— along with food and medical care— provided him with training and cash to increase production. One month after graduation from the program, he was selling fifty packs of vegetables per day.

Six days a week, Henri visits a city market before dawn, then returns home, where he and his wife chop and package more than one hundred pounds of green beans, carrots, zucchini, eggplant, butternut squash, and cauliflower. They’ve added tea and coffee to their product line because of customer requests. “Now I can make big numbers,” he said, referring to his profit of about $40 a week.

“Even getting food was hard before, and

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housing. Even taking care of our kids was very difficult, but for now life is easy because every day I can get money.”

Another refugee from Congo, fiftyeight-year-old Michael, had to leave his sewing machinery behind when he fled more than a decade ago. For years, the tailor rented a machine from a Nairobi woman so he could make shirts and dresses, but it was never enough to provide well for his family of eight. With the aid of RefugePoint, which helped him pay school fees for his children as well as improve his business, he has been able to buy three sewing machines.

“Before I was living in a single room and not able to buy food,” he said through an interpreter. Two months after graduating from the RefugePoint program, he was renting several rooms for his family and was clearing a profit of about $25 a week, enough to cover food and rent.

With such promising results, RefugePoint founder Sasha Chanoff hopes the organization’s pilot program can scale up and influence humanitarian response more broadly, but acknowledges that will require more funding.

And that’s one of the biggest challenges threatening livelihoods programming: insufficient or unpredictable funds.

When money is limited, Jacobsen said, more pressing basic needs are—and should be—prioritized over long-term strategies to help refugees.

Even as the global refugee crisis stretches budgets thin, it’s important to shift humanitarian thinking—and international investment—from handing out aid to promoting self-reliance and boosting development in host countries, Jacobsen said. This might provide an opportunity for development agencies to work with humanitarian groups, particularly when refugees are likely to remain in a host country over the long term. “But the programs have to retain the commitment to protecting refugees,” she added. “And we need to evaluate them better to make them more successful.”

PHOTOS: ALONSO NICHOLS

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Spotlight on the Refugee Crisis

Love and Trouble Facing discrimination as they seek asylum, LGBTI refugees need special safety nets.

BY HEATHER STEPHENSON PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALONSO NICHOLS

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avid and simon were living in a tiny apartment in nairobi when I met them. It was a single room with a mattress on the floor, but it was still more than they could afford. As refugees, the two twenty-seven-year-olds weren’t officially allowed to live and work in Nairobi, but as a gay couple, they didn’t think they’d be protected in a refugee camp.

So they had splurged on this $100-a-month haven. “We came here to be safe,” David said, referring to the building’s gate and guard. And yet they had to lie to live there—pretending to be students and keeping their relationship secret—and spent most of their time indoors, for fear of harassment.

David and Simon (whose names have been changed for their protection) met as college students in Uganda and fled to Kenya to escape persecution.

Between the two of them they had survived sexual assault and been kicked out of their homes by relatives who threatened to bring them to the police.

Yet Kenya still has strict laws making homosexuality punishable by up to fourteen years in prison—and the couple said attackers shouting anti-gay slurs had broken Simon’s arm. Anyone who knows they are refugees from Uganda immediately knows they are gay, they said, since there is no other reason that people seek asylum from that country. “Kenya is not different from Uganda,” Simon said. “People are homophobic.”

Still, they have found support.

David, who arrived about three years ago and was later joined by Simon, received official refugee status after

about a year in Kenya. Because he is considered particularly vulnerable, he has been scheduled for a resettlement interview in August 2019, which will kick off a process that usually takes years. During the long wait for that appointment—which he called

torture—David was getting help from HIAS, a global refugee agency known for providing legal aid, psychosocial counseling, and livelihood assistance to the most vulnerable refugees. “At HIAS, we recognize that LGBTI [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex] refugees have specific needs that are often not adequately addressed by standard refugee protection mechanisms,” said Devon Cone, F08, director of protection programs for HIAS. HIAS’s protection and advocacy for LGBTI refugees, which dates back to 2009 in Kenya, is particularly

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important in Africa. Homosexuality is illegal in more than thirty of the continent’s fifty-four countries and sex between men is punishable by death in Sudan and Mauritania. Ugandan lawmakers proposed the death penalty for homosexuality in 2009 and in 2010 a Ugandan tabloid published the names, photos, and addresses of one hundred gays and lesbians under the headline “Hang Them.” One of the gay activists listed was later found murdered in his home. The original bill was revised to change the death penalty to life imprisonment and made law in 2014.

Even though the law was deemed invalid by the Ugandan Constitutional Court, HIAS saw its LGBTI caseload in Nairobi jump dramatically. The agency responded by offering services including short-term safe housing for LGBTI refugees who have experienced harassment and assault, and a livelihoods initiative that provides small-business training.

For David and Simon, who briefly stayed in a safe house, paying for food and rent is a constant challenge. In 2016, David worked for two months as a receptionist in a hair salon, but had to leave when the owner learned he was gay. “That was my first and last job in Kenya,” he told me.

David made jewelry for a few months, but he couldn’t turn a profit.

He then wanted to try online work, but he didn’t own a laptop, so he and Simon were surviving with assistance from HIAS. After Simon contracted typhoid and they were attacked again, they had to move to an even cheaper apartment. Before long, they couldn’t keep up with that rent and started staying with friends. Looking ahead, David worried about how changing U.S. policies on refugee resettlement might affect them—and he worried about money. “I don’t know how to pay rent or buy food or medication,” he told me. “We stay every day in the house. Watch movies. Sleep. Wait.”

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Changing Minds After an ugly incident, leaders in one Maine city look for new ideas for integrating refugees.

BY HEATHER STEPHENSON PHOTOGR APHS BY ANNA MILLER

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ver the past four years, roughly forty-five iraqi families have settled in Augusta, Maine, together with three families from Syria and three from Afghanistan. The influx of refugees was noticeable and, it turned out, not entirely welcome. Just days after President Trump signed his January executive order restricting travel from seven

Muslim-majority nations, and temporarily halting refugee resettlement, fliers appeared on driveways and porches in the neighborhood where the newcomers live. Declaring a “Neighborhood Watch,” they included an image of a hooded figure in a Ku Klux Klan robe and the slogan “You can sleep tonight knowing the Klan is awake.”

“We were stunned and not happy,” recalled Augusta Mayor Dave Rollins. A native of the city, Rollins is descended from French Canadian immigrants who faced discrimination when they arrived more than a century ago. He wanted to make sure today’s newcomers have a more positive experience. But how? Rollins found part of his answer with the new Refugees in Towns project, led by Karen Jacobsen, the Henry J. Leir Professor in Global Migration at the Fletcher School and director of the Refugees and Forced Migration Program at the Feinstein International Center. When Rollins connected with Jacobsen and students from the Fletcher School, “it was like a piece of heaven fell in our lap,” he said.

Jacobsen started the project to help towns and urban neighborhoods become “immigrant- and refugee-friendly spaces” that embrace the benefits that refugees bring while addressing the challenges of integrating newcomers. In its inaugural year, Refugees in Towns has funded ten case studies of refugee integration in cities around the world, including Cape Town, Delhi, Tripoli, Hamburg—and Augusta.

Early next year, the project plans to host a conference at which New England mayors, urban planners, and volunteer agency workers can share successes and challenges.

Over three months last summer, a team of four Fletcher students

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Spotlight on the Refugee Crisis

Hayfaa Hamzah describes the dishes she made for a community lunch last summer. Behind her, from left, are Hania Mumtaz, F18, M22; Max McGrath-Horn, F17; Augusta City Manager Bill Bridgeo; Anna Ackerman, F17; and other resettled refugees.

and recent alumni conducted the case study in Augusta. Rollins let them stay rent-free in a city-owned cabin by a park and even loaned them his daughter’s old car. In exchange, the group brought all the skills they had gained studying international relations and development to what felt like an unlikely destination: small-town America.

The group, which included Heba El-Hendi, F18, Max McGrath-Horn, F17, and Hania Mumtaz, F18, M22, had a guide in their teammate Anna Ackerman, F17, who grew up in Augusta. Her hunch that the community was divided about welcoming refugees was confirmed by their

interviews with local residents. An Augusta service provider told them he looks at refugees as “guilty until proven innocent” of welfare fraud. On the positive side, some schoolteachers said refugees were a pleasure to have in class because they were learning so much, and they and their parents don’t take their education for granted.

The report, based on interviews with thirteen refugees and thirtyseven other residents of Augusta, including local leaders, traces the real impact of resettlement on city services and demonstrates that some fears are exaggerated. Although half of the refugees interviewed were relying on government assistance, the other half

were working in business, education, health, and service jobs—two Iraqi families have even opened small stores.

Meanwhile, the report notes, one in every three Maine residents is on welfare. There was also a concern about refugees overcrowding apartments in Augusta. While some of the apartments are crowded—and infested with bedbugs, to the chagrin of new arrivals—the Augusta Housing Authority said it has not seen its waiting list grow and does not view the refugees as a drain on resources.

Still, there is a cost to assisting the newcomers. The volunteers who run a local food bank, clothing bank, and toiletries pantry said the number of

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The Fletcher team met with Ismael Alkattea, a refugee from Iraq who now owns a market in Augusta.

with longtime Mainers, on the theory that breaking bread together is a great way to start conversations. The mayor recalled one such dinner where he tried unfamiliar foods that were delicious. “It was a whole cultural ‘wow’ event,” he said. “That will bond us forever.”

At a lunch in a waterfront park in July, Iraqi and Syrian families covered a picnic table with homemade delicacies such as dolmas, biryani, cucumber-and-yogurt tzatziki, and meatfilled turnovers, available for a $10 donation. “Another light snack, huh?” joked City Manager Bill Bridgeo as he prepared to fill a plate. Several guests sat with refugees they had just met,

“[W]e’ve heard a lot of concern about immigrants living on welfare,” said Anna Ackerman, F17. “If you facilitate more one-on-one personal interactions, you might change minds. ” people using their services climbed from 150 to 358 over the past year, with more than half of those being refugees.

In addition, challenges to integration include many refugees’ lack of English language skills and lack of familiarity with the systems they must navigate for everything from registering a child for school to opening a business, the report found. The city’s school department has responded to the influx of students who are learning English by hiring an interpreter, four education techs, and three additional teachers.

Integration is a lengthy process, the researchers found, and would of course be made easier by more funding and additional translators, if those were forthcoming. But increased opportunities for interaction among refugee families and other community members could also help bridge cultural gaps and reduce tensions.

Ackerman made that case in July at

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a meeting with the mayor, other city leaders, and a few refugees. “During our research, we’ve heard a lot of concern about immigrants living on welfare, ‘taking, taking, taking,’” she said. “If you facilitate more one-onone personal interactions, you might change minds.”

To that end, Ackerman and others in the Fletcher group organized several community events over the summer, such as a bike clinic where they taught locals and newcomers alike how to ride and repair bicycles.

The Fletcher group is looking for funding to create a food hub in the downtown, where refugees and other residents could operate food stalls, building community and helping the local economy at the same time. In the meantime, they’re running a pop-up dinner series in various Augusta venues, hosting meals at which refugees share the food of their home countries

discussing favorite foods. At the end of the meal, Mayor Rollins thanked the cooks, then turned to his wife, a local school official, and suggested that they should make food for the next gathering. She laughed, gesturing to the woman beside her, “We already have a baklava bakeoff planned.”

Moudoeih Halwah, a seventeenyear-old Syrian refugee whose family had helped prepare the meal, said they had moved to Augusta just three weeks earlier. He was hoping to get a job like the one he had at a mall in Arizona, where they had lived for the last year and a half. He also said his family was looking for a bigger apartment and a car or van. Asked if people had been welcoming in Maine, he didn’t seem to understand the question. But when it was rephrased— have people in Augusta been friendly or unfriendly?—he paused a moment, then answered, “Both.”

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K EEPI NG UP WITH TH E FLETCH ER COM MU NITY

ART OF DIPLOMACY When JAN HAVRÁNEK, F09, isn’t drawing up military policy as the defense counselor for the Czech Republic at NATO, he’s often sketching very different subjects, like this image of the Fletcher School.

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Connect Toft’s high score on the Armed Services aptitude exam, a test she had taken on a whim, drew attention from numerous recruiters. “The Army “We have a guaranteed that I could be a responsibility to Russian linguist,” Toft said. translate what we’ve And it provided educational learned ... to the broader funding that would later society,” said Monica Duffy enable her to focus solely on Toft, director of the new Center for Strategic her studies.

Studies.

She enlisted just before Mikhail Gorbachev came into power, during a period of heightened uncertainty between the United States and the Soviet Union.

After perfecting her Russian at the Defense Language Institute in San Antonio, Texas, she was assigned a “live” mission in West Germany, where she listened in on Soviet troop maneuvers and translated communications. For a teenager who had once told her local newspaper she’d like to be the first female Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense, it was the perfect placement.

After four years in the Army, Toft entered academia, first as a student— earning her B.A. at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago—and then as a professor. At Harvard, she was assistant director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies and director of the Religion in International Affairs Initiative, and at the University of Oxford, she helped start up the world’s

BY CHRISTINE CUPAIUOLO newest school of public policy. She joined Fletcher in February of this year, securing a grant of more than $3 milROWING UP ON Long Island, Monica Duffy Toft—profeslion from the Charles Koch Foundation sor of international politics and director of Fletcher’s to launch the Center for Strategic new Center for Strategic Studies—developed an early Studies. The center is dedicated to interest in the Soviet Union. She used to draw picproducing policy-relevant research on tures of Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow and studied strategy, international politics, and U.S. Russian in high school along with Spanish and French. foreign policy.

She knew she would someday study international At its inaugural research and policy relations, but with five siblings, and a father diagnosed with multiple seminar in September, Toft said that sclerosis, she expected that even with scholarships she would have to America’s foreign policy had become work her way through college. Then the Army called. negative and reactionary. But before

A Winning Strategy

A new center examines international politics and U.S. policy.

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the U.S. can present a cohesive perspective abroad, it first must build consensus about its foreign policy goals and priorities. “Our national goal,” she said, “should be leading the world toward a future where all peoples have a say in their government, enjoy the prospect of a fair standard of living, are subject to and privileged by due process of law, are secure from deliberate violence, and can benefit from these things, sustainably.”

In addition to mentoring the next generation of scholars and leaders, Toft is eager to find ways to connect ideas and promote critical thinking about strategic studies beyond institutional walls. “We have a responsibility to translate what we’ve learned, and to think about those ideas and what they mean to the broader society,” she said.

The author of four books and co-author of another three, Toft advises the Defense Department as well as U.S. intelligence agencies. She shares her thoughts about global politics on Twitter (@monicaduffytoft) and kicked off a new Center for Strategic Studies blog, “Elephants in the War Room,” where contributors (Ph.D. fellows, visiting scholars, and faculty) will consider “crucial aspects of U.S. strategic, foreign and defense policy that are often ignored despite the fact that they are large and obvious problems or risks that should be central to the discussion.”

What about the topic on everyone’s mind: Is the United States headed toward the worst international relations crisis since the Cold War? “It’s too soon to panic,” said Toft, citing the resiliency of American institutions and the fact that President Trump is currently viewed as an anomaly by the international community. But if he is re-elected, she added, his policies will be interpreted by friends and foes alike as “what America stands for.”

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Learning and Doing A Fletcher graduate returns to direct the Institute for Global Leadership. BY TAYLOR MCNEIL When Abi Williams, F86, F87, was a student at the Fletcher School, he took part in the newly created Institute for Global Leadership’s inaugural program. Now, after a more than three-decade career with the United Nations and other international organizations, he has returned to the institute—this time as director.

The institute, known as IGL, “combines rigorous academic training with experiential education,” Williams said. It encompasses many programs, the best known being Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC), a year-long course open to Tufts undergraduate and graduate students culminating in a student-organized symposium.

“I’m always interested in the application of ideas to solve practical problems,” said Williams, who is also a professor of the practice of international politics at Fletcher. “I’ve worked on issues at the critical intersection of peace, security, and justice, which is something I’d like to see IGL doing.”

Williams grew up in Sierra Leone, and as a teenager went to high school in British Columbia before earning degrees from Edinburgh University and the Fletcher School. He taught at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and soon was practicing what he was teaching, joining U.N. peacekeeping missions in Macedonia, Haiti, and Bosnia.

After working in the field, Williams served as director of strategic planning for U.N. secretaries-general Ban Ki-moon and Kofi Annan before heading to the United States Institute of Peace, where he led its efforts in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Tunisia. In 2013 he became founding president of The Hague Institute for Global Justice.

Now at IGL, he’s got a lot to manage. In addition to EPIIC, the institute offers some 25 other programs. “One of my priorities is to look at all of this and ask: What do we keep, what do we consolidate, what do we end?” Williams said. The goal, he added, is to create “IGL 2.0.”

Abi Williams, F86, F87

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A Focus on Humanitarian Efforts

Fletcher’s Institute for Human Security is named in honor of a visionary donor. BY LAURA FERGUSON TO RECOGNIZE THE generosity

of Henry J. Leir, H79, and the Leir Charitable Foundations, whose partnership with Tufts goes back four decades, the Fletcher School has named one of its esteemed academic centers the Henry J. Leir Institute for Human Security.

At an event this fall celebrating the naming of the institute, President Anthony Monaco spoke of Henry Leir, a successful businessman and generous philanthropist who died in 1998. The institute’s mission “reflects and honors Henry Leir’s deep commitment to relieving human suffering and advancing peace and prosperity,” Monaco said. “Leir was always keenly interested in examining the political, economic, and social problems of his time, and in envisioning solutions that would improve human well-being and create greater worldwide prosperity through economic and political cooperation.”

Leir’s connection with Tufts began in the mid-1970s, when his friend Jean Mayer became president of the

university. “These two European expatriates shared the qualities of keen intellect and passionate vision, and Leir became a staunch supporter of Mayer’s vision for Tufts,” Monaco said. Leir’s philanthropy benefited, among others, the Fletcher School, the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, and the Tufts European Center in Talloires, France.

After Leir’s death, the Leir Charitable Foundations carried on his humanitarian vision for world prosperity and peace. It has supported the institute and its growth since it was founded in 2000. The institute, Monaco said, has emerged as “a leading center of excellence, known for its cutting-edge research, education, and policy engagement in addressing global challenges with a focus on the well-being of all human beings.” Subsequent gifts brought world-class scholars to Tufts.

Today the Institute for Human Security has four endowed professorships made possible through the

Two deans and two professors described the Leir gift’s impact.

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Leir Charitable Foundations. Those positions—divided between Fletcher and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy—are currently held

by Karen Jacobsen, the Henry J. Leir Professor in Global Migration at the Fletcher School; Kimberly Theidon, the Henry J. Leir Professor in International Humanitarian Studies at the Fletcher School; Daniel Maxwell, the Henry J. Leir Professor in Food Security at the Friedman School; and Gregory Gottlieb, the Irwin H. Rosenberg Professor in Nutrition and Human Security at the Freidman School and director of the Feinstein International Center.

Human security encompasses those factors that harm individuals, including poverty, violent conflict, pandemics, famine, and migration. That broad domain, by necessity, “brings together in one discipline and in one center a chance to truly improve the human condition,” said James Stavridis, F83, F84, dean of the Fletcher School. Of particular importance, he said, is the intellectual vigor that comes with four endowed professorships. “For schools the size of Fletcher and Friedman, this is a truly significant contribution.”

Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of the Friedman School, emphasized the institute’s role as a catalyst for groundbreaking research and scholarship, and pragmatic solutions. He said the center “is about deconstructing science, coming up with the answers, training future leaders, and really going out and making a difference.”

Jacobsen, whose research with the Refugees in Towns project seeks to understand how to integrate migrating populations into urban centers, called migration a “long-standing part of our history.” The question, she said, is “how we can make migration a phenomenon that benefits everybody, that builds peace, that builds economic and political and social development and where we can benefit from the opportunities that migration presents to us.”

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they will somehow fit it with whatever idea they have that’s preconceived.

A functioning marketplace of ideas needs both of these kinds of thinkers.

If it’s dominated by public intellectuals, the marketplace of ideas gets ossified.

Public intellectuals act as gatekeepers, making it harder for new ideas to be introduced. As a result, the marketplace becomes stagnant. If, on the other hand, thought leaders are predominant, you have a lot of new, interesting heterogeneous ideas introduced into the mix. The problem is that stupid ideas don’t die, because public intellectuals aren’t powerful to criticize them to within an inch of their lives.

Thought leaders are in the ascendency. What’s the implication of that?

We talked with Drezner about how the world of expertise came to this juncture, and what it might mean for foreign and domestic policies.

The book argues that public intellectuals are much weaker than they used to be, because of three broad trends. The erosion of trust in authority and expertise makes it harder for public intellectuals to dismiss alternative ideas out of hand. The rise of political polarization makes it difficult for any intellectual to engage more than one partisan base.

And the rise of plutocrats with an interest in ideas gives thought leaders more resources to push back against any criticism by a public intellectual.

Fletcher Magazine: You talk about public intellectuals and thought leaders.

What’s the difference?

About those plutocrats: What’s the problem with them funding intellectuals to promote their agenda?

I think of it the way Isaiah Berlin talked about intellectuals in his essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” where he said the fox is someone who knows a little about a lot, and the hedgehog knows one big thing. Public intellectuals are like foxes; they are experts, but perfectly willing to opine about a wide array of topics. In some ways, public intellectuals are the peer reviewers of any marketplace idea; they stress-test ideas.

Thought leaders are the hedgehogs.

They know one big thing; they are evangelists, proselytizers. They think their one big idea can explain anything.

You give them any sort of problem, and

Plutocrats have a different set of policy preferences than you or I do. The really rich tend to underappreciate the merits of the welfare state to a broad swath of the population, because plutocrats don’t interact with that population; in some ways they live in the biggest bubble of all. They want to fund thinkers who essentially align with their preconceived world views, and some thought leaders are perfectly happy to fill that role.

The idea of public intellectuals is that they are supposed to speak truth to power. Speaking truth to power is hard.

Speaking truth to money is harder.

Pundit Nation

How the ‘ideas industry’ is shaping our future.

IN WASHINGTON, D.C., finding a think tank consultant or academic is easy. But the role of those experts is changing, says Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School.

In his new book, The Ideas Industry, Drezner argues that the marketplace for policy ideas has become splintered due to distrust of authority figures, heightened partisanship, and the rise of plutocrats buying expertise that fits their agendas. The result, he says, is a loss for the public, as bad ideas spread more easily and good ideas are lost in the mix.

Drezner knows the ideas industry firsthand: he’s a participant, what with a blog for the Washington Post, a Twitter account with more than 94,000 followers, a gig as a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, and regular appearances on Bloggingheads.tv.

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Connect

On the Shelf SMART WOMEN LOVE MONEY: FIVE SIMPLE, LIFE-CHANGING RULES OF INVESTING Regan Arts Wealth management expert ALICE FINN, F86, is determined to change the stereotype that women who love money must be up to no good. We invest time and energy in our families because we know they will yield great returns in the form of happiness, health, and stability, so why should money be any different? And since women still earn less than men, it’s imperative that they make their money work as hard as possible. Finn distills investing into five basic but transformative rules: Invest in stocks for the long term, allocate your assets, implement index funds, rebalance regularly, and keep your fees low.

IN WARTIME: STORIES FROM UKRAINE Tim Duggan Books Since the violent Maidan Revolution of 2014 and Russia’s subsequent annexation of Crimea, Ukraine has become a flash point for conflict. Veteran journalist TIM JUDAH, F86, has written what The Wall Street Journal called “the first important book about the war in Ukraine.” Evocative reporting foregrounds the diverse voices of people whose votes, taxes, and com-

BY KARA PETERS

pliance have been long taken for granted.

These compassionate portraits deliver astute insights into a seemingly intractable conflict that many in the West appear to have already forgotten.

STRATEGIC A2/AD IN CYBERSPACE Cambridge University Press On December 22, 2014, North Korea suffered a total outage of internet connectivity that lasted for more than nine hours.

While experts cautioned that it could be attributable to other problems, the event came just days after the FBI said that North Korea was responsible for a major cyber attack on Sony Pictures. ALISON LAWLOR RUSSELL, F12, examines strategic anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) operations in light of states’ access to cyberspace, proposing a new view of how exclusion from cyberspace can serve as a coercive diplomatic tool.

NEXUS OF GLOBAL JIHAD: UNDERSTANDING COOPERATION AMONG TERRORIST ACTORS Columbia University Press From the attacks of 9/11—planned by “terrorist entrepreneur” Khaled Sheikh Muhammad and financed

by Al Qaeda—to the Islamic State’s

Two Fletcher alumni were finalists for National Book Awards this fall: ELLIOT ACKERMAN, A03, F03, for his novel Dark at the Crossing, and DAVID GRANN, F92, for his nonfiction book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. Dark at the Crossing is about a naturalized Iraqi-

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partnership with local jihadi groups on multiple continents, terrorism increasingly involves cooperation between militant groups and individuals. ASSAF MOGHADAM, F02, F07, establishes a dynamic and comprehensive framework for analyzing types of terrorist actors and the nature of their partnerships, which are often enabled by social media platforms. Case studies and jargon-free prose illuminate a highly complex web of jihadi activity that is more flexible and effective than ever.

REAL LEADERS NEGOTIATE Palgrave Macmillan We usually associate leadership with personal qualities such as charisma but give short shrift to the importance of negotiating. Jeswald W. Salacuse, Tufts University Distinguished Professor and Henry J. Braker Professor of Law, argues that it was only through leadership skills that Jimmy Carter and George Mitchell were able to negotiate the Camp David Accords and the Good Friday Agreement.

These and a wealth of other examples from the government, business, and nonprofit sectors illustrate Salacuse’s thesis that effective leadership is a continuous process of negotiation.

Have you published a book this year? Let us know by emailing heather.stephenson@tufts.edu.

American who goes to Turkey wanting to cross the border into Syria to fight the Bashar al-Assad regime. He ends up stranded in a border town and befriends a Syrian couple.

Killers of the Flower Moon tells the story of the Osage nation in the 1920s, when its members were being murdered for land rights over underground oil reserves.

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RAISE YOUR HAND If you’re ready to volunteer, raise your hand.

Fletcher alumni know the world. And they know that to help The Fletcher School prepare future generations of leaders in the world, they need to step up and help. Raise your hand to volunteer at fletcher.tufts.edu/Alumni/Volunteer

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Connect

District of Columbia

Los Angeles

Club News ATLANTA

COLORADO

On April 10, the Fletcher Club of Atlanta hosted Dean JAMES STAVRIDIS , F83, F84, who spoke about all the wonderful things the school is doing in support of its strategic vision. Attendees enjoyed a social hour at Fado’s Irish Pub in Midtown Atlanta. The evening was organized and facilitated by STEVE BERGEY, F06. Attendees included JONATHAN ADDLETON, F82, F91, and his wife Fiona, MARK BEDNER , F76, CAMILLO CABALLERO, F17, MICHELLE DJURIC, F96, ERICA DUMPEL , F75, WENDY GUTIERREZ , F96, KAFIA HAILE , F05, TIM and CYNTHIA HOLLY, F79, DERRECK KAYONGO, F14, KURT OPPERMANN, F86, AIXA PASCUAL , F91, RICK PERERA , F93, ZOE SWINSON, F19 candidate, and WAYNE WHITE , F92.

The Fletcher Club of Colorado met at the Thirsty Lion in Cherry Creek in Denver on June 1. DAVE KILLINGSWORTH, F00, N00, BRUCE BOEVERS, F80, ALEX WISE , F11, MARK MONTGOMERY, F90, EMILY HUSTON, A05, F11, and SARAH PITA , F02, attended. More events are being planned by new club leader SAM STONBERG, F10.

CHICAGO The Fletcher Club of Chicago met for dinner in the West Loop on July 12. In attendance were CAREN YUSEM , F91, SUSAN CHANDLER , F84, EMMA BELCHER , F04, F10, SHANNON COYNE , F17, GREGG BAKER , F85, MICHAEL-JOHN MYETTE , F08, BROOKE M.K. SMITH , F12, N13, MAX SCHMIDT, F16, and DANIELA ABUZATOAIE , F99.

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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Dean JAMES STAVRIDIS, F83, F84, held a book talk in Washington, D.C., on June 7, and Fletcher alumni, current students, and admitted students, attended to learn about his recent publications. In the photo, taken by Jeff Malet for the U.S. Navy Memorial, are ANDREW BAKER, F18, LIBBY HENNEMUTH, F18, AIYAZ HUSSAIN, F06, incoming student KATIE COYNE , CHARLES SILLS, F66, Dean Stavridis, AZIZA MOHAMMED, F12, AUSTIN BOWMAN, F18, GREG COOPER, F01, COLIN STEELE , F18, and MUNISH PURI, F09.

LOS ANGELES Eighteen alumni welcomed Dean JAMES STAVRIDIS, F83, F84, in Los Angeles on February 1 for a lunch at The District by Hannah An

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restaurant. MARK NGUYEN, F98, leader of the Fletcher Club of Los Angeles, organized the event.

CAMRIN CHRISTENSEN, F12, SARAH CHANKIN-GOULD, F08, F15, TAMAR DOLGEN, F97, SHERI FOX , F83, BETH BOLIVAR, F92, JOSHUA GOLDSTEIN, F09, GARY GRANT, F91, ADRINEH GREGORIAN, F04, DAN GRISET, F67, GRANT HOSFORD, F97, KRISTIN KEATON, F66, LAWRENCE LOTMAN, F70, BETH PERSKY, F90, PERRY POUND, F11, GWENETH BOURGEAULT REHNBORG, F98, JOHN ROBINSON, F87, and GRIGOR SIMONYAN, F14, were all in attendance.

NEW YORK The Fletcher Club of New York welcomed Dean JAMES STAVRIDIS , F83, F84, on March 23 for an alumni luncheon at Obica restaurant in New York City, with 35 alumni in attendance. Club leader MUNISH PURI , F09, introduced the dean, who shared a State of the School address and updates on the Murrow Center, gender studies, and executive education at Fletcher.

SAN DIEGO The Fletcher Club of San Diego enjoyed a happy hour gathering with

Dean JAMES STAVRIDIS, F83, F84, in February at the Marina Kitchen in San Diego. The alumni and spouses had the chance to catch up with one another, hear Fletcher updates from the dean, and ask him questions. CORY CHRISTENSEN, F11, KEVIN EYER , F94, ERIKA LOPEZ , F06, DAVID LUECK , F15, DANIEL ORTH, F14, GEOFFREY PACK , F89, TRACY REYNOLDS, F16, ROBERT STECK , F81, MARIANA TIWARI, F13, and STEVEN VIOLA , F14, attended.

SEATTLE The Fletcher Club of Seattle welcomed Bhaskar Chakravorti, Fletcher’s senior associate dean of international business and finance, and Ravi Shankar Chaturvedi, associate director of research at Fletcher’s Institute for Business in the Global Context (IBGC), for an alumni dinner on January 25. The conversation was focused on IBGC’s research on the Digital Evolution Index and inclusive business.

ELISABETH BURGESS-CHOI, F12, DAHM CHOI, F12, JACQUI DEELSTRA , F11, CHELSEY EVANS, F16, DENISSE HAMARD, F14, KATHLEEN HURLEY, F12, ANJALI SHRIKHANDE , F15, KATHLEEN SULLIVAN, F11, and PIERRE VOLOSIN, F10, attended.

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AMSTERDAM On a cool June evening the Fletcher Club of the Netherlands enjoyed drinks next to the Singel Canal in Amsterdam. IAN MCGUINN, F07, was in town from New York, joining Amsterdam locals BOB BRAGAR, F03, ARNOUT BROUWERS, F95, new arrival GASPAR RODRIGUEZ , F16, and MARTIJN SCHOUTEN, F83, who recently returned to the Netherlands from Indonesia. Club leader JENNIFER CROFT, F99, and Caroline Armstrong Hall, who will enter Fletcher in January 2018, had traveled from The Hague, while Caroline’s father, PETER HALL , F67, shared impressions from his 50th reunion.

AUSTRALIA The Fletcher Club of Australia is active in four cities. On December 23, 2016, Canberra-based alumni shared an end-of-year dinner that served as a farewell for SIMON HENDERSON, F12, as he moved to Hong Kong to work on human rights. On December 28, 2016, the former club chair, ROBERT GARTH NETTHEIM, F57, was honored in Sydney for his lifetime work. On August 15, the club held an event in Brisbane with DIANE BROINSHTEIN, F16, and in September a Melbourne event included ANNA DART, F08, and EMMA HODGSON, F91, F93. A get-together was also organized in Canberra to welcome three alumni now based in the capital: JULIE , F87, and JOHN, A85, F87, HENNESSY-NILAND and EVELYNE MEIER , F90.

DAVOS Dean JAMES STAVRIDIS, F83, F84, met with alumni for a happy hour event at the Hilton Garden Inn restaurant in Davos, Switzerland, in the midst of the World Economic Forum in January. Fletcher and Tufts graduates in attendance were NIHAL

CHAUHAN, F14, GIANCARLO BRUNO, F10, MATTHEW HOFFER CRAIG, F12, LISA ERRION, F88, SELINA JACKSON, F93, ROBERT LEVIN, F02, MARIAH LEVIN, F10, MARIE-NOELLE LITTLE-BOYER, F00, MASATSUGU NAGATO, F75, ALYSE NELSON, F09, DAVID PUTH, A79, DEV SANYAL , F88, PHILIP SHETLER-JONES, F04, and SERGEY VAKULENKO, F97.

MUNICH The Fletcher Club of Munich welcomed Dean JAMES STAVRIDIS, F83, F84, for a wonderful evening at Hofbräuhaus Munich after the Munich Security Conference on February 17. In attendance (shown from left to right) were FREDERIK VON BOTHMER, F16, MARTIN RIETZEL , F12, Dean Stavridis, ROBERT LOYND, F99, JANOS KATTER, F14, and PETER CONZE , F76.

Munich

NEW DELHI On June 16, the Fletcher Club of New Delhi welcomed Pramit Pal Choudhary, former media fellow at the Fletcher School and currently the foreign editor for the Hindustan Times and a member of Asia Society’s Global Council. Choudhary spoke on “U.S.-India Relations in the Age of Trump.” Attending the event at the Ethiopian Cultural Center were SANDHYA GUPTA, F08, SIDDHARTH ARYAN, F15, ABHISHEK KISHORE, F14, SHAMS TABREZ, F14, JESSICA MECKLER, F16, MONISH VERMA, F96, PARI JHAVERI, F12, and RADHIKA ANAND, F12.

PARIS On June 26, Tufts Alumni of Paris and the Fletcher Club of Paris welcomed Boris Hasselblatt, Tufts professor of mathematics, for dinner and conversation about research, teaching, learning, and university strategy today—and how technology is driving change on campus and beyond. Twelve Fletcher and Tufts alumni were in attendance,

Paris

including SUZANNE BODEVIN, F86, F99, WOLFGANG LASSL , F99, MAUREEN RIVAILLE , F00, TINA ROBIOLLE , F16, JOSEPH ROUSSEL , F89, and DEBORAH VOUCHE , F06.

SAO PAULO In April 2016, the Fletcher Club of Sao Paulo hosted an alumni happy hour and welcomed Assistant Director of GMAP Admissions and Marketing Laura Laver. In attendance were JENNIFER THOMPSON , F11, JESSE MOSIER , F12, CASSANDRA PAGAN ARAUJO, F16, MATHEUS DE GIACOMO ARAUJO, F16, ROBERT HELBIG , F16, ELENICE TAMASHIRO, F13, and STEPHANIE BERGEMAN , F15.

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FLETCHER WOMEN’S NETWORK More than 30 women attended the Fletcher Women’s Network’s annual graduation tea at Alumni Weekend in May. For the network’s latest updates and announcements, see https://sites.tufts. edu/fwn/. The group also has a page on LinkedIn (http://bit.ly/ FWNLinkedIn) and a Facebook page (http://bit.ly/FWNFacebook).

FWN is seeking new members to start FWN chapters in other cities. If you are interested, please contact COREY BARR, F10, based in Boston, at correybarr06@gmail. com or TALLASH KANTAI, F13, based in Nairobi, at tnailande@gmail.com.

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Connect

CLUB CONTACTS UNITED STATES ARIZONA

MORGAN LERETTE, F13 morganlerette@gmail. com CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES MARK NGUYEN, F98 mark@planetlarecords. com SAN DIEGO BOB STECK, F81 robert.steck@ml.com SAN FRANCISCO BEN BALL, F02 mrbenball@hotmail.com COLOR ADO

SAM STONBERG, F10 sstonberg@gmail.com DISTR ICT OF COLUMBIA

ADITI MANOCHA, F16* aditimanocha7@gmail. com FLOR I DA

Seeking new leadership

GEORGIA

STEPHEN BERGEY, F06 stephen.bergey@ alumni.tufts.edu HAWAI I

GREGG NAKANO, F01 gmnakano@gmail.com ILLI NOIS

GREGG BAKER, F85 greggrbaker@yahoo.com MASSACHUSETTS

ADRIA CHAMBERLAIN, F08 fletcherboston@gmail. com

NEW YORK AND TR I - STATE A R E A

MUNISH PURI, F09 fletcherschool.nyc@ gmail.com OREGON

EDIE MILLAR, F85 millarhk@hotmail.com KRISTEN RAINEY, F06 rainey@alumni.princeton.edu P E N N SY LVA N I A

PHILADELPHIA JOCELYN BRADDOCK, F12 jocelynbraddock@gmail. com JONATHAN MARTIN, F12 jamartin4@gmail.com

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PITTSBURGH TOM ETZEL, F11 etzelcpa@comcast.net ELISABET DENNEHY, F89, F90 erodriguezd@comcast.net

SÃO PAULO PAULO BILYK, F92 paulo.bilyk@riobravo. com.br ALBERTO PFEIFER, F02 pfeifer@usp.br

T E X A S*

BULGARIA

ELENA NIKOLOVA, F14 enikolova@alumni. upenn.edu

WASH I NGTON

JENNIFER CAUSTON, F13 causton.jennifer@bcg. com

CAMBODIA

Seeking new leadership CANADA

INTERNATIONAL

LUIS ROSALES, F98 lrosal@hotmail.com

CALGARY* LAURENCE NGUYEN, F11 laurence.nguyen@ alumni.tufts.edu MONTREAL* SONYA RAMIAN, F08 tzovig@gmail.com

ARMENIA

CHILE

A F G H A N I STA N

Seeking new leadership ARGENTINA

ARUSYAK MIRZAKHANYAN, F04 arousiakm@yahoo.com AUSTRALIA

MELISSA CONLEY TYLER, F96 m.conleytyler@gmail. com AUSTR IA

TIHOMIR TSENKULOVSKI, F09 ttsenkulovski@gmail.com BANGLADESH

SARWAR SULTANA, F98 sarwar_sultana@ hotmail.com BELGIUM

GEORGE-MARIAN ISBASOIU, F16 george.isbasoiu@gmail. com ROBERT MICALLEF, F01 robert.c.micallef@ gov.mt BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVI NA

ANDRES MONTERO, F85 amontero@intertrust.cl GERMAN OLAVE, F97 germanolave@gmail.com CHINA

BEIJING JASMINE BARRETT, F12 barrettjasmine@gmail. com HONG KONG DEIDRE LO, F90 lokwokling@gmail.com ANNIN PECK, F17 annin.peck@gmail.com SHANGHAI JAY DONG, F00 jaydong2000@yahoo.com COLOMBIA

STELLA CUEVAS, F95 stcuevas@ymail.com

GREGORY DIMITRIADIS, F06 gregory@alumni.tufts. edu THOMAS VARVITSIOTIS, F99 tv@vando.gr HUNGARY

ANITA ORBAN, F01 orban_anita@yahoo.com INDIA

BANGALORE* VIKRAM CHHATWAL, F01 vikramchhatwal@gmail. com DELHI* SANDHYA GUPTA, F08 sandhyagupta02@ gmail.com MUMBAI* AVANTI BHATI, F11 avanti.bhati@gmail.com IRAQ

Seeking new leadership ISRAEL

JORDAN HERZBERG, F98 jordan@herzbergmanagement.com I TA LY

CHIARA DI SEGNI, F15 chidisegni@gmail.com JA PA N

MARIKO NODA, F90 mlh11461@nifty.com K E N YA

ECUADOR

KOSOVO

BRAZIL

ENGLAND

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GREECE

ANNE ANGWENYI, F02 anne_angwenyi@ alumni.tufts.edu

GENEVIEVE ABRAHAM, F11 genevieve.abraham@ gmail.com

BRASILIA ENRIQUE ORTIZ, F90 rick.ortiz@trade.gov HOLLY LOOMIS, F17 holly.loomis@tufts.edu

BERLIN ADRIANA RAMIREZ, F14 adrianara@sre.gob.mx FELIX HOFMANN, F13 fe.ho@me.com FRANKFURT JOEL EL-QALQILI, F15 j.elqalqili@gmail.com

MARIANO BATALLA, F11 batalla@alumni.tufts.edu

COSTA R I C A

HARIS MESINOVIC, F00 harismesinovic@ hotmail.com

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NADJA MILANOVA, F12 nadia.milanova@skynet.be RADKA BETCHEVA, F11 radka.betcheva@gmail. com

GERMANY

TANNAZ BANISADRE, F06 fletcherclublondon@ gmail.com F R A NC E* IVAN MONÈME, F90 fletcherclubofparis@ gmail.com

CHRISTINE SHEPHERD VERMEULEN, F12 shepherd.christine@ gmail.com LEBANON

Seeking new leadership M A L AYS I A

SHAHRYN AZMI, F86 shahryn.azmi@gmail.com MEXICO

GUSTAVO E. ACEVES RIVERA, F12 gustavo.aceves@gmail. com

ENRIQUE ALANIS, F12 enriqueraul.alanisd@ cemex.com N E PA L

RAM THAPALIYA, F02 ram_thapaliya@yahoo. com N E T H E R L A N D S* DAVID CHIH-HSIANG WU, F10 chwu1973@gmail.com GASPAR RODRIGUEZ, F16 gaspar.y.rodriguez@ gmail.com PA K I STA N

SWITZERLAND

GENEVA EVERETT PEACHEY, F05 swissfletcherclub@ gmail.com ZURICH FREDERIC GANNER, F13 fredericganner@googlemail.com TA I WA N

PAUL HSU, F65 paulhsu@phycos.com.tw THAILAND

EKACHAI CHAINUVATI, F03 ekachai@siam.edu

MUMTAZ BALOCH, F13 mumtaz@mfapk.org PE RU* HEIDI SUMSER, F08 hsumser@gmail.com

TURKEY

PHILIPPINES

UKRAINE

CATHERINE HARTIGANGO, F92 cathartigango@hotmail. com

VALERIA SCOTT LAITINEN, F98 valeria_laitinen@ hotmail.com

POLAND

UNITED ARAB E M I R ATE S

NICOLAS FIERENS GEVAERT, F09 nfierens@hotmail.com ROMANIA

SINZIANA FRANGETI, F07 sinzianaf@gmail.com R W A N D A* YVONNE DURBIN, F15 yvonnedurbin@gmail.com

NESLI TOMBUL, F12 nesli.tombul@gmail.com UGANDA

Seeking new leadership

PAUL BAGATELAS, F87 CHRISTINE LAUPER BAGATELAS, F87 bag@eim.ae VIETNAM

NICOLAS DE BOISGROLLIER, F03 ndeboisgrollier@gmail. com

SAUDI ARABIA

JAMIL AL DANDANY, F87 jamil.dandany@aramco. com SENEGAL

PATRICK GILMARTIN, F13 patrick.james.gilmartin@gmail.com SINGAPORE

DORA CHEOK, F99 cheokd@gmail.com

SHARED INTEREST FLETCHER ALUMNI OF COLOR A S SOC I AT I O N

KELLY SMITH, F03 kellymillersmith@gmail. com F L ETC H E R P H . D. ALUMNI

SOUTH AFRICA

ANTHONY WANIS-ST. JOHN, F96, F01 anthonywanis@gmail. com

SOUTH KOREA

FLETCHER WOMEN’S NETWORK

JACQUES ROUSSELLIER, F01 jacques_roussellier@ alumni.tufts.edu SUKHEE HAN, F94 shan65@yonsei.ac.kr S PA I N

ALBERTO LOPEZ SAN MIGUEL, F96 fletcher.spain@gmail. com

KARI SIDES SUVI, F14 MARIANA STOYANCHEVA, F05 fletcheralumnae@gmail. com *Change since the last issue of Fletcher Magazine

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Connect

In Memoriam 1950s Career Ambassador DEANE R. HINTON, F52, on March 28, 2017, at his home in San Jose, Costa Rica. He was 94 years old. He had a remarkable 48-year diplomatic career, with his first assignment as a Foreign Service officer at the Legation in Damascus, Syria, beginning in 1946. Among his most notable assignments, he was ambassador to Zaire (1974–75), El Salvador (1981–83), Pakistan (1983–87), Costa Rica (1987–89) and Panama (1990–94). He also served in other capacities as a Foreign Service officer in Syria, Kenya, France, Belgium, Guatemala, and Chile, where he was also director of USAID. He was drawn upon for his expertise in economics, as representative of the U.S. to the European Economic Community in Brussels (1976–79) and as assistant secretary for business and economic affairs (1979– 81). He was designated a Career Ambassador in 1987, a rare distinction among Foreign Service officers. His memoir, Economics and Diplomacy: A Life in the Foreign Service of the United States, was published by the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) in 2015. AFSA’s president, Barbara Stephenson, called Ambassador Hinton “a legend among foreign service officers.” Deane Roesch Hinton was born in Missoula, Montana, on March 12, 1923, the only child of Col. Joe A. Hinton and Doris Roesch. He served in World War II, reaching the rank of second lieutenant in the Signal Corps and participating in the Italy campaign.

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After the war, he completed his BA at the University of Chicago, a year of graduate studies in economics, and attended the War College, the Fletcher School, and Harvard University. He was married three times, to Angela Peyraud, Miren de Aretxabala, and Patricia Lopez.

Ambassador Hinton retired in 1994 and lived alternately in the U.S. (mainly Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania) and Costa Rica. He is survived by his wife, Patricia Lopez Hinton, 12 children, 13 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

Ambassador TÓMAS Á. TÓMASSON, F53, E87P, on June 3, 2017. He was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, on January 1, 1929, and graduated from Reykjavik High School in 1949. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Illinois in 1952 and a master’s degree from the Fletcher School in 1953, then studied at the Russian Institute at Columbia University for one year. He joined the Foreign Service of Iceland in 1954 with an immediate posting to Moscow. He later served as first secretary of Iceland’s embassy in Paris. He was ambassador to NATO from 1971–77 and 1984–87, as well as ambassador to the United Nations (1977–82 and 1993–94), ambassador to France (1982–84), ambassador to the Soviet Union (1987–89), and ambassador to the United States (1990–93). Thereafter he worked at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Reykjavík as ambassador at large to Israel, Egypt, Jordan,

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and Tunisia. He resigned from the Foreign Service in 1999. He is survived by his wife, Hjördís Gunnarsdóttir, their son Árni, and three children from his first marriage, including Tómas H. Tómasson, E87.

ROBERT L. PRICE, F55, of Williamsburg, Virginia, on March 20, 2017. He was born on May 8, 1932, in Taunton, Massachusetts.

He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Sally Dilk Price, a son, a daughter, and two grandchildren.

An Eagle Scout, he graduated from the University of Virginia in 1954 and attended the Fletcher School followed by a year in Pakistan as a Fulbright Scholar. He worked at the CIA as an international economist for several years and returned to graduate school to study economics at MIT and Harvard. In 1971 he served as one of the original 13 professional staff members at the White House on the Council on International Economic Policy.

In 1984 he accepted a position at the Department of State as the Director of the Office of East-West Trade. Later he served as director of the Paris-based Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls and retired as a senior advisor at the Department of State.

He enjoyed reading, the outdoors, travel, and spending time with his family.

1960s WILSON B. BROWN, F62, F66, on May 15, 2017. Born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, in 1938, he was the first in his family to attend

college. He graduated from Brown University and earned his Ph.D. from the Fletcher School. Wilson received Fulbright fellowships to work in Peru and Thailand and taught at Colby College and at Northern Illinois University. From 1983 to 2004, he taught economics at the University of Winnipeg.

He and his wife, Jennifer, moved to Denver in 2011. He was a lover of flowers, writer of poetry, student of languages and substitute father to many. He generously supported Jennifer’s career and took immense pride and joy in being a father and grandfather. He spent summers on a beloved Georgian Bay island in Ontario where he could swim, pick blueberries, and make jam and pie.

He is survived by his wife, a son, and two granddaughters.

JAMES D. MIETUS, F64, F71, of Great Falls, Virginia, on October 27, 2016, at age 75. He was born and raised in Buffalo, New York.

He graduated with honors from Georgetown University, where he was a member of the championship rowing team. His three degrees from Fletcher included a Ph.D. His early professional experience included economic development work in the Dominican Republic and Vietnam with the U.S. Agency for International Development and banking with Chase Manhattan in New York City. While on R&R from USAID in Vietnam, he and his wifeto-be, Janet, survived a plane crash in northern Thailand. After their recovery and wedding, they lived in Bedford Village, New York, and then in Great Falls. He was passionate

about small government and spent more than three decades with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget in Washington, D.C., specializing in energy policy and projects. He maintained close ties with many of his Fletcher classmates, who will miss his good nature and sense of humor. He is survived by his wife, son Mark, daughter Nancy, and a sister.

2010s JUAN DANIEL JARAMILLO ORTIZ, F12, on December 14, 2016, in Amsterdam, while doing business in the Dutch capital. He was 55.

An international lawyer, analyst, and columnist, he advised different governments, including serving on the commission that in 2013 was appointed to seek solutions after the decision of The Hague against Colombia in litigation with Nicaragua. Lawyer of the University of the Andes and graduate of the same university, he also had a master’s degree in economic development from Vanderbilt University and a master’s in law from Harvard University. He earned a Fletcher degree through the GMAP program.

He taught courses on international cooperation, human rights, economic education, and international law at institutions around the world. He was a director of the Department of Political Science at the Institute of Humanities of the University of La Sabana and a contributor to El Tiempo newspaper and The Wall Street Journal. On several occasions he was appointed a UN official. He lived with his mother when he was in Colombia.

Faculty Emeritus W. SCOTT THOMPSON, who was a member of the Ford and Reagan administrations and a professor emeritus of the Fletcher School, on February 19, 2017, at his home

by Lake Talisay in the Philippines.

He was 75. A graduate of Phillips Andover Academy and Stanford University, he was a Rhodes Scholar and Danforth Fellow at Oxford University. He authored and edited numerous books and articles on foreign policy and governance, including one co-authored with his son Nicholas, The Baobab and the Mango Tree: Lessons About Development– African and Asian Contrasts. He was an assistant to the Secretary of Defense in 1975–76 as a White House Fellow, and he served in the Reagan Administration as associate director of the U.S. Information Agency from 1982 to 1984. From 1986 to 1993, he served on the board of directors of the United States Institute of Peace, a presidential appointment with the advice and consent of the Senate. Following those years, he authored The Price of Achievement: Coming Out in Reagan Days, breaking new ground for government appointees as an openly gay man. A resident of the Philippines since the late 1990s, he was an advisor to two Filipino presidents, its National Security Council, and four members of the Filipino cabinet.

His most recent book, Trustee of the Nation: The Biography of Fidel V. Ramos, examined the

Philippine government as well as the former president. Professor Thompson was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and was a founding member of the Committee on the Present Danger in 1976. Both his hospitality and the intensity and warmth of his friendships were legendary.

He hosted many friends during his years in the Philippines—in Manila, at his lake house, and at his retreat in Bali. In the Washington, D.C., area, he was known for the chamber music concerts he sponsored and his annual azalea parties at his home. His marriage to the former Nina Nitze ended in divorce. He had a second marriage to Louie Pangilinan. He is survived by his three children and seven grandchildren.

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Detail

OPTIONAL SLUG

Finding My Way In Afghanistan, I reported on the costs of war— and learned from the Green Berets about how to live.

BY THOM SHANKER

T

RUE STORIES OF combat defy retelling. So I won’t tell you a war story here. But I will relate one conversation I had in Afghanistan early in the war.

It was in the desert outside Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual capital and final holdout after the American counterattack following 9/11.

I was embedded with the Green Beret A Team that had joined Hamid Karzai and his militiamen to rout Mullah Omar, the Taliban’s one-eyed leader, and liberate Kandahar. Mullah Omar was soon to take up hiding in Pakistan.

Hamid Karzai was soon to become president of Afghanistan.

These Army Special Forces were the tip of the spear in lifting Taliban rule and ousting Al Qaeda from its safe haven. They are among the smartest,

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most creative and improvisational warriors in the U.S. military. In fact, the offensive ended the war in a victory— even if that battlefield success was short-lived in the mess of nation-building that followed.

Operating from a primitive forward base, the Green Berets were a universe away from the polished corridors of the Pentagon where I had cut the unusual embed deal. At first, they were reluctant to take in a journalist. Fortunately, they warmed up over the course of a week, maybe after they saw I carried my own gear, wouldn’t freak out under fire and, most importantly, could eat boiled Ramen noodles three times a day and not complain about the chow.

One night nearing the end of my embed, we were sitting around the campfire and I somehow felt the presumption to ask: “So. A New York

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Times reporter on a Special Forces embed. Not since the war in Vietnam has a reporter been allowed to live with, travel with, and go out on missions with you guys in combat…. It would be pretty bad for you if I got killed, wouldn’t it?”

“Nah,” one of the senior Green Beret sergeants said. “If you got killed, it would be because we were on a mission or came under attack. That’s the risk we accept, because we believe our work is important, and that’s the risk you accepted, because you believe your work is important.”

He paused, and added: “No, we don’t care if you got killed. But it would be very, very bad for us if you got lost.”

With those words tattooed in my brain, I returned to Washington and, with my two sons, went to our favorite camping store, where we picked out a small pocket compass for me to carry.

I carry it as a reminder: Don’t get lost—and not just in a war zone, where you put yourself in jeopardy and risk the lives of troops if they are ordered to mount a search-and-rescue mission.

But every day, I carry it as a reminder that there are things in life truly worse than death. It is a reminder that the opposite of life is not death.

No, the antithesis of life—the negation of life—is a life wasted. So don’t get lost in things that don’t matter.

That conversation in the desert outside Kandahar was more than fifteen years ago. My final Special Operations embed in Afghanistan was in 2013, after which I buried my flak jacket deep in the closet and, nearing sixty, realized it was time to stop covering conflict with troops half, even a third, my age.

But the compass, and with it the lessons, are among the things I carry still today.

THOM SHANKER, F82, Pentagon correspondent for The New York Times from 2001 to 2014, is now an assistant Washington editor for The Times.

ILLUSTRATION: CRISTINA SPANÒ

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Fletcher’s work in environmental policy is very valuable, and I wanted to help.

The career path of Edward “Ed” Hoyt PhD, F62, FG64, F91P has included several surprise turns, beginning with his discovery of Fletcher while studying chemical engineering at MIT. At Fletcher,

Hoyt studied Latin American political development and planned to pursue a career in policy.

Instead, a series of jobs in international banking took him and his family around the world to Singapore, Amsterdam and Bogota.

Now enjoying retirement with his wife, Terry, Hoyt serves on Fletcher’s Board of Advisors and the advisory board for Fletcher’s Center for International Environment and Resource Policy (CIERP), which he learned about from his elder son, Edward “Ned” Hoyt, F91, a clean-energy consultant.

“Ned told me [Professor William] Moomaw is a phenomenal teacher and he’s making a tremendous impact in environmental policy.” Impressed by Dr. Moomaw’s work, Hoyt helped establish a professorship at Fletcher bearing Moomaw’s name and has been able to maximize his support by including the professorship in his estate plan.

He is pleased to see CIERP producing urgently needed research and policy solutions. “When meteorologists say we’re going to have a flood,” he observes, “everyone starts filling sandbags, yet climate change remains more of an intellectual exercise.”

Fletcher’s great strength, he believes, is its broad perspective. “The people here are flexible and can deal with the world’s problems in new ways,” he says. One of those ways is philanthropy.

“We each have to figure out what’s going to have an impact and what’s important to us,” he notes. “For me, that includes climate change and Fletcher.”

For information about including Fletcher in your estate plans, please contact the Gift Planning Office: 888.748.8387 • giftplanning@tufts.edu • tufts.edu/giftplanning

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BOSTON, MA PERMIT NO. 1161

160 Packard Avenue Medford, MA 02155

Change of address? Questions? Email heather.stephenson@tufts.edu.

20 Earning Their Way

23 Love and Trouble

24 Creating Community

#MeToo in Aid Agencies A new study suggests that sexual assault is pervasive within the ranks of humanitarian groups. And, wrote associate research professor , “the sector as a whole is failing in its duty of care to aid workers.”

FOR MORE ON THE STORY, TURN TO PAGE 4.

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