Issuu

WORLD BANK FAMILY NETWORK

ANNUAL REPORT 2011

World Bank Family Network

ANNUAL REPORT July 2010 â€“ June 2011

Editor: Louise Shimizu Assistant Editor: Christinne A. Secrest Layout: Gilda Dadush Printing: World Bank Group Printing and Graphics

WBFN—THE YEAR IN NUMBERS We welcomed over 429 newly arrived families!

FUN • 215 people participated in our October Annual Family Picnic; • 833 kids and parents enjoyed our Children’s Holiday Party; • 210 children and adults participated in the Family Arts and Science Festival; • And let us not forget our numerous neighborhood activities!...

INFORMATION • Of this year’s new members, 36% are male, 16% are at Country/Field Offices • 125 members attended five sessions of the Spouse/Partner Orientation; • 72 members improved their English thanks to nine different English language courses; • 112 members became computer literate with our computer courses; • 114 members learned how to manage through the crisis with our financial classes; • 271 members/staff attended our Information Seminars on legal, tax and benefits matters.

COMMUNICATIONS • Among our 130 regularly active volunteers, about 30 all year round worked hard on our many Communications tools: • 10 issues of our Mosaic newsletter; • website management; • brochures, posters and flyers;

OUTREACH PROGRAMS • The Book Project sent 2 large shipments to Liberia and Nigeria (to 14 universities/colleges and 99 schools) and 2 small shipments to schools in Haiti and Ethiopia. • 19 scholarships were awarded by the MMMF: 13 to women studying in Canada or the U.S.; 6 to women studying in Cape Town or Pretoria, South Africa. • A total of over $47,000 was raised at the International Arts and Crafts Fair to benefit the MMMF.

Table of Contents WBFN—The Year in Numbers

From the Editor

Highlights of the Year

President’S Report

President-Elect’s Report

Keeping Things Together

Special Events

Activities & Programs

Arrivals and Welcoming

Communications 51 Education and Information

Members Abroad

Parents and Tots

Social and Cultural Activities

Members’ Special Initiatives

Family & Personal Support Spouse Issues Committee

WBFN Outreach Programs

86 88

The Book Project

The Margaret McNamara Memorial Fund

Around the Office

106

Salute to Volunteers

112

FROM THE EDITOR This WBFN Annual Report chronicles the Family Network’s varied activities and events and highlights the diverse talents of its members. It is a compilation of the reports of the leaders of each of the WBFN activities about their groups’ accomplishments during the 2011 fiscal year (FY11). As you read it, you will experience the diversity of WBFN’s activities and of its leaders, since each one reports in her/his own style. Where the leader has not submitted a report, others have filled in. You will also witness the commitment of these generous people from around the world, who on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis volunteer their time, efforts and skills to further the mission of WBFN, to contribute to the community that helped them when they had newly arrived and were struggling to adapt to a new home and culture. The year began on July 1, 2010, with much enthusiasm. As Maaike le Grand describes in her President’s Report on the following pages, WBFN was buzzing with volunteers eager to bring the organization closer to the truly global network that it must be if it is to keep pace with the Bank’s demographics—with its members. Nearly 12 months later, on June 28, 2011, two days before the end of the fiscal year, on the day when the WBFN Office was all packed up in boxes and ready to move from the H Building into its new premises in the J Building, these same volunteers and many more gathered to celebrate their accomplishments and the friendships that had grown over the year, but mainly to thank the person who had led them through it all. Much had happened between July 1 and June 28, in the world and at WBFN, as the pages of this report will tell, and WBFN had been fortunate once again to have the right person at the helm. Few people in the organization today know WBFN better than Maaike. She started in the organization as Mosaic Editor, moved on to be the Social and Cultural Chair, organizing the Family Picnic, then became Welcoming Chair, and finally President-Elect then President. Throughout the year, Maaike held a firm grasp on WBFN’s mission and without hesitation kept everyone steering full speed ahead, her eyes always on the goal—an ever stronger yet flexible network that meets the needs of its diverse membership. An educator for many years, Maaike knows how to encourage people and how to motivate them. It is no wonder that un-

der her leadership, WBFN not only carried out its traditional programs and activities but also attracted many new volunteers who brought fresh ideas and, with Maaike’s encouragement, carried out several new initiatives. As President, Maaike also understood the importance of ensuring the existing support from the WBG in a highly mobile staffing environment. She met frequently with WBFN’s traditional partners in the Bank and forged new relationships and friendships with others. If WBFN is to continue to enjoy the support that it now has from Bank management, continued attention to such relationships and WBFN’s image in the Bank is vital. But Maaike did not just think about the organization. She paid equal attention to each individual member who walked through the WBFN Office door or approached her otherwise for help or just to chat. And there were many. Yes, Maaike understands well what WBFN is all about! In such an atmosphere, the teams of WBFN functioned well and programs thrived. The Children’s Holiday Party attracted a record 833 people and the numbers of participants in the educational programs grew. WBFN even lent its support, be it in a small way, to members struggling with the political turmoil or natural disasters in other parts of the world. The male spouses established a greater presence than ever before in the organization. Besides establishing two job seekers clubs, they progressed from having their own special get-togethers, to inviting the female members to join them—at the Beer Club! The MMMF celebrated its 30th Anniversary and the Book Project launched a new website. You will read about all of this and much more in the pages that follow. But before asking you to turn the page, I would like to sincerely thank Catherine Mathieu for all that she does everyday to keep the WBFN well functioning, guiding members like me, and nurturing projects such as this. I must also thank the two persons who once again made it possible for this report to finally go to press. Without the meticulous assistance of Christinne Secrest, I would never have gotten started, and without the ever creative skills plus comraderie of Gilda Dadush, I surely never would have finished! Christinne sheparded the reports from the authors’ masterful manuscripts into to a massive MS Word document, then later placed the text into InDesign. Next Gilda “tweaked” (polite for overhauled!) everything, added the photos selected by Maaike, and with a few edits by me in between stages, and some trips to the World Bank Graphics—voila! you have the masterpiece you see before you. Enjoy! Louise Picon Shimizu Editor

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

The overview of activities of WBFN in the pages of this Annual Report bears witness to how much can be accomplished by the relatively few. We hope that this record will serve as an incentive to those who have yet to take that first step of calling us to say, â€œI want to help.â€?

SUPPORTING MEMBERS’ INITIATIVES

PRESIDENT’S REPORT The Beehive at WBFN The FY11 numbers speak volumes. WBFN pulled off several successful family events—with 800 attendees at the Children’s Holiday party, for example! With small teams, on a tight budget, we welcomed nearly 500 families to the WBG, and offered many other programs and courses as well. It has been truly amazing, and even more so when you realize it’s all done very professionally by...volunteers! And a changing group of volunteers, at that! This has challenged us to rethink our organization and find better and ever faster ways to connect with the newcomers. We have to think in website lingo, think pictures, find one word descriptions of who we are. One word to characterize WBFN? That challenge brought me the image of the “beehive”. Over almost 40 years, all those countless worker bees at WBFN have ceaselessly worked to build a wonderful structure of intricately linked cells forming together the remarkable structure of our supportive community. These cells have the characteristics of information, support and community-building and reinforce one another. Unlike some other work environments, we worker bees encourage each other’s learning and share skills, knowledge, tools, and even emotions. As WBFN volunteers, whether at the Mosaic Desk, Welcoming, Members Abroad, the Book Project or MMMF, while organizing an event, book groups, investment clubs, language classes, or networking happy hours—we all strive to build together something incredibly strong. Our end product is golden and can simply not be measured in dollars. It has been proven to be contagiously attractive to people from all walks of life, cultural backgrounds, and ages.

New Tools within WBFN WBFN has grown to a community of over 4,500 members. As the demographics change, new needs arise, and new tools need to be developed, taking advantage of new technical possibilities. Who are we at WBFN in the year 2011? We are more and more the thirty-somethings, who really need to pursue our own careers, or who are starting a family. Both groups really do not have much time for volunteering—as we all know, job search can be a full time job, as can parenting! But, still, we all crave friendships, we need support when life has its tough mo-

ments, and although we can Skype, and tweet and talk on the phone, nothing beats a real person who is there to listen to you, and give you a hug when you need it. We also need a place to hang out, to have fun and share a joke, a place to ask for specific help and information on complicated matters like financial planning, medical questions. This means that WBFN must adapt to our changing demographics. We have been working on two tools just for that, both in different stages of development: Volunteer Job Descriptions on the WBFN Websiteâ€”We often hear from newcomers that it can be daunting to find out what exactly they can contribute to WBFN. They have some time to spend while waiting for their work permit, and need U.S. experience on their resume, or letters of recommendation. For quicker on-boarding of these new volunteers, we have worked very hard this year to make the information regarding the many volunteer jobs at WBFN much more accessible. The idea is to have a link from the homepage of our website directly to an overview of our volunteer opportunities, and from there members can click on the tasks that look interesting to them to learn more. They will find descriptions of what they can gain from participating, what skills they can learn or demonstrate, as well as links to videos, photos and more concrete information. Countless members have contributed to this project in its current advanced stage of development, and some deserve special mention: Faezeh Foroutan for her thorough analysis, Marie-Anne Chambonnier for the brochure she designed, Gilda Dadush and Louise Shimizu for their fine tuning of the raw texts as written by Maaike le Grand. We have appreciated the input from many people, including advice from Global Mobility staff members. Moodle Explorationâ€”Learning is endless, once you are bitten by the bug. It is not only teachers who are passionate about learning. What makes us pick up a book, go to a website and study a topic? What makes us contribute to a forum, and formulate our thoughts for others to read? When it happens, it can be very energizing. Moodle is a web application that helps educators to create online courses with a focus on interaction and collaborative construction of content. At WBFN, we have been using the World Bank Institute Moodle platform for several years to conduct our online financial courses. It can definitely be a powerful tool, especially keeping in mind the increasingly global membership, and shorter contracts at the World Bank Group.

Over the past year, we have been trying to develop other ways of using Moodle in our global community. Development of this tool takes time, talent, dedication and reflection. Alexis Massenet and Gilda Dadush migrated our current website to a new server where we can host a Moodle platform ourselves, independent of the WBI. In early May, a small pilot group, under the guidance of Cary Clark, Alexis and Gilda, explored how we can best set up and use this online learning and community tool, which would allow our members to share best practices, ideas and tips on everything related to relocation. We are still in the early stages of exploring and curious about where this might lead us—for welcoming, for networking, for creating communities overseas.

Initiatives by Members for Members As in any vibrant community, there were also initiatives from various members. The DC Moms and Tots Group launched the Bank Family Forum site for WBG families with children of all ages. Their goal was to create an online forum where WBG parents can post questions and exchange tips, even when they cannot attend a playgroup. Another initiative was the Consultants Job Club, proposed by Valentin Ivanov and Rafael Bosquez. Two other, very successful, initiatives came from Johannes Tonn. He not only set up a thriving Beer Club, where women and working partners are welcome as well, he also started a Job Seekers Club that met every Friday to support one another in their job search.

Reaching Out Initiatives House of Ruth Maryland—WBFN not only supports its own members but also reaches out to other groups from time to time. The WBFN Quilting Group again this year donated to a local charity the proceeds of a raffle of their latest creation. As it was the last quilt to be made by this wonderful group, which unfortunately has now ceased to exist, the quilt was aptly titled, ‘Grande Finale’! The House of Ruth Maryland, which received this year’s donation, is a terrific charity that helps battered and homeless women in Maryland, some with children, to get back on their feet and to regain some structure in their life. In the words of Carolyn Stevens of the House of Ruth in DC, a similar organization and the recipient of last year’s Quilting Group donation, “We gradually chip away at their problems, like a sculptor does with stone, and slowly the women they were supposed to be—before all traumatic experiences—emerge.” Messages from Dubai and to Japan—When disaster strikes and families suffer, sometimes members approach us with questions or suggestions on how we can help other families.

When the revolution broke out in Egypt early in 2011, WBG families posted to Cairo were evacuated to Dubai. There they found themselves, waiting for hours in the sun on a tarmac, with their children and lots of uncertainty about what would happen next. But their misfortune had a silver lining: the families bonded, and managed to set up an improvised “school” for the children for the one-and-a-half months that they were in Dubai. As one of their activities, the children expressed their feelings on what had happened in drawings and poems and, thanks to the initiative of WBFN member Akiko Kimura, were very happy to see these published in Mosaic and on the WBFN website. A few months later, a triple disaster hit Japan: an earthquake, followed by a tsunami and nuclear fallout. Nadeshiko-kai, the group of Japanese WBG spouses, quickly formulated and realized a plan with support from WBFN. The idea was that moral support in the form of messages to the suffering families in Japan could be very helpful, and the Nadeshiko-kai, led by Yoko Yamamoto, Mika Imamura, and Junko Nakayama, collected over one hundred messages from WBFN members and others in the DC area. These messages, poems and drawings were then put together in six different beautiful big size posters with the incredible help of Gilda Dadush and Louise Shimizu. Masaharu Shimizu had established contact with the mayor of a city in one of the affected prefectures who was happy to help with the distribution of the posters to evacuee centers. Subsequently, a delegation of WBFN and Nadeshiko-kai met with the Alternate Executive Director from Japan Yasuo Takamura and Special Representative Kazushige Taniguchi of the World Bank Tokyo Office, who were both very touched to see the posters, and offered their help with further distribution to schools and other venues.

With Our Partners at the WBG While WBFN is not a Bank unit, it has been important for us to maintain good relationships with all the departments that make our work on behalf of the families possible. The recognition of our work by WBG President Robert Zoellick, as well as the continuous and often generous support of HR, GSD, ISG, WBI, and GM to our programs and activities, is testimony of the Bank’s appreciation of our work. On behalf of WBFN, I want to thank warmly HR Vice President Hasan Tuluy, HR Director of Client Services Rajesh Vidyasagar, GSD Director Robert Van Pulley, and ISG Vice President Shelley Leibowitz. Global Mobility—Obviously, one of our most important partnerships is with Global Mobility, whose task is to provide staff and families with assistance on topics like housing, childcare, schooling, souse/partner career support, etc. when relocating. The preliminary results of a

benchmark questionnaire launched by GM showed that family support is extremely important for a successful assignment, and that most contracts that end before the scheduled date are due to family members not being able to cope with the move. This year, we therefore established a somewhat more regular contact with the Global Mobility leadership and specialists in the form of monthly meetings, and have continued to voice the needs and concerns of our members on the above mentioned topics. Topics included the GM teamâ€™s work on an overview of the work permit situation for spouses/partners in various countries and on country profiles for families posted to Country Offices (though unfortunately these are not accessible from outside the World Bank intranet). WBFN has also advocated for a closer cooperation between the WBFN Members Abroad Team and the mobility specialists and WB focal points that support families upon arrival in the duty station on the topics of job search, housing, and schools. WBFN has already had contact with Patricia Hoban in Jakarta Country Office, the first Country Liaison Officer to be appointed by the WBG. Although she herself is no longer in that position, her successor is continuing the work and their work has proved thus far to be successful, since no assignment has since been terminated prematurely. In this connection, WBFN was very pleased to meet with the new Global Mobility Specialist in Nairobi, Angela Chibesa Mwape, who welcomes the families arriving in Nairobi and assists them with relocation matters. Angela is a Bank spouse herself with experience of several difficult relocations. A GM facilitated videoconference in June with the focal point in Argentina and an active spouse living there gave us the opportunity to meet one another and discuss how we can improve our cooperation in supporting the families upon relocation there. At the end of the fiscal year, WBFN was very happy to receive through GM, an updated complete list of focal points in Country Offices. We note, however, that in some countries, there is only an IFC office, or the IFC office is bigger than the World Bank office. In these countries we would like to have the same type of cooperation with IFC staff as we have now built with GM. One of the most appreciated services of GM by our members is the spouse/partner career support. WBFN has continued to stress the importance of this service for our members. Due to many changes (new staff, a new manager and a new location) a certain backlog in GM services available occurred around Christmas. However, this has since been resolved and WBFN is grateful for GMâ€™s generous support to our Networking Happy Hour event in March. GM has now also created a new Resource Center for spouses/partners at their office, and we have been encouraging our members to make use of it. It should be noted here also that for spouses/

partners at Country Offices, the Bank’s partnership with the UN gives WBG spouse/partners the eligibility to become members of UN Local Expatriate Spouse Associations (UNLESA) around the world, through which they have access not only to other job seekers but also to descriptions of the legal situation in various countries regarding work permits. WBFN has greatly appreciated the cooperation with GM Manager Victoria Simons, and specialists Yvonne Quahe and Karen Bajda, who regularly consulted with us. We also greatly valued the contributions of Elena Kuznetsova and Barbara Friedman for the help they have given to spouses in their job search. Staff Orientation—At the bi-monthly staff orientations, WBFN is one of the key partners in welcoming new staff and their families. Since the Bank is hiring more and more staff and consultants for short terms, the turnover rate is high. To remedy the overload of information and paper, a new formula for the first day of the staff orientation started in September. WBFN participated in a 45-minute lunchtime “Open House”, where only Global Mobility, WBFN and the Credit Union showcased their programs. We thank Alejandro Yepes and his team for his support, as well as for his informative and entertaining contributions to our Spouse/Partner Orientation Programs. GLOBE—This group of WBG staff advocates for WBG policies that take into account the needs of LGBT staff and their same sex partners. GLOBE has recently conducted a survey among staff, placing an emphasis on family/partner issues, which showed that LGBT staff who travel to certain countries can experience extreme hardship when they are surrounded by an environment where gay, lesbian and transgender individuals are seen as dangerous, to be imprisoned or “cured”. Many staff do not dare to come out about themselves and are afraid that disclosing their sexual orientation might hamper their career. WBFN met with GLOBE President Fabrice Houdart and Cary Anne Cadman who repeatedly underlined the supportive role that WBFN and its Mosaic newsletter play in Country Offices by showing that families are families, whatever their makeup is, and that we consider it normal to encompass everyone, married or not, gay or not, with adopted or birth children, single parents, or with live-in grandparents. We asked them to encourage their partners to provide us with stories that we can showcase in Mosaic under the heading: Spotlight on Families. HRSSC Visa Office—From time to time our members bring to our attention problems they are having in obtaining or renewing U.S. visas or work permits, which brings us into

discussions with the WBG office handling these matters. In March, the new HRSSC Team leader Carl Valente invited WBFN, GLOBE , IFC HR and other stakeholders to the first of planned future monthly meetings to present his team, inform us about their procedures— what they do, and what they don’t do—and answer our questions. His purpose was to share information and experiences in order to better prepare himself for his dealings with the U.S. State Department. His team presented the volume of visa requests, the ten different types of requests they handle, the three different parts of the State Department they must deal with, the typical reasons for delays, and what they are currently doing to smooth and expedite the process. The Visa Office is currently limited to handling 15 passports a day, and obviously, when summer approaches, backlogs do happen due to the sheer volume. Carl Valente mentioned that he is working on improving relations with the State Department, as well as communications with the staff and families, and will post clearer information on the HRSSC website on the different procedures for visa requests, the typical turnaround time, and what the staff is responsible for providing. Working within the limits of the rules of the State Department, he stressed how important it is for staff and families to provide the HRSSC with the requested dates and documents. In response to WBFN’s questions and concerns about cases where spouses/partners face difficult situations (domestic abuse, divorce, threat of retaliation), he assured us that his team works on a case by case basis, and does take into account the situation of the dependent. General Services Department—The WBFN leadership was invited for a courtesy lunch with GSD Director Robert Van Pulley in October. As the head of GSD, which supervises the Bank buildings, Security, Graphics, childcare facilities, movers, conference services, parking, fitness centers, and much more, his help and generous support of our work has been very much appreciated by WBFN over the years. We discussed ways in which the real costs of our program could be more transparent for our office, thus enabling WBFN to work more costeffectively. We talked about the influences on the families of the various internal relocations at Bank Headquarters, chiefly due to the loss of the H Building. This includes, for example, the new larger childcare center at the C Building at Dupont Circle, a state-of-the-art fitness center in the MC Building, some changes in our parking facilities, as well as the move to our new office location in the World Bank J Building at the end of this fiscal year. HR Recruitment—During the months of May and June, WBFN closely worked together with HR and GM on a more efficient on-boarding of spouses/partners, even before the staff has arrived at the duty station to start work. The idea is that once the staff receives the letter

of appointment, (s)he will receive a link that gives a certain limited access to HR services, including the ability to register the spouse/partner with WBFN, thus pointing them to our website, programs and activities. Ideally, this will lead to contact between the new member and WBFN in the pre-departure stage. HRSLO—WBFN Coordinator Catherine Mathieu managed to gain access for WBG spouse/ partners to language courses at the Bank by making them accessible on the computers in our computer training room. For the moment, this access is limited to French and Spanish. Hopefully, English will follow. Spouses who are moving to Country Offices and have no knowledge of the language spoken there have access to a limited number of Rosetta Stone language courses through HRSLO. WBG Emergency Response System—Another success of WBFN advocacy for which we thank Catherine Mathieu is our participation in the WBG Emergency Response System. In case of an emergency, finally spouses/partners will now also be alerted by the Bank, not only the staff as has been the case for many years. WBFN has not ceased to point out that under the old system families would not be reached if the staff happened to be on mission in places with spotty connections. Spouses will now be alerted, provided their cell phone information is available in the system! Catherine has been trained to provide this help to families in case of emergencies and has also been selected and trained to be part of the Staff and Family Assistance Center (SFAC) as part of her WBFN Coordinator job description.

With Our Partners Outside the WBG Multi-Organizational Events and Projects—It is only natural that we closely work together with our two closest sister organizations, the family associations of IMF and IADB. When we can, we help each other. WBFN is happy to see that this past year the IMFFA was able to secure a more stable legal footing within the IMF, thanks to the example of our own MOU with the World Bank of 2004. Anne-Beatrix Keller, Chair of the IMFFA, has proven that persistence, doggedness and patience can lead to success. Kudos to her! This year the three organizations agreed that each association would host and pay for one event, thus avoiding budget complications. Consequently, in March, WBFN hosted a powerful workshop on using Children’s Literature for a Smoother International Transition, conducted by a contact from last year’s FIGT conference, education specialist Laura Sicola. We also cooperated successfully with IMFFA and IDBFA to organize Networking Happy Hours, supported generously by Global Mobility. In March, WBFN volunteers Philippe Futa, Karen Clarke-Stange, Johannes

Tonn and Fatou Toure pulled off one of these successful events, attended by over 120 people. Most recently, the IMFFA has taken the lead on a survey of our communities’ experiences with health care in the U.S., which, as we know, is not easy for outsiders to access. The idea is to use the results of the survey to produce a little guide to navigating the U.S. health system. Several of our members have contributed to the questionnaire for the survey. Research Project of the University of Chicago—Candice Hughes from the University of Chicago approached WBFN last year asking for our cooperation on a research project on “Expatriate Children & the USA School System,” a study of how cultural backgrounds, expectations and experiences impact the school experience of expat children. Her hypothesis is that even members of the same family go through the relocation process not necessarily at the same speed nor in the same ways—that what we experience when we are in a new culture depends very much on what we have experienced before. Although it is known that moving with children can cause a lot of stress, we have virtually no data on the challenges that face families with school age children. The goal of the study is to give schools feedback on what works and what aspects can lead to vulnerability for the children. Believing this would be an appropriate involvement for our members, WBFN offered our support by inviting our members to participate in the study’s questionnaire. So far, a group of WBFN parents of teenagers in the DC area have agreed to test the questionnaire before it is sent out to all members. Families In Global Transition (FIGT) Conference—WBFN has a very good standing in the world. I experienced that again in March when we attended the annual Families In Global Transition Conference with a rather large representation by WBFN. This conference brings together international companies, service providers, researchers and clients like us in the field of global relocation and transitions. The three-day conference not only offered many interesting sessions on aspects of the life of Families In Global Transition, but also various opportunities for 200 researchers, service providers and clients to meet and exchange views on the topics of their common interest. These occasions often produced fruitful brainstorming and were very appealing, especially on the topics of research in progress. Another very positive factor was the built-in opportunities to network, to exchange views one-on-one or in small groups. I was honored to be invited to give a speech on the first day, titled: “WBFN a long successtory.” This talk gave an overview what factors play a role in encouraging and stimulating volunteers to run a nevertheless professional outreach to families. Characteristic of the conference and contributing to its success was the openness with which experiences and ideas were shared among groups from very different backgrounds: internationally, culturally,

and professionally. Representatives from the U.S. Foreign Service, the military, missionaries, and the international corporate and non-corporate worlds have a lot more in common than would appear at first sight! It was especially this meeting point of the many perspectives that made this seminar a galvanizer for new ideas, little seeds and refinements of analysis. Other Partnersâ€”WBFN delegations met with representatives of several other outside organizations, including Andre Martin, co-founder of www.expatwomen.com, the biggest existing website for expats with some interesting features. Another meeting took place with Stephen Breed, the CEO of the Credit Union, who wanted to share with WBFN upcoming changes in their policy, in particular that of including every household member, and what this means for online banking and security. CU wants to encourage spouses/partners to build their own credit history, to have their own accounts and credit and debit cards.

The WBFN Office Staff WBFN would not be able to function as smoothly as it does without the invaluable support of our incredible office team. Catherine Mathieu has been our eyes and ears, our pillar, who made sure everything was taken care of. Her clear thinking, strategic talents, attention to detail, listening skills, and in-depth knowledge of not only WBFN but also financial matters and the WBG departments have been of great value to WBFN. She was also the go-to person for members who wanted to share their needs, their private concerns and troubles. To sum it up: she was our mom-in-chief. She brought remarkable improvements to the efficiency of daily office work. There are no words to thank her for her support. She was supported by our beloved program assistants Mimi Besha and Christinne Secrest. We are very grateful to Christinne who kept her cool when first Mimi went on pregnancy leave from mid-December until the end of March. Mimiâ€™s baby shower will be remembered by many volunteers. It was a fabulous event, very well organized by Aminata Bojang, with a lot of help from Belkys Lopez, Sadeem Alkadi and others. Mimi was substituted by Monica Zhang who also had to go on pregnancy leave by mid-March. Christinne managed to cope with all the changes despite the two pregnancy leaves and keep everything functioning for the volunteers! On top of that, we had to prepare for our move to the new WBFN Office location at the J Building. Obviously, the move asked for a lot of preparation down to details such as colors, furniture, and procedures of the move, which took place at the end of the fiscal year. It took a lot of energy, and forced us to deal with the cleaning up of our documents and possessions. We thank our architect members Irantzu Serra Lasa and Sari Hannele Castren for their advice regarding the new location. And, we cannot thank enough Catherine, Christinne and Mimi for their invaluable

help with the smooth move on June 25th. However, it should be mentioned that at the time of this writing, a new storage space that is sufficient for our needs still has not been found by the Bank. An important word of thanks as well goes to Louise Shimizu, who was much more than a part-time consultant. She worked countless hours to make sure every written word in Mosaic, @-a-glance, and on our website homepage fulfilled her high standards of correctness. Her meticulous contributions to Members Abroad, the Volunteer Job descriptions for our website, the replacement of Catherine during her leave, the Messages to Japan project and above all her incredible memory of our history have been invaluable for WBFN. Thanks go to her also for editing this Annual Report! The contributions of Tania Gnesdilova also to the well-functioning of our database have been essential. Her patience as a computer teacher is legendary. Thank you Tania!

Tribute to Volunteers It is through teamwork that WBFN has been able to pull of its many activities and programs, and short personal tributes to what individual members have contributed run the highly likely risk of being incomplete and doing injustice to others whose names got lost in the busy workings of everyday. Please forgive us for the inevitable incompleteness. The FY11 Executive Committee was the first EC in our history with two voting male spouses on the team. We do hope the voices and views of male spouses will more and more be represented, as they form an important part of our membership, a quarter! So, let me first thank my fellow EC Members: Philippe Futa and Robert Marson, for giving the male spouses much more visibility, a little bit more in line with their numbersâ€”25%; Belkys Lopez Rabello for her work in putting together the next team; Vidya Rangan, for making sure each month we received a Mosaic packed with useful info and interesting articles; Sally Macartney, for her ceaseless help with the Financial Literacy classes and our invaluable Spouse/Partner Orientation Program; Jennifer Oâ€™Riordan, our charming Welcoming Chair, who despite her own newness to WBFN stepped in to welcome other newcomers; Amber Van De Genachte, who has really stunning event planning skills;

Marie Elisabeth Aubry-Camus, who has already started preparing the picnic for next fall; Karin Metz, who made huge strides in reaching out to members overseas, showed great professionalism in the way she works, and proved to be an excellent secretary; and last but not least, Annemarie Brink Olsen, who brought a green touch to WBFN, an eye for sustainability and structure, and who will lead the team next year! I thank as well EC members who have already departed: Iris Buchinger, who contributed to so many beautiful designs; and Nefertare Galiba and Caroline Gasser, who worked incessantly as Welcoming Chairs. When we learned that WBFN Past President and EC Advisor Rula Ghani would be leaving, on very short notice we organized a farewell party for her. Gilda Dadush contributed significantly to the beautiful layout of a booklet of â€œLetters to Rulaâ€? with many color photos. We were very pleased to see Rula, and WBFN, honored at the party by the presence of Hasan Tuluy (VP HR), Rajesh Vidyasagar (Director HR) and Geremie Sawadogo (the former Manager of GM). Their speeches made clear that WBFN continues to have a very good standing within the Bank, thanks to persistent, polite, objective and clear advocacy by WBFN presidents like Rula. Thanks, Rula! Thanks, Gilda! I want to thank as well my many other advisors, Past Presidents Chantale Holzmann, Hada Zaidan, Rosa Lia Troch and Gilda Dadush, as well as Hilary Welch, Past President of the Book Project. Whenever I needed their advice, they were there, by phone, email, or in person. Your wisdom, encouragement and advice have meant a great deal to me! WBFN is truly teamwork.

Other Teams: The Teen Summer Program 2010 went very smoothly, under the direction of Philippe Futa and Karin Metz. The 2011 program is also off to a good start, thanks to the dedicated work of the team led initially by Rosmarijn Sales, and later Luisa Lopes and Karen Clarke-Stange. The Members Abroad Team under the strong leadership of Karin Metz has made great strides and worked hard to give a platform to the many members living outside the DC area: Linda Kaufmann, Louise Shimizu, Ghusai Gubraiel, Johannes Tonn and most recently Amy Chamberlain. All have contributed to this daunting task. The Male Spouses are getting more and more visibility thanks to Robert Marson, Philippe Futa and Johannes Tonn. The special family events of the past year were big successes under the leadership of Marie Elisabeth Aubry-

Camus for the picnic, Amber Van De Genachte for the children’s events and Annemarie Brink Olsen for the Annual Exhibit. We also thank Rachida El Yadari and Ibrahim Turk for their wonderful photo and video albums of WBFN events. Sally Macartney took great care in organizing the five Spouse/Partner Orientation Programs of this year, and in September we registered the biggest SOP ever in our history. We also thank Monika Sergo for her decadeslong support to our Information Seminars. Mosaic, under the secure guidance of Vidya Rangan, each month offered us a balanced mix of solid information and interesting features— that’s no small feat! She has now started to train Deepika Shrestha and Amy Chamberlain at the Mosaic Desk, who have great writing and organization talents. At the Welcoming Desk, Mawussi Zevounou Bossou has been doing a fabulous job; I have never seen a volunteer grasp the complexity of our database so quickly. Jose Dinglan called newly arrived male spouses, and Vilaykham Phomsouvanh and Monica Zhang helped with the Buddy Program, while Mariella Eberhardt assisted in the office every Monday morning. One of the most difficult topics is domestic abuse. We thank Annemarie Brink Olsen, Fiona Oliphant, Diana Vainstain and Hilary Welch for their sustained efforts to support members in the greatest needs. In the area of graphics, Gilda Dadush has infused a new team of designers with enthusiasm to have a fresh look at our Mosaic layout and/or website: Eva Calonder, Marie-Anne Chambonnier, Cristina Ospino, and Mishi Mirza Mashudah. And, Miguel Barreto, Mikael Reventar, and Alexis Massenet kindly donated their invaluable technical and design assistance for projects big and small. We are so very grateful to them all! I also want to thank all of the volunteers who lead our other activities—including Vim Maguire for her undaunted energy in organizing new cultural events; Catherine Labaste for the fun international cooking events; Adriana Ferreira Heery, Gabriela Gonzales, Monica Lerman, Louise Touber, Aminata Bojang and Aisha Pinga Pinga for their sustained support of the Parents and Tots Groups; and the language teachers. Helen Maybury, has taught English Literature to WBFN members for over three decades and shared with her students the love of literature; being able to speak a language can make all the difference! WBFN is also indebted to all those countless volunteers who helped out during our activities and programs, big events, continuing office tasks, or have held activities at their home. I regret not being able to name them all. Lastly, a special thanks goes to President Zena Soudah and all the volunteers who have continued to support the Book Project, making sure that books were sent to places where

there were none or too few. And, a big thank you is in place as well to the many volunteers who, under the leadership of President Charlotte Jones-Carroll, made the 30th Anniversary of the MMMF such a big success, as well as to Martina Adank, their ever good humored and patient coordinator.

Conclusion As I hope to have conveyed, when you join WBFN, in whatever role or activity, I can guarantee that you will be able to learn new things that you have never even heard of. We keep changing and adapting to new challenges. That is the fun and the challenge. Don’t miss the chance to be part of this wonderful and inspiring organization, in whatever way you like. We have often witnessed that joining an activity can lead to contagious fun. You make friends, you gain confidence, and nothing gives more joy than to pull off an event successfully, or to see your concrete product—a poster, a newsletter, a website—that you can really be proud of. Taking responsibility for a task and seeing how it contributes to our overall strength is an interesting journey. I have been very lucky and happy to have been part of this wonderful organization. Maaike le Grand President, June 2011

PRESIDENT-ELECT’S REPORT First of all, I thank all the volunteers who this year helped and supported me in my daily work as well as those taking part in the events I was responsible for during the year. Without you there would be no WBFN events or activities. You are the precious material of which the WBFN is made. Thank you again, and keep it up. A WBFN President-Elect takes part in many activities, as (s)he is supposed to work closely with the President. In that capacity I joined three budget meetings with the World Bank and our planning meetings with the sister organizations regarding our joint annual activities. When the President was traveling I chaired the EC meeting and checked on the ongoing production of communications to the WBFN members. The Annual Exhibits and the Annual Dinner are also part of the PresidentElect’s TOR and both are reported on separately in this Annual Report. I was part of the WBFN Financial Committee, which met to discuss the budget. I also served as part of the EC Agenda Committee that once a month meets to put together the agenda for the upcoming EC meeting. The President-Elect’s TOR states that (s)he acts as liaison between the EC and new programs. This year several activities were started but only a few were maintained by the volunteers who started them. In FY11, WBFN cooperated with WBFN member Inela Weeks on integrating sustainability into our activities and office routines. This cooperation helped Inela to complete an assignment as a part of her Master’s Degree at Harvard University. On our side, as a result of the cooperation, WBFN made sustainability, in a very broad sense, the theme of this year’s Annual Exhibit. In FY12, I hope we will be able to revive the issue of sustainability in order once more to create a better understanding of the importance of the issue and to install some easy-to-do measures that will help us go even greener at the WBFN. This year, Amber Van De Genachte developed a template for creating big events with volunteers. The template specifies that there is an overall coordinator for the event, and several coordinators in charge of self contained subgroups taking responsibility for a specific area of the many tasks for the event. This worked well in the planning and execution of the events

this year and is highly recommended to be used in teams working to organize future events. During my period as President-Elect, I gradually developed the opinion that WBFN, due to the changing demography and expressed needs of members, should reconsider its way of organizing and recruiting its leadership, as well as evaluate all of its current activities and programs in order to find out whether they are truly needed and if there are volunteers who want to engage themselves in the continuation of them. I also found that the volunteering aspect of WBFN, due to the same two reasons, should be a more prominent part of the WBFN communications. In the last month of FY11, discussions started involving the circle of the FY12 EC members. My intention for FY12 is to help form some working groups that will try to create new models for the organization which can be presented to the members at large for discussion in the RC business meeting, and, if it involves changes of bylaws, also at the FY12 Annual Membership Meeting. The WBFN mission is to create a community and to support spouses and domestic partners who have relocated to foreign countries, i.e. the USA or any other location where the WBG has a Country Office. Of course, there are many ways in which an organization can structure itself around doing this, and we need to identify a way that is optimal in the current context Annemarie Brink Olsen President-Elect, June, 2011

To function, throughout the year WBFN conducts meetings of its leaders where they review the various activities and policies of the organization, make decisions and determine the future course.

KEEPING THINGS TOGETHER

MOVING FORWARD TOGETHER

Annual Membership Meeting The Annual Membership Meeting is open to all WBFN members. Members report about their activities, hear from others and can vote for the new slate of officers. This year the meeting was held on May 12, and about 30 members reported about their activities of the year. We heard reports from the Welcoming Chair, the Childrenâ€™s Events, the Mosaic Desk, and many others. Alexis Massenet gave an interesting overview of the Moodle exploration, and Cary Clark, teacher of the financial classes, who resides in Europe, was able to attend and address the members. A touching presentation was given by Mari Parker. She captured how much the Investment Club has meant to the members; it has been much more than a club! At the end, Nominating Chair Belkys Lopez Rabello presented the new slate of EC members for FY12, which was voted in, and the gavel was handed to the new President Annemarie Brink Olsen. We thank the participants for their sharing and open participation, and thanks go as well to EC Secretary Karin Metz for her excellent minutes!

Executive Committee The role of the Executive Committee is to provide leadership and ensure that WBFN services and programs reflect the changing needs and interests of the WBG families, over 4,500 of whom are currently WBFN members in Washington, DC and around the world. The Executive Committee consists of 12 members: a President, who has a one year term; a President-Elect, who has a full year of learning on the job; a Secretary; a Nominating Chair, who is in charge of contacting members for the new team; a Welcoming Chair; and a maximum of seven other members. Other than the President, proposed positions have a twoyear term on the EC that can be extended for one more year. Book Project and MMMF representatives as well as WBFN Past Presidents, who act as advisors, also attend EC meetings, but do not have a vote. EC members meet the first Thursday of the month, except for the summer months of July and August, when very few WBFN activities are scheduled. As President, I was fortunate to work with a very talented and dedicated team this year. Due to postings abroad, we were already confronted with two changes in August: Iris Buchinger left for Austria, and Nefertare Galiba, our Welcoming Chair, left for Senegal. She was successively replaced by Caroline Gasser, and later by Jennifer Oâ€™Riordan. In mid-December, unfortunately Robert Marson also had to leave the EC. WBFN truly is a beehive; people get jobs, have babies, move overseas or walk in as newcomers each and every day!

Geremie Sawadogo, Senior Human Resources Officer and former program manager of HRSGM, kindly facilitated the September EC Retreat. Almost all EC members were able to attend this interesting session, where we gained a lot more insight into the nine different roles that together make a strong team. We especially had fun identifying each others’ preferred roles.

Nominating Committee Today, we see an increasing trend in the population of our members: we have more young parents as well as more people who are seeking jobs and would like to combine their paid and volunteering work. Therefore, we have seen in the last year, more than ever, a considerable fluctuation in the volunteer force, including among members of the EC. In FY11, some of our EC members left the EC, since they successfully found jobs or other commitments in their lives needed to take precedence. New jobs, new family members or simply moving overseas are among the most common reasons why our members cannot guarantee their long lasting commitment. As Nominating Chair this year, I really enjoyed the process of recruiting a fantastic and talented group for the coming fiscal year, taking the time to explain the activities of WBFN, what the EC entails and what we stand for as an organization. I consider that this team is very talented in many ways, and brings a great mix of new ideas to the table. Last year was the pioneer for male spouses joining the EC. The new EC for the next fiscal year again has a male spouse. He would like to focus on the male integration into WBFN activities, as male spouses have been increasingly joining WBFN, especially over the past three years. In summary, I believe that this team will make a valuable and significant contribution to WBFN during FY12.

Representative Council The Representative Council (RC) meets twice annually, with a “business” meeting in the fall or winter and a recreation/appreciation meeting in late spring. Members of the RC are listed in each issue of Mosaic under the “Contact Information” section and “Activity” pages. RC members are the ones most frequently in direct contact with members, creating or leading programs and activities reflecting member interests. Many RC members hold gatherings, which range from book group meetings, language classes or parents-and-tots playgroups, as well as Get-Togethers to welcome newcomers. RC members may organize information semi-

nars, arrange cultural tours or coordinate events such as the Annual Family Potluck Picnic, the Children’s Holiday Party or the Children’s Art Competition. RC Annual Business Meeting—On February 17, we had a very inspiring meeting with about 35 activity leaders, where we exchanged what motivates us and what the challenges are. The exchange was lively and gave to all present a broad overview of what is happening at WBFN, both at the office as well as in the neighborhoods. Some of us were really surprised to learn about the breadth and depth of what is done by so many members, sometimes for many years. For example, the English Book Club has been flourishing for over 15 years, under the leadership of Myra Jacobs and Melitta Carter. One of the club’s keys to success is that they always incorporate social time to exchange personal matters and arrange for social outings together. The discussion of the books (to which each member must contribute) provides them with a common ground. Other groups started more recently, like the Beer Club. Members of this group exchange information, learn new things together, network and support each other in many ways. Sharing among other activity leaders what works, what the challenges are, and what motivates volunteers to pursue their various activities proved to be very interesting and motivating. Nancy LeBaron was a great facilitator, and Marie Elisabeth Aubry-Camus received broad applause for her spontaneous presentation on volunteering, the activity that bonds us all. RC Appreciation Outing—To thank the volunteers, WBFN organized an outing on June 9, attended by about 40 members. We started with a lovely lunch at the Turkish restaurant Le Divan in Georgetown, where everyone received a personalized certificate of recognition, and then walked from there in the suddenly scorching heat to the nearby gem of the Dumbarton Oaks Museum. Guides were present upon request to explain more about the exceptional collection housed in the charming building amidst a beautiful garden. The garden tour was canceled because of the heat, but the inside of the museum offered some hidden treasures, including nearly two-thousand-year-old Byzantine mosaics on which you can actually walk (!), Pre-Columbian golden artwork and rare books.

Special Events happen only once a year. They involve long-term planning and fall under the leadership of either an EC Chair or Member-at-Large. They require a huge input from our WBFN volunteers and attract a large number of members and their families.

SPECIAL EVENTS

FROM ART COMPETITIONS TO EDUCATION

Annual Family Picnic The WBFN Annual Family Potluck Picnic took place on October 16, at Bretton Woods Recreation Center in Germantown. Nearly 300 people attended. The importance of this event is to create links among WBG families and children, and among newcomers and longer-term members. During the lunch, the families bond with others who have children of the same age, and the children mingle with each other during the games. It also offers newcomers a chance to learn more about WBFN and its activities, and sometimes attracts new volunteers. A team of five people, including Marie-Elisabeth Aubrey, Nieves Rubino and Anuradha Mishra, organized this year’s picnic, gathering six times between September and early October for the preparation. The team delegated the tasks among the five people (sorting through the items in the storage, preparing the games, ordering and purchasing the equipment, sending emails, and decorating the picnic site). WBFN Program Assistant Mimi Besha handled the family registration (Thank you, Mimi). Many volunteers and parents also helped on the day with setting up the picnic buffet and play areas, and welcoming families (Thank you, Maaike and Karin!). Two teens from the 2010 Teen Summer Program and two high school students wanting to earn community service hours joined the team of volunteers. As always, each family brought a specialty of their home country, giving them a chance to enhance knowledge of their home country and to share its culinary traditions. There were fifteen games for the children and their parents, with the children eager to try them all. In addition to these games, a volunteer led a creative workshop for small children, and one person helped through stories and pictures. The team attempted two new activities this year, which, due to their success, are likely to be repeated in future. These were young kids and teen/parent soccer games (Thank you, Philippe and Alexis) and a piñata. The piñata will certainly be remembered. Although the children tried first to break the paper animal filled with candy, the animal finally opened only with help of the parents, releasing tons of candy to the delight of young and old. Everyone enjoyed the good weather and could admire the multitudes of small children running in all directions to the delight of all. It was a warm and friendly event, which WBFN should not hesitate to repeat in future. Thanks go to all—volunteers, parents, teenagers, the WBFN Executive Committee and the WBFN staff.

Children’s Holiday Party The 2010 Children’s Holiday Party, held on December 4, was a huge success. With record numbers, spending below the predefined budget and a smooth, largely trouble-free event, it is something the organizing team, gracious volunteers from the day of the event, and indeed all of WBFN can be proud of. We hosted 834 adults and children that day. We were fortunate to have 64 volunteers who helped set up, serve food, conduct activities and facilitate games. All areas of the event were managed by a team leader. And each of them did a spectacular job ensuring their area was well organized and ran fluidly. Our entertainment for the day, Barry the Magician, was remarkable. He roamed around and entertained small groups as they waited patiently for their turn at an activity, and then performed an amazing hour-long show. The children were enthralled and couldn’t wait to ask him about his secrets after the show; Barry was so patient and kind, answering all of their questions, staying well beyond his “paid” time. We hope to have him join us again another year! The food organization worked very well this year with the idea not to set out all the food at once but to break it up over time. This was to encourage people to take only what they would eat and ensure that there would be snacks available for the main duration of the event. We bought much simpler and less food this year than in years past, only serving a variety of cookies, grapes, crackers, some sandwich rounds and juice, water and iced tea. The only suggestion we had concerning the food was to perhaps provide more sandwich rounds. We did not have any leftovers, so we had no waste at all! The games and activities were fun and exciting this year. All activities were well attended and adequately supplied. However, for face painting, which is always a HUGE success, we may want to consider more face painters next year and actually schedule a floating person who can give people a break next year. All of the volunteers worked SO hard that day! Without them and their amazing skills the families would not have had so much fun! Our system of using team leaders for the main pieces of the event seemed to work well. Each volunteer reported to his/her assigned group leader for directions on how to proceed for set up, take down or during the party. This allowed the head organizer to be able to oversee that

all of the set up and the party were going well and not have to answer an overwhelming number of questions about every detail. We owe a BIG thank you to the CHP Planning Team: Amber Van De Genachte (Event Coordinator), Mabel Cabazes and Karen Manzanilla (Decoration Team Leaders), Nieves Rubino and Ruby Shamayleh (Activities Planning Team Leaders), Anuradha Mishra (Refreshment Team Leader), and Margret Kroyer (Graphics Designer). A huge thank you also goes to all the volunteers who supported on the day of the event…BRAVO!

Annual Exhibits “We held a workshop for the WBFN 2011 Annual Exhibits in the World Bank MC Atrium. Our team presented the workshop called “Natural Alternatives to Hazardous Household Products”. We found information about HHPs and their harmful effects. HHPs are very dangerous to our health because they can be the cause of many diseases. We found natural alternatives that we can use instead of chemicals. They are very cheap and simple. For example, baking soda and vinegar can be used everywhere in the house. We showcased both sides of the topic, HHP and their natural alternatives. People were amazed and asked for copies of the information about natural alternatives to HHPs. It was also useful for me. I stopped using some HHPs in my home. Now I try to be more “Green”. In the future I want to work in this area and I will try to do more for our environment and our health.”—Gulira Alieva, WBFN Member, from the Kyrgyz Republic The 2011 Annual Exhibits took place from April 4th to 6th. The theme was: Sustainability—Living Today, Supporting Tomorrow. First of all, thanks go to everyone who helped to get the Exhibits planned and executed in a successful and timely manner. The volunteer team started to work in January, held numerous formal meetings and even more informal ones. The various team leaders did much of the work from their homes and sent hundreds of emails to the coordinator of the Exhibits as well as to the exhibitors, workshop holders, performers and fitness activity instructors. One compiled a list of all the volunteers we have had within the last couple of years—a useful list for this as well as future events. Some kept track of the volunteers involved. The team also carried out all of the practical matters, like setting up and taking down booths and keeping

track of performers and exhibitors during the event. The volunteers helping in the Atrium during the days of the event manned the WBFN booths, took care of the workshop holders, escorted children from the chorus to the restrooms, modeled for the fashion show and did many other things. They also helped promote our charity drive for the House of Ruth MD by showcasing and selling tickets for the quilt donated by the Quilting Group. Unfortunately, this was the last quilt from the group since they ended their activity this year. WBFN has over the years helped charities through this activity. We will miss them and their active quilting at the future Annual Exhibits. Special thanks go to the Bank-Fund Staff Federal Credit Union and Global Mobility, who helped us to sponsor the event. We also wish to thank the adult and children artists and designers from outside WBFN who helped us to entertain the visitors. And we are grateful to the fitness department who came and engaged us all in some Karate and Tai Chi exercises. WBFN was represented through a main WBFN booth, ten members’ workshops, the educational programs and the Wandering Winners Investment Club. Other WBFN activity groups were missing, but WBFN hopes to see them next year. Staff represented the World Bank partners from various units of interest to our members. The MC Atrium was furnished with altogether ten enticing members’ workshops over the three days, showcasing a varied bouquet of arts and crafts, as well as sharing information on sustainable lifestyles. The workshops had been selected because they each represented one of the many different aspects of sustainability within the broad definition applied to the theme. To mention a few, we had: recycled materials made into beautiful craft products, such as sculptures, jewels and clothing designs. There was also information to be gained on hazardous cleaning agents and their natural substitutes, and another member showed her website about sustainability in Jamaica. One member gave popular insightful counseling. The workshop area was teeming with life and laughter at all times during the Exhibits. As something new, WBFN had one large booth with all the different programs and main activities represented: the Welcoming Chair, the Mosaic Editor, the Communications Coordinator, and the Male Spouse Coordinator—all were there. Several other volunteers helped out at the WBFN booth as well. Interesting discussions took place between visitors and WBFN members at the booth during the three days.

The WBFN educational programs occupied a round table in the middle of the Exhibits to advertize their classes, and the Wandering Winners Investment Club joined forces with the Financial Classes telling about their activities in a booth of their own. Of course, some of our Bank partners were there as well explaining their work to the visitors—Health Services Department, the Domestic Abuse Prevention Program, Global Mobility, the Sustainability Development Unit. Some followed our theme and even brought in a compost box with real worms! The entertainment section was also very prominent. We heard great jazz, an inspiring children’s chorus and watched many WBFN members modeling in a fashion show of three designers’ work with sustainable design in clothing and jewelry. Everyone in the Atrium was also invited to join a Tai Chi or a Karate class as well as to watch a full-fledged Karate show. Looking down from the top of the stairs, the Atrium was a most lively and active place to be during the whole event—a very satisfying outcome of all the hard work as well as great volunteer bonding. Isn’t that what WBFN is about?

Children’s Art Contest and Art & Science Festival On Saturday, May 7 (2‒5pm), over 100 people, WBG children and their parents, celebrated the WBFN Children’s Art and Science Festival at the MC Atrium. Among other activities, the winners and other participants of the WBFN Children’s Art Contest received their certificates. The theme of the contest was “About Change…the World Around You”. At the event, Aditi Sundararaman once again demonstrated her wonderful Indian dancing skills, and the youngsters hopped from fun activity to fun activity: Biodanza, box painting, and rocket building. They loved splurging with paint on boxes, building ingenious rocket constructions and making thoughtful messages for the families in Japan suffering from the recent disasters there. Despite the late cancellation of several of the initially planned activities, all went smoothly. The children were able to concentrate more deeply on the activities, and the atmosphere was relaxing for their parents as well. We thank Amber Van De Genachte and her great team, for pulling this off once again in such an organized way!

Multi-Organization Meetings Children’s Literature for a Smoother International Transition—On March 16, WBFN sponsored this workshop run by a contact of last years’ FIGT Conference, Dr. Laura Sicola. The seminar was attended by a relatively small group of attendees from IMFFA, IDBFA and WBFN. The purpose was to train parents in how they can use children’s books to help their children have an easier adjustment when moving to a new place and culture. Dr. Sicola had brought several books, read one story to us all, and showed in doing this the power of a well written story on the mind. Several attendees were very moved, since it reminded them of their own painful experiences and showed how the problems could be overcome. She then proceeded to give us some background information, and finally had everyone work together in small groups with different books. The evaluations were very positive. WBFN bought several children’s books for our library, which can be consulted by members. Career Networking Events—This year, the family associations of the WBG, IADB and IMF co-organized three Career Networking events (“Happy Hours”) hosted in turn by each association: the IMFFA hosted the first in November 2010, WBFN organized a second for March 2011, and IDBFA proposed the last for May 2011. The events were open to all WBFN, IDBFA and IMFFA members and their spouses/partners (staff). The event hosted by WBFN took place on March 8 (6–9pm) at a conference room on the 8th floor of the World Bank C Building. The WBFN members of the organizing team were Philippe Futa, Karen Clarke-Stange and Johannes Tonn. Fatou Toure later joined the team. The purpose was to bring together members of the three associations and professionals from inside and outside the Bank in an informal setting in order to network, share some drinks, swap professional connections and hear speakers talk about the DC job market and what the job possibilities and opportunities are in the various work sectors. The event met one of WBFN’s missions—to support and assist WBG spouses/partners in acquiring the knowledge needed to be more effective in their job search. The attendance was approximately 110 participants (130 registrations by the deadline) with additional special guests and recruiters from the IADB, the non-profit sector and the private sector. The food and drinks were ordered from the World Bank catering service. Volunteers from all three family associations helped with the set up and welcoming.

The program was split into three parts. The first hour was dedicated to welcoming the attendees and mingling around the bar and buffet. During the second hour, three groups of speakers (representing respectively the nonprofit sector, the private sector and the WBG) gave short presentations about the job market situation and possibilities in their sector. These brief presentations were followed by a Q&A session with the audience. The participants then had the chance during the last hour to continue networking and ask questions on a one-on-one basis with the speakers and recruiters. The guest speakers for the evening were: Jessica Gross of Professionals for Nonprofits (PNP), Simon Evans of SRA International and Franklina Buck and Veronique Kabongo of the World Bank’s HR Executive Resources (HRSER). Overall, we had great feedback from the participants regarding the event. We would like to thank the organizing team and all volunteers for making it the great success that it was! Special thanks also goes to WBFN Coordinator Catherine Mathieu and our Program Assistants, Christinne Secrest and, at that time, Monica Zhang, for their valuable contribution. Last, but not least, we would like to say a very special thanks to our partner, Global Mobility (HRSGM), for their contribution in making this event possible. Thank you to Vicky Cardenas and her “Career” team.

Annual Dinner On May 17, we celebrated our past year with a festive dinner in the 12th floor gallery of the MC Building. Attendees included our partners in various WBG departments, representatives from our sister organizations at the IMF and the IADB, many active WBFN volunteers as well as their life partners and the office staff of WBFN. Thanks go to the WBFN staff and to WBFN volunteer Margret Kroyer who created the very attractive graphics for the invitations and program, as well as to Constance Puech and the other volunteers who decorated the gallery beautifully with flowers. The dinner was a lively and relaxed event. Managing Director Sri Mulyani Indrawati graced the evening with an inspired speech about WBFN and its accomplishments over the years. She also greeted this year’s MMMF grantees. In order to give the dinner guests plenty of time for conversation around the tables and at the buffet, speeches were short and kept to a minimum. A special festive note was added by

the English and Brazilian songs performed by Otaviano Canuto, VP PREM, and Annemarie Brink Olsen, incoming WBFN President. The Brazilian song made some of the guests come to the floor and dance. Towards the end of the evening, the new EC slate was presented, and Maaike was thanked for her great work as President for FY11. An entertaining and relaxed evening came to an end.

Teen Summer Program During the three weeks between June 28 and July 15, 2010, WBFN, together with the family associations of the IMF and IDB, welcomed a diverse group of teens (ages 16–18) to the 2010 Teen Summer Program (TSP). The participants had very different cultural backgrounds, but all had in common that they were sons or daughters of employees of the WBG, IDB or IMF. Through an intensive application and interview process, 32 teens were selected out of more than 80 applicants. For the first time, the TSP requested a fee of $100 from each participant. Half of the fee was used to cover costs of materials and food provided to the participant, while the other half was donated to charities. During the program, held each week Monday through Thursday, the participants were introduced to various work areas and the environment of the three international organizations. After kicking off the program with a well-perceived icebreaker art activity and a general introduction to the TSP, the teens visited the boardroom of the Executive Directors of the World Bank and that of the IDB. They also had a chance during their first week to earn community hours by volunteering at the WBFN Book Project and learned more about themselves in an intercultural workshop on the Third Culture Kid experience. During the second week, the teens learned about topics such as public health, capital market development, and the work of NGOs in the area of international development. They also participated in workshops on Youth Financial Literacy and interviewing skills, and contributed to a worthy cause by volunteering at the Mary’s Center for Maternal and Childcare in Washington, DC. During the last week of the TSP, the teens received hands-on experience by participating in a mock IMF mission, where they had to work in teams to prepare strategies on how to deal with the case of Iceland. Their results were presented at the end of the workshop and critically reviewed by economists from different areas. In addition to more workshops and presentations on, for example, Gender and Diversity at the IDB and the WBG’s Art Program, the teens were also asked in the last week to be creative and write a short essay on their experiences with the TSP for publication in the WBFN Mosaic newsletter. The program closed with a big TSP Quiz

during which the teens, split into four groups, had to answer questions about the lectures, activities and workshops they had participated in over the three weeks. The winning group could decide which charitable organization would receive a $1,000 donation taken from the $1,600 program fees set aside for this purpose. They decided on John Snow Inc., an organization dedicated to improving the health of individuals and communities throughout the world. The runner up group chose Greenpeace as the recipient of a donation of $400. The third and fourth groups each received $100, which they donated to Somali Mam Foundation and UNICEF, respectively. The teens evaluated the TSP very highly. They found that the program not only met their expectations for learning more about the institutions in which their parents work but also offered them an enriching experience during which they were able to interact with others of the same age and with a similar, multicultural background. WBFN thanks the TSP organizing team, Karim Derrahi, Eva Clymans, Martina Adank, Karin Metz, Philippe Futa, and Marie Elisabeth Aubry-Camus, as well as to all the other volunteers involved, for dedicating their time and energy to make the 2010 Teen Summer Program as entertaining and enriching as possible.

ACTIVITIES & PROGRAMS

Activities and Programs are organized and take place throughout the year, they fall under the leadership of either an EC Chair or Members-at-Large. This year WBFN sponsored on average thirty activities/programs per month.

SHARING FUN WITH STAFF !

ARRIVALS AND WELCOMING Introduction The goal at WBFN is to ease the relocation of WBG families and to be a “Home Away From Home” for our members. Welcoming is at the core of what WBFN does. The Welcoming Team has been successful over the years in warmly welcoming families from all over the world, acclimatizing them to their new environs and making them feel at home in the DC area. This is done through the provision of relevant and necessary information, as well as encouraging and facilitating opportunities for social interaction via a wide variety of activities.

Some facts and figures from FY11 During FY11, WBFN welcomed 428 newcomers, 358 of whom joined us in DC while the rest are located in WBG Country Offices. When we talk of a family network, all too often it is felt that this is a female-orientated group, yet it is interesting to note that although as spouses/ partners women remain in the majority, a very significant 36% of this year’s newcomers are men. This statistic is important as the number of male spouses/partners is on the rise, and this trend is expected to continue into the future. The majority of our new members (84%) are located in the DC area with only 16% in Country Offices; however, of our prospective members, 48% are in DC and as many as 52% are in Country Offices. Prospective members are newcomers to the WBG whom we have approached regarding membership, but who have not yet responded. This shows the growing need for outreach to these members and is an area in which we will collaborate with the Members Abroad Team in the year to come. A significant percentage of our members joined us through the New Staff Orientation Program. This highlights the importance of WBFN representation at staff activities to create greater exposure to our services and to ensure that families register with us as early as possible. The new on-boarding process, which will link staff and spouses/partners to WBFN at an earlier stage, will also help to fulfill this need.

Five key steps to welcoming “WBFN is very welcoming when people come in, it is an easygoing process, and you are made to feel welcome immediately.” The WBFN Welcoming program takes the following steps to initiate our new members’ introduction to life in the DC area. In addition to providing information, each of these steps

provides members with a platform to meet fellow newcomers and to discuss the many common issues and concerns they have. 1. The Welcoming Coffee/Information Session takes place monthly in the WBFN Office, generally on the first Tuesday of the month (10am‒12pm). We provide information on the various activities, programs, courses and workshops that WBFN offers. We give tips on issues such as obtaining a driving license, healthcare, childcare as well as allow time for questions and discussion. Speakers also come from Global Mobility and the Family Consultation Service. 2. Get-Togethers are held once a month at a member’s house (10:30am–12pm). This is a social gathering providing members an opportunity to meet others, both oldtimers, catching up with old friends, and newcomers.. 3. The Buddy Program tries to help our newcomers as soon as possible after their arrival. Our volunteers telephone newcomers to see how they are getting on and answer questions. We are always looking for buddies, including those who can speak languages other than English. 4. The Surviving Culture Shock Workshop is offered several times a year. Led by professional facilitators, it is a forum for discussing the challenges faced by spouses/partners, including the losses and gains involved in moving from country to country and in changing cultures. This program is attended not only by newcomers but also by longerterm members and is described in more detail under the Education and Information section of this report. 5. The Spouse/Partner Orientation Program is held five times a year, generally in September, November, January, March and May or June. This one-day program is a shorter version of the four-day orientation that new World Bank staff members receive and focuses on the spouse/partner’s perspective. It introduces participants to the history and work culture of the WBG and gives an overview of the benefits for staff and families, U.S. visa issues, work permits and U.S. taxes for G4-dependent visa holders, wills, and retirement benefits. The program also familiarizes participants with the health services for staff and families, health insurance, the Security Operations Center, the Bank-Fund Staff Federal Credit Union and the Global Mobility services. Participants are also introduced to the work carried out by WBFN—its programs, resources and ready-made support network. The WBFN held five sessions of the orientation for spouses and partners during FY2011. A total of 114 attended these sessions. Two thirds of the attendees had been in the Washington area less than one year. Although most of the attend-

ees (64%) heard of the program from their spouse, many also mentioned the website and email communications. More than one third of the participants were male. Evaluations of the program presentations by attendees were uniformly high. Most of the attendees found the material covered in all the presentations relevant and helpful. Participants wrote that the presentations were informative and enjoyable. The presentations of greatest interest included staff benefits, especially health insurance, and the US Visa program and work permits. The Welcoming program provides newcomers with the following publications to help them relocate more easily: • The Welcoming Kit is sent to all newcomers and includes information on Education, Healthcare, Career Resources, Housing, Childcare, Eldercare and Emergency numbers and information. • Planning Makes a Difference contains information about Living, Working and/or Being an Employer in the USA; World Bank Benefits; Family Finances; Domestic Problems and Divorce; and Dealing with the Death of a Spouse.

Issues arising At Welcoming, we continue to receive very positive feedback regarding the services provided at WBFN. Usually members are relieved to have been introduced to or to have discovered WBFN. The following is a sample of the prominent issues raised by members at Welcoming Coffees, Get-Togethers and other platforms through which our members discuss and share information. • Difficulties and inconsistencies in obtaining a driver’s license in DC, Maryland and Virginia • Lack of information prior to relocation, which leads to unnecessary stress and insecurity • Questions about dependent parents and their status • The different types of WBG staff contracts and the consequent eligibility or ineligibility of members in relation to WBG benefits • The status of WBFN members who do not yet hold G4-dependent visas, for example, those who married subsequent to arrival in the USA • The perception that WBFN is orientated towards women

Challenges • Primarily to continue to meet the needs of WBFN members, to increase our outreach capabilities and to anticipate future needs

• To increase our visibility and thereby increase attendance at Welcoming Coffees, GetTogethers and other activities • To attract more volunteers so that we can maintain a team and ensure continuity • To change perceptions that WBFN is female-orientated and to increase male participation • To highlight that volunteers come from all backgrounds, professional and otherwise, and that all members can contribute

Future plans Through our ongoing interaction with members, we are made aware of the issues and challenges faced by them. An important area of work in the coming year will be to understand better how spouses/partners get to hear of us, what motivates them to come and meet with us and, most importantly, what they are seeking from us. We need to understand whether the outreach strategies we use and our welcoming methods work and how we can improve upon these. In addition, we need to investigate and implement methods to increase members’ exposure to WBFN. An exciting new approach, which is in the early stages of development, is the use of the “Moodle” Internet platform. This tool has the potential to prove very effective for the interactive sharing of information and experiences of WBFN members in the DC area and all over the world.

The welcoming team At Welcoming, we are very lucky to have a group of committed volunteers whose effort and dedication is deeply appreciated. It is not just that they give of their time to help us meet our key objective of welcoming new members and helping them regain their independence in what is for many a difficult time of change, but also that they share their personal experiences with the newcomers. This latter resource, while intangible, is often as valuable as the provision of information alone. Their commitment, professionalism and good humor makes for a very positive and productive working environment. The current Welcoming Team members are: Jennifer O’Riordan (Chair), Hema Badrinarayanan, Mariela Eberhardt, Jose Dinglan , Juliet Namaganda, Vilaykham Phomsouvanh, Laura Smaldone, Mawussi Zevounou Bossou and Guili Zhou, while previous members this year included Nefetare Galiba (Chair), Caroline Guiriec (Chair), Rachida El Yadari, Saadia Latif, Angel Mugabi, Dharana Nepal, Vjollca Saliu, Selene Sopelana Loyo and Monica Zhang. Sally Macartney has been in charge of overseeing the FY11 Spouse/Partner Orientation Program.

What our volunteers say: “I have been here for two years now, but I still remember how it feels to be alone and feel dependent. The idea that I will be helping someone to get out of that situation through all the opportunities that WBFN has to offer motivates me to be involved in the Welcoming Team”. Prior to the Representative Council Meeting held in February 2011, the Welcoming Team was asked what their motivation behind volunteering at WBFN was. Team members said that initially they became involved with the Welcoming program simply to get out of the house. The effect of this, however, was that by volunteering they felt useful. They felt empowered and more independent and, crucially, they met people and began to develop their own network of friends and acquaintances. The Welcoming Team volunteers also feel great empathy towards newcomers, as they have experienced and sometimes are still experiencing many of the same difficulties. A key factor highlighted is the positive atmosphere which exists at WBFN and lends itself to continued participation of volunteers. Another factor identified was the location of the WBFN Office. Because WBFN is located within the WBG buildings, it increases the possibility of meeting people who have attended seminars, workshops and other activities and, therefore, further develops ties between members.

Thanks People say that Welcoming is one of the most important areas within WBFN. While it plays a central role within the organization, it depends upon the input of people involved in all other activities to keep it functioning. The constant ebb and flow of volunteers means that new volunteers are constantly being introduced to the various activities at WBFN, the Welcoming tasks, the database, the Buddy Program and so on. The fact that the office is filled with professional, friendly, fun loving, people means that this all happens seamlessly. There is a great generosity of spirit, and so a special thanks to the staff—Mimi, Christinne and Catherine—and to the volunteers at WBFN for all their help and patience. A special word of thanks to Maaike le Grand for her continuous advice and assistance at the Welcoming desk and to Tania Gnesdilova for helping the Welcoming Team understand and use the database better, especially for updating Buddy profiles, enabling the team to work more efficiently. Thanks go as well to Cary Clark, who provided a Moodle workshop for us, and whose infectious enthusiasm is leading us towards exciting new advancements in our welcoming approach. Thanks also to Mariella Eberhardt for her ongoing dedication and for so reliably putting together all those Welcoming Kits. Finally, thanks to all the volunteers past and present who have contributed to the Welcoming Team.

COMMUNICATIONS Mosaic Why not talk about my team members from the perspective of the richness of multicultural traditions and the plethora of enriching traditional nuances that they bring to our monthly newsletter, Mosaic? Small talk is not necessary in Holland, so let me jump straight in. The Dutch are progressive and open, but they are also traditional. This is what I like about Maaike le Grand. She is a fun-loving Dutch, who can bike of course, and who means business when it comes to that. Discussion and cooperation are very important to the Dutch, and so it is with Maaike too at every Mosaic meeting. It is no mean task that Maaike made time for Mosaic amidst the innumerable things that were on her presidential agenda. So, a big thanks to her! The Danes get down to business right way. So let me not keep Annemarie Brink Olsen waiting. She is my trusted teammate, and she is, as you know, from Denmark. Punctuality is a Danish strongpoint, and Annemarie is always prompt in arriving for Mosaic meetings! The Danes are frank in their manner of speaking and mean every word they say, whether you like it or not. I have encountered this at every Mosaic Meeting! But this straight forwardness has also translated into imaginative cover pages, creative input to articles, and many healthy debates on Mosaic content. Like any Dane, Annemarie thinks tangentially, a valuable asset that she brings to publishing. Louise Shimizu is Japanese, wait, nah she is American! Hmmm…ok, Louise is an enigma! We all know that! How and why she works so hard? How does she have this never-ending energy and tolerance even at 6pm in the evening? How can she read an article over and over until every comma is right and every word is in its place? How can she enumerate every anecdote, history and policy of WBFN? I bet no one has the answers. The Japanese are said to harmonize with their surroundings and work well in groups, but this is indeed a different level of Japanese harmonization that I have encountered. Louise elevates ordinary experiences into something special every time she gives her input. Expressing strong viewpoints is not a Japanese strength but when it comes to putting her foot down, you betcha, Louise is one strong American lady. Working with her on a one-on-one basis was an excellent learning opportunity, and she is, I must admit, an amazing teammate.

Gilda Dadush is free, as free as the wind, and is a true citizen of the world. You tend to see a bit of this and a bit of that in her. She is an amalgamation of cultures and experiences, and she displays unique cultural elements and perspectives. She loves to talk, talk, talk, like the Indians; she is as multicultural as the Moroccans, she is as passionate and creative as the French, and she has an unbridled American spirit true to Pocahontas. She is the creative spirit that spurs the design aspects of Mosaic and Mosaicplus and she is an invaluable asset to the team. Deepika Shrestha is one of the finest and the newest additions to Mosaic. She is a true lady of the mountains; she is hardy and reliable, extremely flexible and adaptable! Deepika is a youthful and straightforward Nepali. She is a quick learner, and she has been a tremendous help to the newsletter. Big thanks to her for her wonderful contribution as a teammate. Henry Kerali is the typical English gentleman. He is now in the UK pursuing a course in journalism. I hope his first report writing was on “William and Kate’s” gala wedding, there is always time to write about other things. Henry was an excellent team member; he was dependable and could be called upon at short notice to write any article we needed—no wonder he landed up at the school of journalism! Eva Calonder is from France, and is a new addition to the Mosaic Design Team. There is no denying that the French are innately creative, and Eva seems to have close ties with the French artist lot, for I find her extremely original and endowed. Eva welcome to the Mosaic Team! Catherine Mathieu, Christinne Secrest and Mimi Besha, from Brazil, Philippines and Ethiopia, are the potpourri of WBFN. Each brings her cultural nuance to the office and works in harmonious union with the volunteers who hail from varied countries. They symbolize in microcosm what WBFN is all about—Unity in Diversity. I have had a chance to work closely with all three of them, and I must say that it was a pleasure working with them on Mosaic issues last year. Working with Martina Adank (MMMF) and Zena Soudah (Book Project) was a wonderful experience. Both took extra care to make sure that they kept up with the requirements and deadlines. Thanks to other MMMF members too, Charlotte Jones-Carroll, Sarah Brau and Georgine Ahmad, who always tagged me in their email loop and kept me abreast of what was happening…it was amazing going through their experience right from the beginning until the finished product in Mosaic.

Lastly, Mishi Mirza Mashudah, Hema Badrinarayanan, Valery Andrades D’ Souza and Heddy Kivine also provided able support to our team. Big thanks to all the contributors and writers who sent in articles each month and to Global Mobility, HSD, Credit Union, HUB and all our activity heads. Special thanks to Ibrahim Turk and Rachida El Yadari who provided amazing pictures. The reach of Mosaic seems to be growing with each passing year, with more areas of the Bank like HR and the Staff Association announcing their activities in Mosaic. Our relationship with the Bank Art Program has strengthened and grown, and now Mosaic regularly features initiatives and programs from this unit too. Our “Stress in the Family” page, which features DA issues, is a regular series now and is well liked by our membership, since it covers important topics and issues. This year we received numerous and diverse letters addressed to “Dear Mosa” that dealt with pertinent matters relating to our members. Our series on “Flavors of the World” covered all corners of the globe, and was a big hit with the members. The Teen Summer Program participants appreciated the series of articles by the TSP writers; this year they came up with varied articles on diverse topics. In February 2011, we did a “Members Abroad” issue and extended our reach to all the members at Country Offices through this special issue. It not only gave us a chance to interact with them, but it also afforded an opportunity for our members living abroad to contribute to the newsletter. We hope to keep this blossoming relationship with the MA growing stronger. Mosaic now has a page reserved for our members abroad to write on topics that are crucial to them. This year, Mosaic also got a chance to host a writing contest. It was well received and we hope to host a bigger one next year. As WBFN carefully prepares, prints out and mails about 3,900 copies of Mosaic each month, we have also grown planet savvy and are trying various ways to make our publication more eco-friendly. Already, 17% of our members are helping us by opting for the pdf or web version. In conclusion, I would like to add that it was great working on Mosaic this year. I got a chance to interact with excellent teammates, juggle deadlines, put together great content, work on important initiatives, share lots of fun moments, and finally have the satisfaction of having done something rewarding and fruitful. Thanks go to each one of you who has contributed to making this experience worthwhile!

Mosaic’s Allied Partners – Website, Design and Photo Teams The web has helped us bridge the global gap and take the global leap. It has united us virtually, and there is no turning back. True to this statement, our webmaster, Gilda Dadush, woman of the world, made great strides last year with our WBFN virtual communication using members from all over the world. The Website Team is literally an amalgamation, a melting pot of cultures. The team members create each project with great distinction and add to each assignment their own cultural nuance and amazing creativity. Our posters this year designed by Miguel Barreto and Margret Kroyer for the Annual Family Potluck Picnic, Children’s Holiday Party and the Annual Exhibits were colorful, creative and distinct. They successfully attracted a targeted membership and sent out a focused message. The man from Colombia and the lady from Iceland excelled at getting the job done quickly, designing with a unique perspective, using colors effectively and keeping their work simple. A big project that Gilda took on for the MMMF with Cecile Ferri, Martina Adank and Charlotte Jones-Carroll was revamping and redesigning their website. Their website now is simple, easy to use and attracts a large number of people. The MMMF Forum poster and the Forum Program were created with help from Miguel Barreto. Gilda also mentored Mikael Reventar in revising the Book Project website. The WBFN website now too has a new home; it is indeed the time of travel and global expansion so why not move our website also to better climes? WBFN website has moved from Network Solutions to Hostmonster.com, due to several restrictions that existed in installing new tools. The migration went off smoothly with almost no hiccups, thanks to several members who helped Gilda with this project. The website team still faces some problems with email accounts but by September hopefully those minor road blocks will be ironed out. The new Website Team has Marie-Anne Chambonnier, Cristina Ospino, Mishi Mirza Mashudah, and Mawussi Zevounou Bossou working very hard at rethinking, redesigning and updating the WBFN website to reflect better the needs of its members and the change in demographics. What better way to do this than to put a team of culturally diverse members who bring in their own point of view on things? The team is an amazing group of inspired and vibrant youngsters. Eva Calonder, a new member of the Mosaic Team, has taken up the daunting task of giving Mosaic a new look from September. She has designed a new template and given the newsletter a new avatar. Her design is fresh, simple and attractive!

Another new project in the pipeline is Moodle. Moodle expanded is Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. It is a free and open-source e-learning software platform and the website team hopes to share this educational tool among the WBFN membership. The software has been installed and is in the process of being configured, thanks to the huge work of Alexis Massenet. The initial brainstorming sessions included original and useful inputs from many volunteers. Maaike le Grand and Cary Clark have been instrumental in getting the project moving forward. Our thanks are due also to Tania Gnesdilova, Sally Macartney, Louise Shimizu, Johannes Tonn, and Karin Metz for their valuable input and contributions. The project has started taking shape, and the focused team has moved on from exploring possibilities and features to the more concrete steps of designing the site. Instant Form Pro, here again Alexis Massenetâ€™s help has been invaluable in installing the software, exploring and understanding it, and training Mimi, Christinne, and Catherine on how to create forms. Forms are an invaluable tool that the WBFN staff use to communicate with the WBFN membership. The introduction of this new software is a very good step forward as it allows us to create professional forms while ensuring better security for our data. The Website Team is also exploring new versions of our software in order to more efficiently and more attractively distribute our print publications online. They are looking forward to making it possible to process e-book versions of Mosaic and the Annual Report. What a busy year it has been for our Website Team! As is the norm, it looks like some of the tech work has to be outsourced. But wait, we have members from all over the world here in DC who donate their valuable time and skills to make every project a success. Kudos again to all the members who have contributed to these projects!

EDUCATION AND INFORMATION Computer Classes Every other week, mornings (9:30am–12:30pm), one or two of the following courses were offered: Windows, MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS Access, Adobe Dreamweaver Part 1 and Part 2 and the newly introduced courses Adobe Photoshop Elements and Advanced MS Excel. We started this year with a new computer room that accommodates ten, not just eight, computers. A total of 54 students attended the courses. This year we had on average four students per class, but Adobe Dreamweaver, Parts 1 and 2, as well as the Advanced Excel courses, were well-attended and in demand. As the demand for more advanced courses is growing and the need for introductory courses is subsiding, we are completely revaluating the courses we currently offer, and starting September 2011, a new list of courses will be offered as follows: Organizing your Computer Memory (Files & Folders) Using MS Windows • • • • • •

Advanced MS Word Advanced MS Excel MS Power Point Adobe Web Page Creation - Part 1 Adobe Web Page Creation - Part 2 Adobe Photoshop Elements

I thank all my intelligent and wonderful students who attended the courses as well as the never-tired Mimi Besha and Christinne Secrest for their help; and a big thank you to Catherine Mathieu who helped in organizing and maintaining the courses.

Language Classes and Groups English Classes—From October 2010 through mid-April 2011, three levels of English for Speakers of Other Languages were taught twice weekly at two-hour classes in seminar rooms in the World Bank H Building.

The teachers—Sarah Brau, Carmela Cosans and Michele O’Neill—created each of their classes to suit the needs of their individual students. For the first time, WBFN admitted students not only from among spouses/partners of staff of the WBG but also of the IMF and the IDB. The students were placed in the classes after an initial interview conducted by the teachers. The teachers based their assessments on the students’ ability to speak and understand spoken English and a small piece of their written work. They also gave the students an opportunity to express their needs and explain what they hoped to gain from the classes. The class sizes were small, between 10 and 13 students. Most of the students were new to Washington and still adjusting to their new life in the U.S. as well as to the language. In class, each student gave a presentation about his/her country as a cultural contribution, in this way gaining confidence in speaking skills. The teaching philosophy was to provide a warm and encouraging background in which the students could strengthen their confidence and competence in English. The teachers chose a textbook for each of the levels and supplemented with a range of readings from other sources as well as additional grammatical materials when the need arose. All the students met in one group at the beginning of each semester and were encouraged to interact with each other. Other chances to do so were at a potluck lunch, held so the students could introduce some food from their countries, as well as at holiday lunches in private dining rooms in the Main Complex of the World Bank. Additionally, a table was reserved in the cafeteria after each the class to encourage the students to continue their conversations over lunch and to help them with forming friendships. Students visited the Book Project for a field trip and organized outings in the area to see movies or visit museums together. Other events were baby showers and a pre-wedding lunch. Help was also given with writing resumes and taking driving tests or finding volunteer jobs. The consensus seems to be that the most important part of the classes was the opportunity to learn from other students and their experience.

We, the teachers and students, wish to thank the WBFN staff for facilitating registration and communication with the students and staff, the World Bank for providing space, and WBFN for its generous support in making this program possible. Business English—During FY11, the WBFN calendar included one of the same courses in Business English offered the previous year, Communicating in Business, and again the teacher was Frank Sterrett. The course consisted of 24 hours of classroom time. Both the teacher and the students also needed to spend a minimum of 1‒2 hours in preparation outside the class in order to maximize the utility of class time for all concerned. Enrollments in the course were 16. The course was an overview of the full range of spoken business communication skills, including cultural differences, and overviews of meeting, presentation, and negotiating skills. Methods used included case studies, group and individual presentations, and peer critique, as well as the more traditional methods associated with language learning, such as grammar and usage exercises and pronunciation. Although there was a structured content outline, the interactive approach to learning directed the sessions towards the learners’ needs and drew on their professional and life experiences. Thus, although this as primarily a language course, students developed and applied business skills, including problem solving, teamwork, and business relationship building. These skills are easily transferable and vital to individual success in a U.S. business setting. The full series of Business English includes a course on Business Presentations and another on Business Negotiations. However, these were not offered this past year due to the teacher’s illness. Feedback from participants has been very positive, and WBFN will offer the full series of Business English courses in FY12. Advanced English/Introduction to Literature Group—This group, taught by Helen Maybury, met every Wednesday (10am–12pm) at her home in Falls Church, Virginia. The group is represented by the countries of Finland, Estonia, Turkey, Cameroon and Korea. At the beginning of the year, the group read stories from an anthology entitled Magical Realist Fiction, which features largely European writers. Currently, we are reading from another anthology, The Oxford Book of American Short Stories, edited by Joyce Carol Oates, which starts from the early colonial period and continues to current short-story writers. The group also read and discussed the play, Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller.

In Helen’s words, “For me, having been born and lived overseas, the fellowship with this diverse group is a continuing privilege.” Intermediate French Group—Taught by Catherine Gouarne, these classes were held on Thursdays (10am‒12pm) in Bethesda. Advanced Spanish Conversation Group—The group met every Friday (11am‒1pm), except during the summer, at various member’s homes.

Financial Education WBFN offers a series of three basic courses: a two-day seminar and two computer-based e-learning courses, which are designed to introduce participants to the financial world and equip them with tools to make informed decisions about spending, saving and investment. There are two additional one-day seminars, “Getting On With Money” and “Time Management”. The WBFN office staff provides invaluable assistance for all of the financial courses. Money Matters/Financial Literacy Seminar—Our longtime financial literacy trainer, Cary Clark, presented her popular Money Matters Seminars on October 26 and 27, and again on February 22 and 23. Topics covered included demystifying financial jargon, understanding your family’s pension plan, how the stock market works, and how to construct a portfolio appropriate for your particular circumstances. A total 25 people attended the classes. The participants’ reviews of the classes were highly favorable, and many signed up for the online Family Budgeting Course. Getting On With Money Seminar—Cary Clark led this one-day seminar on February 28. Participants examined their attitudes towards money, looked at the impact these have on the way they manage their finances, and identified strategies to improve financial planning and decision making. There were 21 participants. Time Management Seminar—Participants learn how to identify what is important, prioritize tasks, eliminate ‘time wasters’ and time stealers’, and communicate for effective time management. This seminar was not held in FY11. E-Learning Courses—The Family Budgeting and Savings and Investments courses are computer- based e-learning courses. They were originally developed by Cary Clark and World

Bank staff member, Kathy Tanner (now retired). The courses were used as part of the program to introduce WBG staff to the net pension plan started in 1998. WBFN has continued to make these courses available to WBG spouses with the financial backing of the World Bank HR Department, the courtesy use of the World Bank Institute website, and the assistance of Cary Clark, WBG staff members, including Isabelle Bleas (now retired) and Sheila Jagannathan of WBI, and the WBFN volunteer facilitators. This year the WBFN volunteers were Sally Macartney, Tessa Ravry and Djyldyz Kydyrova. The e-learning environment replaces the traditional classroom with a “virtual” classroom online. Students can participate at any time of day from any location with Internet access. They communicate with other participants on the website’s discussion boards. Facilitators encourage student participation and discussions and answer questions. Interest in the program and participation by members in country offices has been growing. Classmates can be around the corner or halfway around the world. Introduction to E-Learning—Many financial course participants have little or no previous experience with online courses. The WBFN offers an online course, Orientation to Online Learning, to familiarize the participants with the online learning environment and the course software. WBFN course facilitators are available to assist participants. Course participants become familiar with the online learning environment, learn how to navigate the course website and interact with fellow participants in a virtual world through practice assignments. Family Budgeting—The Family Budgeting course establishes the foundation for successful personal financial planning: setting up efficient recordkeeping, creating a budget, tracking expenses, getting out of debt, setting financial goals, determining net worth. Learning to manage household expenditures paves the way for savings and investment decisions covered in the Savings and Investments course. The five-week course contains one unit per week, with a homework assignment for each unit. Participants also discuss topics of interest in a general online forum. Everyone is encouraged to share their opinions. The Family Budgeting course was offered this year starting in November and again in March after the Money Matters seminar. A total of 25 people participated. Savings and Investments—The online Savings and Investments course helps participants prepare for future financial needs, especially retirement. Participants estimate their savings requirements, investigate their family pension plan, learn about the trade-offs of putting their

savings in stocks, bonds or cash and research sources of information and investment advice to manage their portfolios in a global economy. This course is currently under revision and is scheduled to be offered again in January 2012.

Wandering Winners Investment Club—The Wandering Winners Investment Club (WWIC) was founded in June 2001 by 25 WBG spouses, who were WBFN Financial Literacy Seminar students taught by Cary Clark. Membership at the WWIC is an enriching experience that teaches and improves financial awareness and stock market skills and provides opportunities to make friends. WWIC holds monthly meetings the second Wednesday (10am‒12pm) at the World Bank. WWIC is registered with the National Association of Investors Corporation (NAIC). WWIC has elected officers and up to 25 partners, who operate under a set of Bylaws (Partnership Agreements). The Club has a broker and also holds weekly study group sessions for members who are interested in order to discuss details of portfolio management, research new securities, and learn together. 2010 marked a year of portfolio turn-around for the WWIC as the economy slowly emerged out of a long period of recession. The economic downturn over the last several years had taken a bite out of the WWIC portfolio too. Members had been keeping morale up by using the uncertain times to increase knowledge for actively reading and increasing understanding of the international markets, mounting research studies that eventually led to purchases and sales, listening to speakers, and taking webinars to learn. Some of the victories and highlights of this year are as follows: WWIC had been studying the Health Care and Hospital Industry, and it therefore was ready to take advantage of an investment opportunity that came the day after President Obama’s Health Care Reform in March 2010. The small-cap hospital care company purchased then proved to be a winner. Also, in parallel with Obama’s alternative energy platform of April, WWIC advanced its international study of nuclear energy, including caveats into environmentalist concerns, water usage, and government regulatory frameworks. Our conclusion not to invest yet proved good. WWIC had always believed we had missed the timing for investing in Apple. However, our research and good intuition just before the launching of I-pad encouraged us to make a purchase into Apple that we have not regretted.

Research topics mounted this year included the following: identifying high dividend yielding stocks; reviewing nuclear energy and related stocks (Exelon, Babcock and Wilcox; U.S. Ecology Inc.); looking at a tech company IPO; studying ETFs and Bonds as investment tools; and asking why invest in gold. New stocks purchased were Rehabcare Group (RHB), Apple (APPL), Convio (CVO), BHP Billington (BHP) and about an equal number of stocks were sold from the portfolio. In addition, reinvestments were made into three of our strong companies and a part of the shares was sold from three of our winner companies. WWIC is proud that at the end of the year, the WWIC portfolio clawed its way back up enough to beat the S&P 500 once again. We are grateful to the following speakers who helped us increase our knowledge this year: • Mr. Vadim Alatortsev, Financial Advisor at Morgan Stanley: “Municipal Bonds” • Mr. Ozgur Karaosmanoglu and Mr. Aydin Tuncer, Vice Presidents and Investment Wealth Management Specialists at the Global Wealth Management Group Raymond James and Associates: “Economic Outlook for 2011” This year, WWIC had many observers: twelve in all. However, most ended up unable to join as they got jobs and went to work. It seems to be more of a trend today and WWIC feels there are ever more reason for Bank families to become savvy investors. We look forward to new members joining in the coming year. I, Tessa Ravry, WWIC Club President for 2009-2010 would like to sincerely thank the Club officers: Mari Parker, Vice President; Patricia Caicedo, Treasurer and Archivist; Djyldyz Kydyrova, Secretary; and Sally Macartney, Parliamentarian. I would also like to recognize all our members for their commitment and active participation throughout the year, including offering to help others learn. We owe our success this year to the generous spirit of fellowship, cooperation, and volunteerism.

Information Seminars Since 1985, these seminars, arranged by Monika Sergo, have been providing information geared to help WBG families better understand how U.S. laws and WBG regulations apply in areas where foresight and careful planning can significantly influence the outcome of various difficult situations. The seminars focus on topics such as Work Authorization, Permanent Residence in the U.S., Estate Planning, and Inheritance Tax and Income Tax in the U.S. All seminars were well attended and much appreciated. Attendees benefited greatly by having this

opportunity to get valuable and reliable information and clear answers to their many questions presented to our experienced and professional guest speakers on a range of important issues. The following seminars were offered in FY11: • • • • • •

Work Authorization for WBG Spouses with G-4 Visas How to Qualify for Permanent Residence in the U.S. Estate & Inheritance Tax in the U.S. U.S. Income Tax: Preparing and Paying WB Pension Plan: Why Careful Planning Ahead is So Crucial Estate Planning Options Available in the U.S.

Jobseekers Club or “Keeping the Energy Going” Global Mobility provides excellent educational workshops on a variety of career-related issues specifying “How to”, i.e., “How to break into the DC job market”, “How to focus and rewrite your CV”, “How to deal with ‘behavior-based’ interview questions”, and “How to network in the U.S.” (the most important element starting your career in the U.S., believe it or not). However, in the end, Global Mobility cannot provide concrete jobs. Unfortunately for the job seeker (who would like to get started right away), the U.S. domestic labor market (and even the international consultant market) requires job seekers to “keep the energy up”, constantly look for job opportunities, apply over and over again, establish networking contacts at all levels and during all opportunities, and, as a result, eventually land a job. The major objective of the Jobseekers Club is not so much to get a job—it will happen!!!— but rather not to get frustrated over time and discouraged in the process, as landing a job can take as long as three years. The Jobseekers Club (JSC) was created with precisely this idea in mind: “Keep the energy going”. More than anything else, we are a study group with positive energy that meets every week and keeps the much needed job searching energy up and alive. We practice interviewing skills, CV-writing, and elevator pitches and discuss general questions such as taxation, salary negotiations and/or how to make sense of social media to land a job. We do have many answers already and—as a study group—encourage fact finding when there are new problems and sharing solutions with the JSC. We invite guest speakers from Global Mobility and the pool of spouses/partners who have successfully found jobs, and we plan to invite speakers from the private sector, from specific

thematic sectors (such as law, health, development) and from the large development institutions in DC. We also participate in the tri-annual networking event, each organized respectively by a different family association—WBFN, the IDBFA or the IMFFA. We are complemented by another “Spouses Consultant Job Club” that is likewise focused on encouraging networking and information sharing; however it does not meet on a weekly basis. We encourage jobseekers to join us after having completed the Global Mobility workshops as we continue sharing tips and tricks, offering peer to peer support and meeting regularly at our weekly meetings to encourage every jobseeker to keep the energy going. As a result of the pilot that we have run over the past months, and building on the experience of past WBFN career activities and workshops, we are currently working on an 8- to 10-week curriculum to discuss, practice and maintain that much needed platform to keep the energy going. Finally, there are many other career-related issues WBFN would like Global Mobility to work on and we encourage volunteers to get involved with these ideas—to brainstorm, conceptualize and advocate for better services and increased importance placed on career services.

Surviving Culture Shock Workshop The Surviving Culture Shock Workshops are for those who have arrived for the first time in the DC area and for those returning to DC after some time away. The challenges that face WBG partners, including the loss and gains involved in moving from country to country and in changing cultures, as well as the psychological aspects of moving, the process of change and American values and culture are discussed. Workshops are co-facilitated by Nancy LeBaron and Yvonne Quahe with support assistance provided by Mimi Besha, Christinne Secrest, Catherine Mathieu, Maaike Le Grand and members of the Welcoming Committee. Three Surviving Culture Shock Workshops took place in FY11 with a total of 26 participants: 12 participated during the October 18 Workshop, 8 on February 14, and 6 on May 9. Those attending felt that the number one benefit to them was the realization that they are not alone and that others are facing the same challenges that they face. The Workshops provide

the opportunity to meet new people and participants are encouraged to exchange contact details as this is a starting point for them in building a new support group. Participants completed evaluation forms following each Workshop. The feedback received in FY11 rated the Workshops as being extremely valuable to participants and their familiesâ€™ adjustment to the U.S., the DC sub culture and contributed to their understanding of the World Bank.

MEMBERS ABROAD Since the beginning of 2010, WBFN President Maaike le Grand has put great efforts into reestablishing the Members Abroad (MA) Team as one of the core work areas of the WBFN. The main goal of the MA Team is to enhance our outreach to WBFN members living overseas while posted to WBG Country Offices around the world. We aim at giving support to members relocating to or already living overseas. We want to create stable and efficient ways of communication with our members abroad, and learn how WBFN DC can best help them in their challenge to feel at home wherever they are in the world. We hope to enable them to benefit from the strong community WBFN has created over the years at Headquarters in Washington, D.C. The MA Team’s work falls into three categories: what we do internally, what we do to reach out to our members abroad, and what we do in cooperation with WBG counterparts like Global Mobility.

WBFN Internal Guidelines and Regulations I—The MA Team has created various documents to support our members in their lives overseas. One of the main documents that we created details guidelines for setting up spouse/partner support groups at WBG Country Offices overseas. Besides giving some ideas on how to organize the first meetings and how to go about forming a group, it includes ideas on welcoming activities. The main goal of the document is to motivate members to start some support structures no matter where they are, and help them to understand that it is not difficult and can be a very rewarding experience. Guidelines and Regulations II—Another document details regulations established for the creation of WBFN offices overseas. A spouse support group at a Country Office is welcome to declare itself a local WBFN Office and use WBFN’s logo and corporate design. It can also receive an @wbfn.org email address for communication with other group members. WBFN groups overseas are asked to report back to WBFN twice a year through written reports about their activities and development. In general, WBFN strongly supports any initiative from our members to create support structures for WBG spouses and families at Country Offices. No matter if a group wants to run under the WBFN umbrella or not, we will do our best to support them in their endeavor.

Moodle e-platform—Together with other WBFN teams, the MA Team is currently in the process of creating a Moodle e-platform. The motivation for MA to engage in this process derives from the often expressed need of our members around the world to have a platform where they can directly exchange information and experiences with each other. We want to provide a tool that allows our members to engage more directly in communication with WBFN as well as with other members, independent of where they are in the world. Many details of the e-platform still need work, for example, how to administer and maintain the eplatform and how to make it attractive for members to use. This process will need more time, but we are enthusiastically working on these new ways of communication. GW Student Project—At the beginning of the 2011 calendar year, we were approached by a group of students from the Human Resource Development (HRD) Program at George Washington University who wanted to conduct their Consulting Skills class project in cooperation with the Members Abroad Team of WBFN. The MA Team introduced the students to the challenges we face in our work, trying to increase WBFN’s outreach to members living at Country Offices around the world. The students summarized their findings and recommendations in a final report that they presented to their university and to WBFN.

Our Outreach to Members Abroad The most important contact level in our outreach to members living abroad is still the individual level where we communicate with our members mainly through email. On the individual level, we put relocating members in contact with other WBG families living at their respective Country Office. We have also been in contact with members from Country Offices in Istanbul, Cairo, Pretoria, and Brasilia who are interested in creating support structures for WBG spouses and families in their countries. The WBFN and the MA Team are very excited about these initiatives and determined to support these members the best we can. Besides the individual level, we also try to maintain our outreach to our members living abroad through an e-newsletter, which we send out every six to eight weeks, containing information that might be especially interesting for our members abroad. Topics for the enewsletter include upcoming online classes, Global Mobility activities that affect WBG families living abroad, and any kind of information that might be of interest for our members at Country Offices.

MA Mosaic issueâ€”The February 2011 issue of Mosaic focused on the topic of Members Abroad. It featured fascinating stories from WBFN members who shared their personal experience about living abroad as well as useful information on the WBFN and Bank support network for relocating members. We are grateful to the Mosaic Team for its great efforts in putting together such an exceptional issue. The Mosaic Team also has committed to setting aside one page in each Mosaic for a Members Abroad topic. Questionnaireâ€”In order to find out what challenges our members confront at Country Offices and how WBFN can best help them in their endeavors overseas, in October 2010 the MA Team sent out the link to an online questionnaire to about 265 members around the world. Through the answers we received, the MA Team gained valuable insight into the lives of our members overseas and their needs in the process of relocation and settling into a new environment. This information serves as a guideline to design our work areas within the MA Team and gives us ideas on where best to put our focus. It was decided to keep the questionnaire open since it is a great tool through which members can easily give us feedback.

Our Cooperation with WBG Counterparts The cooperation with WBG counterparts has increased for the MA Team. For the first time, the MA Team now has a small timeslot during the Overseas Assignment Briefings for staff and spouses/partners relocating to Country Offices. We are able to present the WBFN and promote the idea for members to contact us if they want us to put them in touch with other WBG families living at the Country Office where they are going. Additionally, the MA Team has occasionally been invited to the regular meetings between the WBFN President and President-Elect and Global Mobility Manager Victoria Simons. At these meetings, we have had the opportunity to present what we are working on as well as coordinate efforts between Global Mobility and Members Abroad. We were excited to receive the news that Global Mobility appointed a relocation specialist, Angela Chibesa Mwape, in Nairobi, Kenya. Angela is a WBFN spouse herself and now has a full time position, appointed for the next one and a half years, to give support to relocating WBG staff and families. After Jakarta, Nairobi is now the second Country Office to have such a position. We hope this positive example will be replicated in other Country Offices as well, to improve the support for relocating staff and families!

PARENTS AND TOTS

Groups meet weekly in various venues, providing much-needed time and space for parents and children to socialize and find a sense of belonging: an invaluable service to WBFN members, and fun for their children, too.

Expecting Moms During a few winter months, expectant members met five times for up to two hour sessions. The intention was to prepare the women for the birth of their children by reviewing different subjects, create a forum where any questions could be asked, and build a network of friends who were in the same situation. Areas we covered were pregnancy, labor and delivery in the U.S., pain management and breathing, breast- and bottle-feeding newborns, baby care and common questions. It was a great asset to have the assistance of Huda Batterjee in the breastfeeding session. She is a lactation consultant and very knowledgeable in this area. Our members were from Brazil, Pakistan, the U.K., Ethiopia, China and Lebanon. A few more expecting women were in touch with me with questions regarding the upcoming birth, but could not attend our meetings. The majority were far away from friends and family who would otherwise be the natural support system for an expectant couple. These sessions and consultations offer a way to overcome the lack of immediate family nearby and have personal resources to contact when needed. A rewarding aspect was to be reminded of the fact that we share so many things, regardless of where in the world we come from. Women have the same worries and hopes when pregnant, we all want healthy children. It was a privilege to share this time with these mothers; I thank them and wish them good luck in parenting. I am looking forward to starting a new class later this year, also with the assistance of Huda Batterjee.

Downtown Babies This is a ‘Mommy/Daddy and Me’ playgroup serving Washington DC for newborns to threeyear-olds. The group counts 20 members to date. We are as diverse as the WBG; we come from the U.S., France, Germany, Japan, Senegal, Portugal, Great Britain…

The group is dedicated to providing fun activities for parents and their children—Mom’s/ Dad’s Night Out for adult conversation, play dates for the little ones, always sharing ideas and general day-to-day life issues. We are mothers and dads who enjoy meeting new friends, sharing parenting issues, and having fun. We usually meet on Wednesdays (10:30am‒12:30pm). We get together for gym play at a playground, go to the zoo or to museums, have picnics, shopping trips, etc. If the weather does not permit us to be outside, one of us will host the meeting. As WBG families, we are in a unique situation and understand the need for parents to get together with their children and have much needed socialization. We invite all members to join our warm and welcoming group where moms and dads with children get together to share daily adventures, frustrations and discoveries and where children have an opportunity to develop their socialization and language skills.

Maryland (MD) Parents & Tots The Maryland Parents and Tots group is a playgroup for WBG and IMF spouses and their young children (typically 0‒5 years old). The playgroup is a place for stay-at-home parents (we have one stay-at-home dad) to get a chance to chat with other grown-ups over a cup of coffee and for the children to try out someone else’s toys. Currently, we meet Wednesdays (10am–12pm) and on average five families attend each gathering. Generally, a member hosts the playgroup at her/his home, but occasionally we meet for an outing to a playground or some other child-friendly activity. Because not everyone can host on Wednesday, we have also held the playgroup on a different day. We also have enjoyed the new Arts for Tots Program at the Bank. Makaki is great at getting the children engaged during the tour and the length of the program is just perfect. It is also a great opportunity for us to visit the spouses for lunch at the Bank and for the children to see where Dad/Mom works. In addition, we try to meet one evening every two months, without the children, for a “night out” at a local restaurant. In the past year, we have had the pleasure of welcoming several new members to our group from Cameroon, Austria, Japan, Mexico, South Africa and Thailand. We have also seen some of our long-term members saying goodbye to others leaving the DC area. We have welcomed a few new babies and younger siblings. Most of our playgroups this year have been at members’ homes with only a few outings to either a playground or a nature center. The children have been doing a good job of sharing their toys and the adults have been able to have a few

half-finished conversations about life in the suburbs of DC. As a special activity this year, we successfully organized a Sunday brunch/picnic for the whole family held on May 1. For the fifth year now, we have been using Yahoo! Groups and it has proven to be an efficient way of organizing ourselves. Besides using it to do all of our scheduling, we have continued to share information via its various functions about items of interest to our group members. Those interested in joining our group can do so at http://groups.yahoo. com/group/BankFundKids.

Virginia (VA) Parents & Tots We are a group of parents with young children four years and under who live in Virginia. The group serves as a social network for spouses of WBG employees. We meet once a week on a Thursday morning (10am‒12pm). Everyone is welcome and that includes fathers and expectant mothers. We have had a few changes this year: our most faithful member, Birgit Sheldon, moved to Maryland but continues to join us on a regular basis. We are hoping she will help us become acquainted with the WBFN Maryland group. We have welcomed three new members into our group and we have had three babies born! We feel that being a parent is stressful enough, so we follow a relaxed approach and have no fixed activity during playgroup. The toddlers thrive on the freedom which they then have to play with their friends’ toys. For parents with younger babies, it is a great opportunity to get advice and tips from parents whose children have already moved onto the next developmental stage. What motivates members to attend?—meeting people in the same stage of life, building relationships, and sharing interests and information. Our members are always willing to help each other out when needed. Changes for this coming year: to connect with members in the DC and Maryland groups; to connect with the families, perhaps a gathering over a weekend once or twice a year; to connect with spouses especially when husband’s are away on missions; and to have a guest speaker at a playgroup session, if possible.

Spanish Maryland (MD) Parents and Tots This playgroup is for children aged four and below. The group meets on Fridays (10am‒ 12pm). One of the goals is to create an environment where children can develop Spanish skills. The group attempts to take a first step at deepening the children’s relationship with a language different from the one they will mostly hear while watching educational videos or listening to baby lullabies.

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ACTIVITIES Beer Club The Beer Club was born in December 2010 when seven male spouses “re-invented the wheel—once again” and decisively made up their mind to come together every Wednesday for a cold and much anticipated “mid-week” beer. A delight! Ever since that day in December, more people have inquired to be on the email list, and we gladly welcome every newcomer: bclub@wbfn.org. Although it is a beer that most of us cheerfully focus on, we do have friends and regulars that will stick to water, prefer coke or enjoy a glass of wine. While we do test out different bars and beer places in the DC area, we have one ‘regular’ downtown at 1 Dupont Circle: Famous James Hoban’s. Participation usually ranges from 5 avid companions to as many as 25 energized mates gathering; The idea is to network in an informal environment, meet new people, join in on current discussions, laugh, share ideas and resources, figure out jobs opportunities, reinforce existing friendships and just have a place to hang out for an hour or two. The Beer Club is an open format where participants don’t have to commit to coming every week or even every other week. Whereas it was (naturally) men who started the Beer Club, we became aware very quickly that women were as much interested and invited our wives, partners and friends to join just as well. Since then it is a truly open format, where participants don’t have to register or commit; just bring any number of friends, colleagues, neighbors, consultants or extended family, as they like. It is all about having a good time and networking at the same time. Beers, Alessio, André, Christian, Jacobo, Jayant, Johannes, Ryan and friends!

Book Groups African Book Group—Traditionally, the African Book Group meets from September to June, usually on the third Monday of the month. In December, in place of the regular book discussion, we joined with our spouses for our annual potluck holiday dinner. As usual it was a lovely and enjoyable evening.

This year we started our meetings in October as most of our members were scheduled to be travelling through late September. At the beginning of the year we had an average of 10 regular attendees, and we gladly welcomed four new members and one returnee as the year progressed. We meet in various members’ homes (from 10am) and spend the first 30 minutes socializing and enjoying the delicious fare prepared by the host. Thank you, ladies! The two coordinators of the group, Melitta Carter and Monica Schott, share the administrative duties. Monica researches the author and starts the meeting with such information as she has gleaned. Authors are chosen from as many different African countries as possible and members are encouraged to give suggestions for both fiction and nonfiction. Our choices this year were: • • • • • • •

The Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and his Nation by Susan Williams (Botswana) Beneath the Lion’s Gaze by Maaza Mengiste (Ethiopia) The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi (Nigeria) Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Somalia) The Boy who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba (Malawi) Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin, (Rwanda/Zambia) Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna (Sierre Leone)

In recent years we have joined with our English Book Group friends, some of whom are also our members, for the final meeting in June. The book traditionally has been chosen by that group and there is always a special guest speaker. To round up the year, a sumptuous potluck follows the lively discussion. Melitta’s duties include communicating with both the members and the Family Network. She keeps track of the books we will be reading and have read in the past, and generally maintains the roster. After many years serving as one of the coordinators, Monica has stepped down. She divides her time between Washington and Europe and with her two gorgeous little granddaughters moving to Spain, she will be travelling even more. We extend a big thank you for all her research on the authors, etc. Debra Byam has joined Melitta as the second coordinator. American Book Group—Michelle O’Neill and Carmela Cosans set up a new book group after being approached by some of their new English students. In order to help these students gain a greater appreciation of American culture, this new book group concentrates solely on American authors.

The group has also enjoyed watching film versions, when available, of the novels they have read. Held every third Thursday of the month, the group began meeting at the end of October. Due to the inclement weather during the winter months and the unexpected closing of the bookshop where meetings have been held, attendance has been somewhat erratic. The group will continue to meet in the fall and is currently in the process of selecting novels that will offer readers a sampling of both contemporary and classic American writers. The novels are sure to offer extraordinary insights in a rich, diverse and exciting culture! We have read: • The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty • In Cold Blood by Truman Capote • The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan English Book Group—Sabine Tourreilles and Myra Jacobs steer the English Book Group, which meets 10 times a year. Attendance at our monthly meetings peaked between 18 and 25 a few years back, taxing space and discussion time, so we have not added to the approximately 30 members since. However, interested WBFN’ers should please contact us for openings. Meetings last two-and-a-half hours so we can enjoy an initial schmooze over brunch, leaving around one-and-a-half hours for discussion. Everyone gets a chance to have their say about the month’s chosen reading. Good friendships have developed among our members, and the group provides support and encouragement in times of need. New members typically settle in easily, helped by a shared love of books. We regularly arrange group outings to movies, theatre and exhibitions, particularly to any related to our past or current readings, or involving our members. We take turns hosting meetings on the fourth Wednesday of most months. Exceptions are July and August when we have no meetings and June and December when we have potluck events early in the month. We have very diverse backgrounds, and for most of us, English is not our native tongue. Books are suggested by members and may include recently released novels, classics, non-fiction, and memoirs, including translations into English. We read eight or nine works each year. Discussions are always lively, informed by our varied life experiences and viewpoints.

Between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2011 we read the following books (brackets show the month and hostess): • • • • • • • •

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (September, Myra Jacobs) The Eaves of Heaven by Andrew Pham (October, Silvia Domenge) The Dogs of War by Henning Mankell (November, Sigrid Blobel) The 19th Wife by David Eberhoff (January, Sabine Tourreilles) We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver (February, Barbara Cackler) Room by Emma Donoghue (March, Myra Jacobs) Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (April, Mercedes Irigoyen) Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson (May, Rosario Jones)

Many thanks go to those who hosted discussions for offering a delightful venue, ensuring adequate seating, and providing superb brunch buffets. All the books we chose for reading over this past year generated excellent discussions, and most were of uncommonly high quality. February was the last regular meeting for longtime member Elsa van Wersch. Elsa relocated to the Netherlands with her spouse. She will be following our reading from afar and has vowed to plan return trips to DC to enable book club attendance! Twice a year we hold very special events: the summer and holiday potlucks are always highly anticipated, and never disappoint. By longstanding tradition, our June 2010 Potluck event was hosted by Vim Maguire. While the weather gods did not favor us, Vim’s lovely home and garden were filled with a happy crowd. For our edification—and entertainment—members Hilary Welch and Pamela Edwards, both history buffs, treated us to a crash course on Tudor life and times. This was a much valued effort to help minimize intimidation of the rest of us by our chosen summer reading, the formidable historical novel, Wolf Hall. Our December Potluck dinner for members and their significant others was again held at the lovely home of Dianela and Dilip Ratha. Thanks to our gracious hosts, the big crowd enjoyed our best collective food efforts. The old cliché describes it best—a good time was had by all! Entertainments that members undertook together included a visit to Philadelphia for the “Late Renoir” exhibition, viewing the movie of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (in connection with our reading an example of the Nordic crime thriller genre), the British Players’

“Round and Round the Garden” (produced by talented member Sigrid Blobel), and several piano performances by our very accomplished pianist, Barbara Cackler. French Book Group—As in the past, the French Group met, from September through June, on the third Friday of each month at the houses of our members. We have read the following books (brackets show the month and hostess): • • • • • • • • •

Les chiens et les loups by Irène Némirovsky (September, Leonore Oblitas) La formule préférée du professeur by Yoko Ogawa (October) Hymnes à l’amour by Anne Wiazemsky (November, Dalila Benachenhou) Noces by Albert Camus (December, Muriel Dominguez) Où on va, Papa? by Jean-Louis Fournier (January/March, Cecile Kelly) Ru by Kim Thuy (February, Anne Dyer) L’accompagnatrice by Nina Berberova (April) L’enfant bleu by Henry Bauchau (May, Phi Fostvedt) Les derniers jours de Stefan Zweig by Laurent Seksik (June, Eileen Roulier)

German Book Group—The German Book Group meets every third Wednesday of the month. Members take turns at hosting the event. They concentrate on reading contemporary German literature from German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland); they also read and discuss contemporary books from other European countries that have been translated into German. In every session, they discuss a number of different books, since they order only one copy of the books to be discussed during the year. Their discussions usually last two hours and are followed by a luncheon provided by the host.

Bridge Friday Duplicate Bridge—This group gets together at different members’ homes on Fridays, (9:30am‒2:30pm). Wednesday Bridge Group—We met on the third Wednesday of the month (10am‒2pm) for duplicate bridge and lunch. The current group has been in existence since before 1973, organized as an informal bridge group by a few Bank wives. However, as the years have passed, fewer and fewer of the participants have any affiliation with the World Bank—maybe about four now out of the twelve who usually participate. Mostly, the members are “seniors” at this point. Perhaps any WBFN members who are now looking to join a bridge group would

prefer a younger group. We have had only a couple of calls from possible new World Bankaffiliated participants in the last two years. One was an inquiry about bridge lessons, and we were not able to help with her request

Chess Club The Chess Club previously planned to meet every Friday (10am‒12pm) at the WBFN Conference Room. But this schedule and the location were made flexible to accommodate the availability and convenience of the participants. The Chess Club does not have permanent members, except the coordinator and coach. However, three participants have registered: one at the beginning of the present fiscal year for two months, one in the middle of the present fiscal year for five months and one starting in May 2011. Our Motto is: “Let’s find out together the analogies between Chess and Life or Chess and Business.” We have two main programs based on the participant’s level. The beginners level covers the basic chess rules including the goal of the game (mating the opposite King), and the basic opening, middle and end game concepts. The advanced level is based on the five main touchstones: 1) material (importance of the relative weight of materials in relation to placement); 2) development (importance of a speed development for initiative even if in material down situation); 3) placement of pieces and pawns (spatial and dynamic analysis of pieces and pawns); 4) King position (as a master piece, losing the King means losing the game, hence, the King must be strategically positioned and tactically well protected); 5) time (gaining a tempo can change the outcome of the game. This globally means that striving for a permanent initiative with an additional tempo is more valuable than being in a piece up situation— sacrifice vs. initiative). Most people ask what could be the relationship between these activities and our motto. The answer is simple: we could not pretend to find a fragment of this analogy if we had omitted these previous prerequisites. After each session, as necessary, I sent by email the bottom line of the ongoing activity, giving details of key concepts presented during the session. The participant in turn gave his/her feedback. These email exchanges contributed to speeding up the assimilation of the basic chess

concepts. We never moved on to the next chess concept until the participant had mastered the previous one. In April 2011, the Chess Club contributed to the Mosaic newsletter. The article was a first try to inform people about the possible similarity which exists between chess and life, and chess and business. Those who are interested in Chess or are more curious can feel this similarity with ease. Finding this sort of similarity could entice sensitive people to discover or deepen this noble game. This similarity does not have any scientific aspects; however, it witnesses human intuition and consequently the understanding of what’s going on around us. We have planned two main activities for the next fiscal year. I plan to keep the same programs and activities depending on the newcomers and the new demands. Depending on the number of the participants, the Chess Club could organize an internal tournament and perhaps invite some leading chess players in DC. I will also keep writing some articles for Mosaic for the next fiscal year. These articles will treat our motto in more detail, so that people can get a better understanding of the real Chess beyond the Chess game—in other words, how to play Chess beyond Chess, which simply means that the Chess game could be understood as a step or a tool for facing our daily life’s challenges.

Get-Togethers Get-Togethers were held once a month from September through June at a member’s house, from 10:30am to 12 noon, and provided members with an opportunity to meet other WBFN members. A total of 10 Get-Togethers, were held—4 in DC, 4 in Maryland, and 1 in Virginia—with an average of 7 persons attending each gathering.

International Cuisine The members of this group meet for a cooking demonstration once a month (from 10:30am). A different culinary theme is chosen every month. A participation fee of $20 is required. Every individual present receives a copy of the recipes presented in the session. The coordinator is Catherine Labaste. The following demonstrations were held between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2011 (brackets show the month and hostess):

• Ecuadorian Cuisine: ceviche de camarones, llapingachos (potato patties with cheese) and colada morada; 7 attendees (September, Martina Luzuriaga). • Thai Cuisine: son in law eggs, chicken with aromatics, basics of green, red and massaman curries; 12 attendees (October, Lesley Younes). • French Cuisine: choucroute de poissons (fish sauerkraut); 16 attendees (November, Isabelle Tausch). • International Potluck with spouses (December, Catherine Labaste). • Japanese Cuisine: miso soup, sushi, Asian pear and watercress salad with sesame dressing, and green tea ice cream; 8 attendees (December, Catherine Labaste). • Indian Cuisine: green beans with spiced cashew and yogurt sauce, chicken biryani, chapattis, khoulfi-mango (ice cream) and khoulfi-rose water (ice cream); 11 attendees (May, Phi Fostvedt). • Egyptian Street Food: foul medammes, chicken shawarma, konafa and Turkish coffee (June). Many thanks to all the hostesses who showed their extraordinary culinary talents! It wasn’t always easy to find someone willing to demonstrate and open his or her house to everyone. If possible, I would like having a person who could help us arrange and clean the house after the meeting. For the future, I would also love to publish recipes in Mosaic as well as publish a book containing all the recipes that we have discovered and enjoyed over the years.

International Cultural Group The International Cultural Group meets whenever an educational or culturally interesting place, activity or event (exhibition/show) is identified. There are no fixed dates for meetings and the number of events per year is also flexible. During the past year, the events were: • Guided Tour of Adams Morgan (October) • The Chester Dale Collection (March) • Guided Tour of Georgetown (April) This group seizes the opportunity to sample some of the unique cultural experiences available to those who live in the greater DC area. Participants in the tours tend to be longer-term members. It is hoped that these programs will be brought more prominently to the attention of newcomers so they can take advantage of the special arrangements made by the group.

Male Spouse Activities Background—Embracing, welcoming & supporting families of the WBG are the mission of the WBFN. And by families, we mean ALL family members, including husbands, fathers and male partners. For a long time the WBFN was perceived as an exclusively feminine environment. This was certainly due to the beginning context of the family association…It is true that in 1972 it was all about “WIVES—Women’s Information and Volunteer Services—helping wives”. But times have changed since…In the past 25 years, the number of households in which both spouses work has raised steadily, thus the practice of being a “stay-at-home dad” has also become more common. And with regard to the Male spouse situation at the Bank, more emphasis needs to be placed on cases of unemployment resulting from a family relocation, which means that this is not necessarily a conscious decision for men. This is why a support system for male spouses/partners is important and also why, in the past 5 years, male spouses have been identified as a target group to bolster WBFN’s activities and programs. Brainstorming—The Male Spouse Group, coordinated this year by Philippe Futa and Johannes Tonn, decided to organize a reevaluation kick-off meeting to brainstorm about the involvement of male spouses and partners in WBFN activities. The meeting was held on February 10 and was considered a success by verbal feedback recorded from attendees. The objective was of course to listen and tune in to potential ideas, concerns and challenges that male spouses and partners may be facing and would want to make known. This was also the opportunity to connect male members with each other, establishing links and social network. The participants were all open to further involvement and expressed their wish to be kept in the loop regarding further male spouse activities. Administrative concerns (such as work permit, driver’s license, social security, etc.) and knowledge of getting organized in the DC metro area dominated discussions, followed by specific areas such as post graduate degrees and reconcilability of parenthood and job-seeking. A few recommendations were made for future activities, including the interface activities with other WBFN areas. It was noted that phone calls seem to have a greater effect on outreach than emails only. Even though 20 male members recorded they would attend the meeting, the actual turnout was lower than expected.

Activities—In terms of activities, this year, we unfortunately didn’t have the chance to continue or develop our English conversation group started last year with the help of Robert Marson and Vidya Kumtakar. But it must be pointed out that the accent this year was mostly put on social gathering events such as the weekly Beer Club (see separate report) and the organization of our first Male Spouse Soccer game, held on May 15 at Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC. We had some great feedback from participants regarding this first sport event. It was proposed by all to organize more informal soccer games on a regular/weekly base. In fact, since our first game, a small group of players have started playing together on Sundays. We hope to continue all these activities next year and do much more while building a network of male involvement in all WBFN activities.

Quilting Group The quilting group met every Wednesday afternoon (2 –5pm) to work on the latest quilt. They also met with other WBFN members from time to time, mostly former quilting group members, to have lunch and share experiences: of moving to and from DC, for example, and other “life” experiences, two members becoming mothers for the first time, some members returning home after a few years in DC. The quilt started in the autumn of 2009 was finally completed in February 2011 and rebaptized “Grande Finale”. The biggest quilt made by the group, it measures 84 inches by 96 inches and covers a double bed beautifully. It was extensively advertised in the Mosaic issues of April and May 2011, with the winning raffle ticket drawn during the WBFN Annual Dinner in May. The winner, Rosa Lia Troch, was a very active member of WBFN for many years and is presently retired in France. As a result of the raffle, a check for the sum of US$2,600 was sent to The House Of Ruth, Maryland, in recognition of the help they provide to WBG families in need these days. The ladies who worked on “Grande Finale” during 2010 and 2011 are Stefanie Borchert, Patricia Garcia Uribe, Anja Gutschera, Gabriele Hofmann, and Vivienne Mordasini.

WBFN Gallery All WBFN members and their immediate relations are welcome to display their creations in the WBFN Conference Room, and this will continue in July at our new location at the J

building. We enjoy a large variety of work, including fine arts, jewelry, photography, ceramics, drawings, cloth and textiles. Exhibits hang/display for one month or more. The artists can promote or sell art work during special events like the receptions. The artist is asked to donate 15 percent of the sales to the MMMF or the Book Project. The artists are allowed and encouraged to have an opening reception at the WBFN Conference Room, while the exhibit is on, and to inform the Bank’s staff of the event by posting flyers. From September to mid October, Margret Kroyer exhibited her paintings using the title: “Seo Ao Ofan” which stands for “seen from above”, in her native language, Icelandic. Her challenge these days is how to see and imagine things or landscapes from above...often a stimulating point of view. From November to December, we had an exhibit of paintings by Parviz Steeds, who is a psychotherapist and a professor at Howard University. She has had no formal training in art, but was able to help a friend in crisis and that friend taught her how to paint. Her paintings represent generosity between people. Parviz has been inspired by the French painter Pierre Bonnard, therefore her paintings are an appreciation of the color, richness, and beauty of the universe. From April to mid May, Huda Batterjee displayed her watercolors. Like many artists, she has a profound connection to color. Over the years, she has used colors to create free and fun pieces, some of which have a link to an emotion; others allow the colors to speak for themselves. Huda likes to share her versatile collection of colorful wonders to inspire the viewer’s creativity and intrigues in art. From mid May to mid June, Vanita Venugopal displayed “Creative Expressions #2, Pigments of my Meditation”. The exhibit was a special tribute to her parents, teachers and all the wonderful women’s groups that she belongs to. In 2007, Vanita’s first exhibit, “Watercolors Creative Expressions”, was featured at the WBFN Gallery. Since then, she has been dabbling in oils. Vanita likes to choose subjects from nature, architecture and her Indian heritage. Painting to Vanita is like meditation. It involves in-depth perception, an understanding of colors and technique, and single pointed attention to detail. For her, painting is therapeutic, rejuvenating and liberating.

MEMBERS’ SPECIAL INITIATIVES Messages for Japan Project The Nadeshiko-kai is a group of spouses of Japanese WBG staff and Japanese spouses of nonJapanese WBG staff. Its primary purpose is to welcome newcomers from Japan when they come to live in the DC area and help them to adjust to their life here. The WBFN Welcoming Team helps us by introducing the group to newcomers from Japan. To bring members together in a meaningful way, the Nadeshiko-kai also sometimes works on charitable projects, including contributing to the MMMF International Arts and Crafts Fair. This past year, when it became clear that the impact of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters that struck Japan in March 2011 was expected to last for a much longer time, the members of Nadeshiko-kai had the urge to do more for our people in Japan, in addition to the financial contributions we had already made. At the same time, many people in our community here in the U.S., who come from all over the world, approached us to seek our advice and ideas on what else they could do to help Japan. They were at a loss; we were touched by the genuine sincerity all round, but were equally inadequate in coming up with immediate responses and suggestions that were particularly meaningful. We kept thinking: “If only we could convey their messages to people in Japan to show how much the rest of the world cares about them….” That was when we came up with the idea of a project, “Messages from Around the World.” We would collect messages from people around us who come from all parts of the world and send them to the people in Japan who were suffering. But how could we carry it out? Nadeshiko-kai is a small group and we did not have enough resources to conduct this project on the scale it would need. Fortunately, when Mika Imamura, one of the Nadeshiko-kai coordinators for this year, mentioned our intention to WBFN President Maaike le Grand, Maaike was very willing to share WBFN’s resources and showed us her full support. To begin with, she offered to allocate space in Mosaic for advertising the project to WBG families, and the manpower to create the advertisement. She then invited us to collect messages from the WBG children attending the WBFN Children’s Art and Science Festival and also spread the word to the members at the WBFN Annual Meeting, where we also collected many messages. With help from the WBFN and friends of WBFN, as well as schools in Virginia and Maryland, we gathered 135 messages. All the messages were translated by Nadeshiko-kai members

and compiled into six posters (each 33.1 × 46.8 in.) by WBFN volunteer graphic artist Gilda Dadush, who graciously offered her tremendous talents and service to this project. We had learned that this medium would be the best way to reach the evacuees as many of them did not have access to the internet or electronic media. The World Bank Graphics Department also contributed by generously printing the first sample of the posters. The posters can be viewed on our Nadeshiko-kai website at: https://sites.google.com/site/nadeshikowb/ This first set of posters was then shipped to Date City in Fukushima Prefecture, one of the areas affected by the disasters, and thanks to the cooperation of Date City’s Mayor Nishida, over 1,000 posters will be printed and distributed by Date City to evacuation centers, temporary housing and schools in the area. We are grateful to Louise Shimizu, a Nadeshiko-kai member and also a volunteer at WBFN, who has been heavily involved from the start of this project, and her husband Masaharu Shimizu who connected us with Mayor Nishida. Our project was also featured in a local newspaper of Fukushima prefecture and has tentative arrangements with other media. Thanks to the introduction of the World Bank Japanese ED’s Office, the World Bank Tokyo Office has also offered to help us with informing interested people in Japan. This is not the closure and we are aware that there is a lot more to be done, but we hope that the messages will be delivered to as many people as possible and our efforts will play some part for the victims in their healing process.

FAMILY & PERSONAL SUPPORT

By helping members know their resources, WBFN provides them with the tools to function optimally in their new environment. Nevertheless, problems may occur, and WBFN is there to support and guide them through the crisis.

FROM FRIENDSHIP TO SUPPORT…

Embracing and supporting the families of the WBG is the mission of the WBFN. Our primary goal is to help families relocating around the world to settle happily into a new environment. Our programs and publications are filled with information to raise membersâ€™ awareness of their rights, benefits, responsibilities and resources. These range from the Spouse/Partner Orientation Program to the Information Seminars to the toolkit Planning Makes a Difference. Nevertheless, sometimes problems are simmering under the surface, or come to a head, and need to be addressed. WBFN sees its role as guiding its members to the various resources available to help resolve the issues.

SPOUSE ISSUES COMMITTEE

The Spouse Issues Comittee is a small group of WBFN members, currently Fiona Oliphant, Hilary Welch and Annemarie Brink Olsen, whose objective is to support the spouses and partners of WBG staff who are experiencing problems in their relationship, providing information or directing them to sources of information. The Committee also advocates for spouses with the WBG. We were sorry to see Diana Vainstein, an experienced counselor, leave us but were pleased that Fiona Oliphant was able to join us and bring legal expertise on family matters. The small group of WBFN members has been supported by WBFN President Maaike le Grand and Catherine Mathieu, WBFN Coordinator, who are from time to time the first point of contact for members needing help. We have continued to work with COPE Inc. and give thanks to Malahat Baig-Amin who has worked with us to develop an effective system of reporting. The front line on DA Prevention is, of course, held by the WBG DA Prevention Coordinator Elizabeth Legrain, whose commitment to those of our members who are victims of DA is essential in the effort to combat this crime. The Committee has continued its weekly meetings where there is discussion and planning for advocacy initiatives with the WBG, and with the DA Prevention Coordinator the focus shifts to more immediate problem solving. WBFN is represented on the WBG Domestic Abuse Prevention Task Force. Fons Marcellis, HRSCO, is undoubtedly committed to this work, but having so many other areas of responsibility is sadly not able to give it as much time as we would like to see. Our approach this year has been to find opportunities to work with him in a supportive manner which has earned respect for WBFN efforts.

Advocacy In the past year, we made recommendations to Fons Marcellis on the service level provided by the third party vendor COPE Inc. The Committee was involved in the renewal of the contract with COPE, when these recommendations were incorporated in the renewal of their contract for just one year. WBG Procurement requires that the contract must now be rebid. We helped with defining the Scope of Work Document for the RFI. We have also encouraged COPE to provide regular and better statistical reports. This kind of information is essential to WBFN in demonstrating to the WBG the ongoing need for these services. We have been working with the Pension Department to assist older spouses who are being divorced and stand to lose some of their pension rights. However, more work is needed to determine where and how to advocate for changes to the pension plan, specifically the old plan, to ensure financial security for spouses after divorce. Staff Rule changes are needed to allow for the resettlement of families who wish to return home after divorce. A divorced spouse has to depend upon the staff memberâ€™s willingness to share the removal costs. The Committee is seeking an automatic right for divorced spouses to receive 50% of the removal and travel costs. We were able to persuade the BFSFCU to release the assets in an account to the widow of a WBG employee, without the need or the complicated process of probate and the requirement for lawyers.

Prevention The Commitee continues to raise awareness about the very difficult topic of Domestic Abuse. This year saw the launch of a brand new brochure. This was the culmination of a lot of hard work by the WBFN team particularly Annemarie Brink Olsen, Gilda Dadush and Louise Shimizu. The finished product can now be found in the bathrooms of all the Bank buildings.In the past year the Committee has been the source of many of the monthly articles in Mosaic on topics that inform members and raise awareness of issues they may encounter and their rights in these situations. We also supported the events of the DA Awareness month of October. Inevitably, we believe the WBG should do more, to help the victims of DA, but we must recognize that the Bank does considerably more than many other similar organizations. In the past 12 months, there has been an increase in the number of requests for help, and sadly we do not see the situation changing. We will continue to advocate for all spouses.

WBFN OUTREACH PROGRAMS In 1982 and 1983, World Bank spouses started the Margaret McNamara Memorial Fund and the Book Project. Today, WBFN volunteers continue to manage these two charities, which support the education of women and children in the developing world: the Front Line of Development.

30TH YEAR OF MAKING A DIFFERENCE

THE BOOK PROJECT ….Plus ca change plus c’est la meme chose…! This phrase perfectly describes the Book Project in FY11, which, despite key changes in personnel and procedures, continued trying to move decisively to help improve English literacy around the world. This year, with the help of its dedicated volunteers, the Book Project completed two large shipments to Nigeria and Liberia (a total of 14 universities/colleges and 99 schools) and three small shipments to Ethiopia, the Philippines and Haiti. Hope for Haiti, our distributor for this particular shipment, will be disbursing the books to several orphanages in desperate need of reading material. Although finding used French books was particularly challenging as resources are quite limited, ultimately over 9,200 books were shipped to Haiti. Most of the donated books are in subjects such as reading, literature, social sciences, history and math. Last year, we were concerned that the flow of book donations appeared to be diminishing, but happily, we are pleased to report that this hasn’t been the case. Our warehouse is almost filled to capacity with books from our regular donors—Alexandria, Fairfax, Charles and Montgomery counties. In addition, many of the prominent schools in the metropolitan area continue to provide us with quality textbooks. Much of the credit is given to our Donations Coordinator who has maintained good relations with the donors over the years. In 2011, we saw the long awaited launch of our new website www.bookproject-wbfn.org.This new outreach tool gives the Book Project a fresher, hipper look and feel, thanks to web guru, Mikael Reventar and all those who contributed to making this a reality. This steady and consistent result in FY11 was achieved despite a number of key changes in the operation of the Book Project and the usual steady flow of volunteers exiting and entering the program. FY11 saw the end of Hilary Welch’s two-and-a-half year term as president. In November 2010, she was replaced by Zena Soudah, a Bank retiree, formerly with the Community Relations program. We also saw the departure of several longtime volunteers, whose hard work and commitment in the packing area shall be missed. At the same time, we saw the arrival of Asuka Okamura, Marie Forget, Agnes Nuval, and Laura Byerlee, all wonderful, enthusiastic new members that are bringing their energy and excitement to the Book Project This year, we reached out to in-house staff associations in an effort to recruit new volunteers and promote awareness of the Book Project’s work. The Junior Professional Association (JPA), with an active volunteer base, agreed to assist on a monthly basis for one to two hours.

In the case of our shipment to Nigeria, we contacted the World Bank and IMF Nigerian community for volunteers who sent out a notification to members. Two or three staff responded and ultimately volunteered a total of about 36 hours. Similarly, we recently contacted the WBG/IMF Filipino Association in the hope that they might volunteer their time on our current shipment to the Philippines. We appreciated this help tremendously and hope to continue these arrangements in the future. A procedural change was made this year which has proven helpful to volunteers in sorting books. When possible, greater responsibility has been given to the distributor to help determine which books are valuable and may be sent to schools and community libraries. This has eliminated some of the guesswork on the part of the volunteers and has resulted in fewer books being discarded or sold. It also has the added benefit of helping us to do our part towards the greening effort. Like every year, the upcoming year is expected to bring about lots of new challenges and opportunities. The first is to attract many new volunteers. Like many fulfillment operations, the Book Project depends on the availability of materials and manpower. It takes more than 1,500 hours to pack a large shipment and the shortage of regular, full-time volunteers continues to be a challenge. Identifying new sources of volunteers has become critical to the success of the program. Staff members continue to be unaware of the Book Project and its work. For the coming year, with the launch of the new website, our goal is to increase awareness and visibility of the program. New signage on the third floor of the J Building and newly designed posters may help towards this effort. Furthermore, we have begun to contact Country Office staff informing them of upcoming shipments and asking for any assistance they might provide in getting local media coverage. In collaboration with the Members Abroad program, we also plan on reaching out to spouses and families in those countries receiving shipments of books and inviting them to participate in the Book Project. We wish to thank several of our longtime and dedicated volunteers who either have recently returned home or who will be leaving shortly. Lucy George, Yvonne Kurz, and Evelyne Taffin will surely be missed, for it is with their commitment and regularly giving their time that we have been able to fulfill the mission of the Book Project. By virtue of their personalities and effusiveness, they have played an integral role in ensuring that the Book Project remains a fun, interesting place in which to work. We would also like to thank WBFN for its continued support and look forward to having closer proximity with their move to the J Building.

THE MARGARET MCNAMARA MEMORIAL FUND Overview In 2011, the Margaret McNamara Memorial Fund (MMMF) is celebrating its 30th anniversary of providing educational grants to women from developing countries for university study in fields which benefit women and children in their home countries or regions. From 1983 through June 2011, MMMF has awarded 186 grants, including two merit awards, totaling over $1.6 million to women from developing countries. The MMMF is a U.S. tax-exempt 501(c)(3) public charity under the umbrella of the World Bank Family Network, founded in 1981 to honor the memory of Margaret Craig McNamara. The MMMF continued to implement its primary fundraisers: an International Arts & Crafts Fair held in November 2010 at the World Bank and a solicitation by Friends of the MMMF to Bank families and retirees for donations. The MMMF is extremely grateful for the generosity of the WBFN community in both these efforts. In May 2011, the MMMF awarded thirteen educational grants for the academic year 2011– 12 to women studying at accredited institutions in the U.S. and Canada. Together with the six recipients studying in South Africa, who had received their grants earlier, the total number of FY11 recipients was 19, the largest number of grants ever made in one fiscal year.

MMMF Structure The MMMF Board of Directors appoints officers for the Fund, makes policy and raises funds. Its 15-member Board meets monthly for 10 months of the year, and volunteers work together with Board Members on a number of Committees. MMMF grant recipients are painstakingly selected from among many worthy applicants, in a process conducted by the MMMF Selection Committees (separate for the U.S./Canada applicants and those attending universities in South Africa). Applications of the top candidates are then referred to the Selection Panels which make the final recommendations to the Board for their approval (see chapter ‘Volunteers’ for detailed Board Member and Selection Committee lists). The MMMF’s first staff Coordinator, Cecile Ferri, moved to Kenya in December and was ably replaced by Martina Adank, who continues to facilitate the operation of MMMF. The further assistance by WBFN staff Catherine Mathieu, Mimi Besha and Christinne Secrest is gratefully acknowledged.

Initiatives in FY11 In recognition of its 30th year, the MMMF Board members decided to update its history, longago documented through 1993 by co-founder Harriet Baldwin. An energetic team of WBFN volunteers are assisting with research and interviews. The final product should be published before end of calendar 2011. The Board is also undertaking a marketing and communications initiative, the first step of which is the production of a short video about the MMMF program and its recipients. In winter 2011, the MMMF debuted its revamped website, the handiwork of Gilda Dadush with support from Cecile Ferri. This website is intended to be much more user-friendly, invite more donations online, offer a venue for features about past recipients doing great things and advising MMMF supporters of the latest events. It can be viewed at www. mmmf-grants.org. Another initiative was the revision and updating of Selection Committee guidelines. While the basic criteria and processes were affirmed, the revision incorporated and clarified a number of emerging practices regarding the regional program in Africa, academic performance of applicants, countries of eligibility and oversight of the Selection Committee leadership by the Board. After a strategic retreat in fall 2010, the Board concluded it would try to begin a regional program in Latin America, after the success of the one at the Universities of Pretoria and Cape Town in South Africa. The team to pursue this is still being organized.

Selection of MMMF Recipients The MMMF Board extends its gratitude to all the volunteer teams (see chapter ‘Salute to Volunteers’) who worked on the various aspects of the selection process for both the U.S./ Canada Program and the Africa Regional Program, including the volunteer team at ISG, who assist with the MMMF online application process. U.S./Canada Program—For the Selection of MMMF Recipients for the 2011-12 academic year, the FY11 Selection Committee, comprised of 15 volunteers from 13 countries, received and reviewed around 160 applications for grants. In the first and second rounds of reading, three different Selection Committee members read each application. In the third round, a panel of eleven members read all the finalists. Each candidate was screened during all three stages against the criteria set by the trustees and listed in detail on the MMMF website. The applicant needed to demonstrate a commitment to improving the lives of women and children through her previous and current course of study and through paid or volunteer work; she had to show financial need, satisfactory academic performance, be over 25 years old; and she must plan to return to her country or another developing country within about two years of completing the grant.

In April 2011 a Selection Panel of five members of the Selection Committee and five women from the WBG and IMF staff made the final choice of recipients to be presented to the MMMF Board for approval. Thirteen finalists were awarded grants of $12,000 each, including a woman from the Middle East designated as the Leila Zlaoui Memorial-grantee, funds for which were donated by Ms. Zlaoui’s friends to honor the memory of this Bank staff member. Funds for the 13th grant were added by the Board as a “birthday present” to MMMF Africa Regional Program—A separate but similar application and review process was used for the Africa Regional Program, the only difference being that the applicant must already be enrolled in the University of Pretoria or the University of Cape Town and living in South Africa. The application period opened in June 2010 with a mid-August deadline. Twenty volunteers participated in the Selection Committee and four Bank/IFC staff members served on the Selection Panel. In November, six finalists were selected from a total of over 70 applicants and, after MMMF Board approval, were awarded grants of $4,500 each. A seventh was identified, but when she received a substantial scholarship from another source, deferred to 2012.

Recipients’ Visit Washington, DC—Eleven recipients of the 2011 MMMF U.S./Canada awards arrived in Washington on Sunday, May 15, 2011 to participate in four days of planned activities to better acquaint them with the MMMF program and with WBFN and World Bank, the institutions that enable the program year after year. During their visit, the recipients were welcomed, entertained, and lodged through arrangements made by the Hospitality Committee Board volunteers, led by Georgine Ahmad. Beginning with the dinner reception at the home of MMMF President Charlotte JonesCarroll, each recipient met those responsible for the process which led up to their selection and awarding of grants. On Monday, May 16, recipients met Board Members, were briefed on the program, joined a lunch with members of the MMMF Selection Committee, received the checks to be delivered to their student accounts, and then took the stage at the 2011 MMMF Recipients Forum, co-sponsored by the World Bank Gender Network. The Forum brought together an audience of Bank, WBFN and outside attendees eager to meet and hear the personal stories of the recipients. Each recipient presented to the audience the story of their professional and academic journey and their life goals. All expressed their gratitude for the vote of confidence given them by their MMMF selection and for the volunteer effort which went into the entire scholarship program.

Following the Forum, the MMMF held a 30th anniversary reception with the Friends of the MMMF. On Tuesday, May 17, a knowledge exchange, organized by Andree Wynkoop, took place, where relevant experts from within the Bank and others met with the recipients and discussed challenges and opportunities within their specific fields. The recipients also were introduced to the Development Gateway, as a public information resource. This effort to match recipients with experts in their fields, both within the Bank and outside it, was begun in 2010 to give more knowledge content to their Washington experiences. That evening, recipients attended the WBFN Annual Dinner, where they learned more about the volunteer activities of the WBFN. On Wednesday, May 18, recipients gathered a final time to agree on how to stay in touch. Pretoria—A similar, though one-day, ceremony took place in Pretoria on February 10, 2011 for the six women grantees attending South African Universities. After meeting the Selection Committee members, receiving certificates and sharing their stories, the grantees met Country Director for South Africa, Ruth Kagia, who offered a welcome and keynote address.

Donors and Fundraising Volunteers from the WBG spouses and partners donated generously of their time to raise funds for MMMF grants through MMMF Fair participation and serving on the MMMF Board, Selection Committees, Selection Panels, and other committees in the finance and outreach areas. The 25th MMMF International Arts and Crafts Fair, co-chaired by Georgine Ahmad and Caroline Berney, with substantial assistance from Kris Martin and a host of volunteers, took place for the first time in the World Bank Main Complex’s Preston Auditorium and Glass Lobby on November 2–4, 2010. The Fair raised over $47,000. Treasurer Jayati Datta-Mitra was assisted by Joanne Garrity. The MMMF Table, featuring international items, was led by Gilda Dadush. The 2012 Fair will take place on October 11–13, 2011 in the same venue. The MMMF is grateful to the WBG staff members who have designated the MMMF to receive honoraria and gifts offered to them in their official capacities and to the many World Bank staff who have generously donated their retirement party funds to the MMMF. MMMF Friends who respond each year to the Fall Letter Campaign with their contributions, totaling over $48,000 in FY11, are also an integral part of the MMMF donor team. Friends of MMMF continues to be under the leadership of Nadereh Chamlou, Chair, and Christine Stover, Financial Secretary. The Bank-Fund Staff Federal Credit Union is to be thanked once again for their generous contribution, equal to a full scholarship this year.

The MMMF contracted with professional investment managers from Raymond James beginning in fall 2009, and as a result, has seen its invested funds recover to the levels reached before the 2008 recession began. The MMMF formula for drawing on such funds has allowed these invested funds, built up over many years of modest savings, to be the major source of funding for our grantees each year, and to have a relatively protected principal, allowing continued future grant making, despite the challenging economic environment.

FY11 MMMF RECIPIENTS—US/CANADA PROGRAM AMBIKA GOEL (INDIA) Ph.D. candidate: Mechanical Engineering; Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ms. Goel’s thesis investigates how nanotechnology can help create a low-cost drug delivery system for treating osteoarthritis. She volunteered in high school and college with her gynecologist mother in Delhi’s slums to promote women’s healthcare and sanitation but quickly realized that the approach was not sustainable: she understood the need for sustainable lowcost medical treatments for the underprivileged. After completing her Ph.D., Ms. Goel plans to return to India to set up a research center to test and develop affordable drug delivery systems and ultimately to start a medical device company to bring affordable health care to the underprivileged. BATOOL FATIMA (PAKISTAN) Ph.D. candidate: Public Health; Boston University, School of Public Health Ms. Fatima’s thesis aims to identify the barriers to the access and use of mental health services by women in Pakistan. Since women’s education was not a priority in Ms. Fatima’s family, she had to struggle to fulfill her dream of being a psychologist. She was motivated by her mother’s illness and by Jeremy Taylor’s conclusion: “To preserve a man alive in the midst of so many chances and hostilities is as great a miracle as to create him.” After completing her degree, Ms. Fatima will return to Pakistan to raise awareness of mental health issues, promote availability and access to mental health services by women, and advocate for the inclusion of mental health coverage in health insurance. CONSODYNE MUKAMA BUZABO (UGANDA) Master’s candidate: Transformative Arts; John F. Kennedy University, Oakland, California

Ms. Buzabo’s thesis will investigate the therapeutic role of the arts for healing, reconciling, and reintegrating former child soldiers and their families. She has been touched by the lives of orphans in Uganda, and strongly believes in Mother Theresa’s observation: “Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty, than a person who has nothing to eat.” Inspired by her parents’ example, Ms. Buzabo is trying to develop a socio-emotional treatment model for former child soldiers and their families. On completing her Master’s, she plans to pursue a career as a teacher and counselor/therapist and to promote the inclusion of the expressive arts in the school curriculum as therapy for the psychological trauma of war and poverty. ELIZABETH BEATRICE NAMAZZI (UGANDA) Ph.D. candidate: Curriculum Studies; University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada Ms. Namazzi’s thesis investigates the influence of cultural practices on high school students’ perception of the spread and prevention of HIV/AIDS and its implications for high school curriculum and instruction in Uganda. Her passion for working with women and children stems from her own experience of the effects of political insurgencies on Uganda’s population. She has more than 20 years of experience in education as a principal and lecturer and has dedicated 14 years of her life to patients with HIV/AIDS. On completing her doctorate, Ms. Namazzi plans to start a research program at Uganda Martyrs University to test and apply effective interventions to improve the lives of the vulnerable. EMAN ABDELRAHMAN AHMAD ABU SABBAH (JORDAN) Ph.D. candidate: Nursing Science; University at Buffalo, State University of New York Ms. Abu Sabbah is concerned about how society’s “tolerance of repeated abuse” affects the well-being of both women and children and of society as a whole. Ms. Abu Sabbah hopes that her thesis will develop intervention methods to help empower women and alleviate their psychological burden. After completing her degree, she will continue her academic career at the University of Jordan, work with human rights institutions and NGOs, and help promote changes in policies and laws to improve the lives of abused Jordanian women. FAFANYO ASISEH (GHANA) Ph.D. candidate: Development Economics; Washington State University Ms. Asiseh’s dissertation investigates how cultural and social factors influence the spread, prevention, and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa. She firmly believes that “education is an effective weapon to overcome all barriers in society.” Ms. Asiseh

has volunteered extensively to improve the lives of women and children in rural areas and to educate women on HIV/AIDS. She has also published in academic peer-reviewed journals. On completing her doctorate, Ms. Asiseh plans to become a lecturer teaching economics and development in Ghana, and to continue to conduct and publish research on health and cultural norms to affect policy formulation. ITZEL ADRIANA SOSA SÁNCHE,( MEXICO) Ph.D. candidate: Sociology; Laval University, Quebec, Canada Ms. Sosa Sánchez’s thesis aims to produce qualitative evidence useful to policymakers, activists, and NGOs for improving women’s rights, reproductive and sexual health, and access to sexual health services. Ms. Sosa Sánchez believes “in the power of transformation and multiplicative impact of teaching and research-action.” She has worked both online and through an NGO to teach young marginalized populations about sexuality and reproductive health. After completing her Ph.D., Ms. Sosa Sánchez plans to return to Mexico to continue her research. She aims to contribute to evidence-based social policy and program development to promote sexual and reproductive health as well as access to health services. LIN SHI (CHINA) Master’s candidate: International Affairs; Columbia University, New York Ms. Lin’s thesis will analyze the causes, dynamics, and consequences of the challenges facing Chinese migrant children. As she says, “In the next 15 years, more than 200 million migrants will move to cities…likely...result(ing) in various public health and socio-economic problems.” Upon her return to China, she hopes to influence policies affecting Chinese internal migrants and to expand advocacy networks at both the national and regional levels. She also plans to establish an NGO to help migrant women and children. NUNING SULIASIH PURWANINGRUM (INDONESIA) Ph.D. candidate, Global Gender Studies; University at Buffalo, State University of New York Ms. Purwaningrum’s dissertation—a continuation of her Master’s thesis—tries to measure the social, economic, and political significance of mixed marriages in Indonesian society. Though her Bachelor’s was in Japanese letters (involving a two-year stay in Japan for language training), she did her Master’s in women’s studies. For nine years, she advocated for families of mixed marriages, and her research and recommendations influenced the 2006 amendment to the Indonesian Citizenship Laws. On returning to her country, Ms. Purwaningrum plans

100

to teach at the University of Indonesia and work with NGOs, government, or the House of Representatives to achieve policy change and social reform. SALMATTA ABIODUN IBRAHIM (SIERRA LEONE) M.Sc. candidate: Geology; Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina Ms. Ibrahim’s thesis deals with groundwater discharge and recharge and contaminant flows. She has wide professional experience, having worked as a Research Teaching Assistant at the University of Sierra Leone; a science teacher at the Ministry of Education in Sierra Leone; and an Administrator and Project Officer for Gender, Health, and Education issues. After completing her degree, Ms. Ibrahim wants to return to her teaching job at the University of Sierra Leone and to work with the Ministry of Education to introduce an earth science component into the school curriculum. She hopes to create a greater awareness of hydrology among female students and to encourage them to become geoscientists. SÍGLIA PIMENTEL HÖHER CAMARGO (BRAZIL) Ph.D. candidate: Education; Texas A&M University, College Station TMs. Camargo’s thesis investigates the effectiveness of visual script interventions in helping autistic preschool children to initiate interaction with their peers in free play activities in inclusive school settings. She has dedicated her life to psychology, working with mothers and children with disabilities from low-income families and with women whose babies were prediagnosed with disabilities. On completing her Ph.D. and a parallel certification in behavior analysis, Ms. Camargo plans to promote school inclusion of autistic children and to work as a professor or researcher in behavioral analysis. TRUELOVE SIMANGELE MKHWANAZ,( SOUTH AFRICA) Ph.D. candidate: Education; University of Washington, Seattle Ms. Mkhwanazi’s thesis deals with teacher development in the context of South African education reform. From her early childhood, Ms. Mkhwanazi was “encouraged to value education because I was always told that it would open closed doors for me.” She has a Master’s in special education and has taught high school children in poor rural areas; worked as a volunteer school counselor; and founded a group, Teenagers against Pregnancy. She plans to return to her country to continue advocating for research and teacher development as potential starting points for transforming and improving education in South Africa.

101

WEIWEI CHEN (CHINA) Ph.D. candidate: Education; University of California Santa Barbara Ms. Chen’s thesis focuses on how general education teachers as well as parents of children with disabilities in China perceive the impact of inclusive education. After obtaining her Master’s in linguistics in China, she enrolled in three European Universities to study for a Master’s in clinical linguistics. She has worked with autistic children and compiled a behavior management textbook for teacher training. On her return to China, she plans to teach children with disabilities and conduct research on special education.

FY11 MMMF RECIPIENTS—SOUTH AFRICA PROGRAM ALBERTINA MAITUMELENG NTHO-NTHO (LESOTHO) Ph.D. candidate: Education Management, Law and Policy; University of Pretoria Ms. Ntho-Ntho’s study will interview school principals with different levels of education, from diverse schools across the country, and with diverse leadership backgrounds. They will participate in their private capacity, not as spokespersons for their schools. Ms. Ntho-Ntho has been a primary school teacher for 13 years and a role model for her students, colleagues, and the school community. She coordinated mentors in Pretoria University’s mentorship program. On returning to Lesotho, she hopes to establish and manage a program to educate girls as well as the community about human rights train and empower young women to take charge of their lives and use contraceptives to avoid unwanted pregnancies, and say “no” to unprotected sex and child labor. She also plans to mobilize funding for children’s and women’s education. GCINAPHI EMILY MABUZA-SIKHONDZE (SWAZILAND) M.Ed. candidate: Mathematics Education; University of Pretoria Ms. Mabuza-Sikhondze’s thesis will investigate the views of high school mathematics teachers on learner-centered teaching, the extent to which they implement such teaching and the challenges they face. She has been a teacher for 10 years, volunteered after school hours and on weekends to teach weaker students, and found ways to help students who could not afford fees to stay in school. On her return to Swaziland, she hopes to secure a job with the Ministry of Education as an Inspector of Mathematics so she can encourage teachers to use the learner-centered approach.

102

GOODNESS CHIOMA AYE (NIGERIA) Ph.D. candidate: Agricultural Economics; University of Pretoria Ms. Aye’s thesis aims to identify the policy environment that would best enhance farmers’ access to improved technology and production practices, improve efficiency and productivity, and eventually reduce poverty and inequality in Nigeria. She was part of a team that organized free literacy classes for youth preparing for secondary and tertiary education. She also organized free literacy classes for illiterate children of illiterate mothers. She plans to return to Nigeria and resume lecturing and gender research with the University of Agriculture, Makurdi. She plans to participate in developing and implementing pro-poor agricultural policies, and to ensure access for women farmers to increase their productivity and reduce poverty. GRACIOUS MADIMUTSA (ZIMBABWE) M.A. candidate: Community Development; University of Pretoria Ms. Madimutsa’s thesis will analyze the responses of people in rural communities in Mutoko to VCT, their awareness of VCT, HIV and AIDS, and their attitudes towards HIV testing. She volunteered in an orphanage set up in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. She counseled orphans about HIV/AIDS and trained them in life skills. She strongly believes that the impact of HIV/AIDS can be reduced through research and behavioral change. On completing her M.A., she hopes to find a job in Zimbabwe primarily in development research and start a program to empower women and children. IVY RUKASHA (ZIMBABWE) M.Sc. candidate: Medical Microbiology, University of Pretoria The aim of Ms. Rukasha’s thesis is to find the link between HIV and T. vaginalis. She will also investigate why more women than men present symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and why the response to treatment differs among individuals. She understood from a young age the importance of education, especially for women. For her thesis, she is working solely with HIV-positive women: women in Africa with STDs are often rejected and divorced for diseases that, more often than not, they did not bring into the family. On completing her studies, she plans to work at the University of Zimbabwe as a researcher/lecturer on diseases affecting women. OLUWATOYIN ADEWUNMI ADELEKE (NIGERIA) Master’s candidate: Public Health; University of Cape Town Ms. Adeleke’s thesis will assess the quality of existing obstetric health care services and identify the barriers that impede access. She has been actively involved in field work to train women

103

of child-bearing age to manage diarrhea; UNICEF peer educator training of adolescents on HIV prevention and reproductive health; and volunteering for indigenous womenâ€™s organizations. On completing her M.A., she plans to return home to strengthen opportunities such as small and medium scale entrepreneurship for women in selected communities. Her strategies also include working with health organizations to advocate for the right to health, health promotion, and education.

104

The office is the nerve center of WBFN where volunteers and staff actively attend to the nuts and bolts of WBFNâ€™s operations in a warm and friendly atmosphere and where members are always welcome.

AROUND THE OFFICE

SERIOUS WORK AND FUN TOO!

WBFN Coordinator’s Report Sometimes we have the feeling that a particular year just flew by! My perception is that this year has ended very soon after it started. Besides the support to the programs and activities developed by all the volunteers, our office life this year went through two major events: Mimi was going to have a baby, and we had to prepare for the move of the WBFN Office to the J Building. I am pretty sure Christinne will agree with me if I say that we were both expecting, together with Mimi. We shared the joy, we kept measuring the belly, we worried about swollen ankles, we had some tears watching the video of the echography, and we also tried to put Mimi on a diet! We had planned to have our “Office Christmas” on December 23rd. This is a tradition I inherited from my predecessors and that I love repeating every year. After all volunteers have left the office, the staff members—this year Christinne, Mimi, Louise, Martina and myself—have a special moment, exchanging little presents and lots of laughs. But Little Princess Heldana decided that this year her mom would not eat the Brazilian panetone that I always bring; she was in a hurry to see us! So, although we had to celebrate without Mimi, the next day we were gifted with the most adorable little girl. I have no words to thank Christinne enough for the dedication and the energy she put in her work while Mimi was on maternity leave. Seconded by Monica Zhang who substituted for Mimi (and, yes, she was also pregnant!), Christinne worked a lot and never failed even with the huge extra workload. I am very grateful to her. Needless to say, we were all very happy to have Mimi back in March. “WBFN’s smile” was, again, illuminating our front desk! I want to take the opportunity here to thank also our Database Guru, Tania Gnesdilova, who is constantly maintaining, modifying, and improving this tool. Most of our members know her through her computer class program and have appreciated her didactic talent and kindness. But Tania also gives a lot of her time to WBFN in supporting all the teams in their many needs of the database. Spassiba, Tania! Moving to our new office location was our next challenge. We decided to use the opportunity to go through all our documents and get everything reorganized. We then spent hundreds of hours to select, review, organize, throw away, and rearrange tons of documents, from financial records to evaluation forms of WBFN programs and many research materials that had accu-

108

mulated over the years. We also had to find a way to put the content of three storage rooms into just one—and a very tiny one at that. The long hours among boxes and boxes and boxes, including on weekends, and the back pain, were largely compensated by the “pearls” we found—like the very first version of the bylaws (1973), and the very first version of our newsletter in 1974. I confess I was very impressed by those findings, showing the hard work done by fantastic people for almost 40 years now. Thanks to the organizational talent of my predecessors, it was easy to understand the logic of the document filing system and to implement the necessary changes in order to adapt to new needs, the new dynamic of the organization, and new technologies. How could we have done all that in addition to the regular heavy workload in serving a vibrant and innovative organization without the competent and indefectible support of our favorite red-haired Japanese? Louise Shimizu is “an institution” in herself! She taught me everything she could about how to better serve WBFN, but she also gave me something absolutely essential: the confidence that at any time I could count on her, to share my satisfactions and my concerns, to test new ideas, to analyze better some tricky situations, and to reassure me that I was moving in the right direction, because she would nicely tell me if she thought I was wrong. I am writing those lines already in my 3rd year as the WBFN Coordinator and, guess what? Louise is still on my side, always, with her talent, her many skills, her invaluable knowledge, her passion for WBFN, and the uniqueness of her good judgment. Merci, obrigada, thank you my dear Louise. And, if I may, I would like to thank very much Mr. Shimizu, for his patience with my endless needs of his wife, frequently at 7pm even on Fridays! Last but not least, Monday mornings at the WBFN office always start quite early when Mariela Eberhardt arrives! Mariela not only does a lot of very useful office work for WBFN and MMMF, but she also brings different things: a magazine with beautiful pictures of her country Panama, an interesting article she wants to share with us, especially with “her boss” (Mimi!). Mariela, you are a Queen!

109

There are many other things constantly happening in the life of the WBFN office but instead of telling more of them, I prefer to register here how privileged I feel to be working at WBFN with such a great team. Many of you probably heard me already saying that I could not function without “my girls”. Believe me, this is absolutely true!

Member Management System (MMS) IT Specialist’s Report One may think that after a year in full working power our new MMS database would not need much attention, but this would be a big mistake. While using the MMS, we have discovered lots of room for improvement and a huge need for regular maintenance. Starting September 2010, I have created and updated together with Caroline Gasser more than 10 queries and reports in the area of Welcoming (Thank you, Caroline!). We are now very lucky to have a new Welcoming Chair, Jennifer O’Riordan, whose charming personality and IT knowledge helped me to identify room for MMS improvement, which led to the creation of some new queries and reports for MMS. I have completed the transition of the Computer and Financial Course information with Sally Macartney’s help. We are in the process now of adding fields and options to the Members Abroad area of the MMS, thanks to Louise Shimizu and Karin Metz. Thanks to Mimi Besha and Louise Shimizu we have completed the first round of Membership Review, where we have successfully indentified non-active members and have a much better picture of our membership pool now. Together with Mimi, we have added data on the English Classes to the MMS, which will greatly improve the office efficiency in administrating the classes. We have improved the Annual Meetings area as well. As we went along, many volunteers, like Karen Manzanilla, have discovered advanced ways to use the MMS, such as a big potential for using Committee Codes. The MMS User Guide was constantly updated and is almost complete now, even though it will probably be a work in progress all the time. As the world changes, the database must be adjusted as well. Just to give one example, we needed to add fields to accommodate the introduction of the PayPal payment option for participating in WBFN courses and events. We have recently discovered that the HR directory connected to our MMS is not updated properly by the Bank’s systems. We are working on this issue with ISG and hoping to resolve it soon.

110

SALUTE TO VOLUNTEERS

An organization such as WBFN cannot exist except by virtue of those who volunteer their talents, services, and above all, their time, so willingly and unsparingly. We gratefully thank all those whose names appear in the following pages and sincerely hope that none have been inadvertently omitted.

WBFN’S CORNERSTONE—ITS VOLUNTEERS!

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE July 1, 2010â€“June 30, 2011 President President-Elect Secretary Welcoming Chair

Nominating Chair Mosaic Editor Male Spouse/Partner Coordinator Member-at-Large Member-at-Large Member-at-Large Member-at-Large Member-at-Large

Maaike le Grand Annemarie Brink Olsen Karin Metz Nefertare Galiba Caroline Gasser Jennifer Oâ€™Riordan Belkys M. Lopez Rabello Vidya Rangan Robert Marson Iris Buchinger Marie Elisabeth Aubry-Camus Philippe Futa Sally Macartney Amber Van De Genachte

114

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE July 1, 2011â€“June 30, 2012 President President-Elect Secretary Welcoming Chair Nominating Chair Member-at-Large Member-at-Large Member-at-Large Member-at-Large Member-at-Large Member-at-Large Member-at-Large

Annemarie Brink Olsen Vacant Fiona Oliphant Jennifer Oâ€™Riordan Sandipa Thapa Basnyat Marie Elisabeth Aubrey-Camus Karen Clarke-Stange Karin Metz Johannes Tonn Hilary Welch Amber Van De Genachte Inela Weeks

115

WIVES/WBVS/WBFN PRESIDENTS Maaike le Grand

2010 – 2011

Anne Folliet

2009 – 2010

Rula Ghani

2008 – 2009

Chantale Holzmann

2007 – 2008

Gilda Dadush

2006 – 2007

Kristina Jensen

2005 – 2006

Rosa Lia Troch

2004 – 2005

Lois Khairallah

2003 – 2004

Chantale Holzmann

2002 – 2003

Elizabeth Medina-Tata

2001 – 2002

Barry McIsaac

1999 – 2001

Hada Zaidan

1996 – 1999

Katy Doyen

1994 – 1996

Caroline Berney

1991 – 1994

Ruksana Mehta

1988 – 1991

Anne Dickerson

1985 – 1988

Carla Peperzak

1982 – 1985

Miliza Wright

1981 – 1982

Paula Jeffries

1978 – 1981

Miliza Wright

1977 – 1978

Ruby Wingate

1974 – 1977

Ruth Isbister

1972 – 1974

Vol

B Ye

WBG Ann

Brochur e Plannin Welc

Mosa i WBF c N

ation Meet niz Prepar in e cy n si on

dica

nic

Fam

Volu

Flye r

Com Surv p Financia

ng ing & N etwor ki

Vol

In Vol

Vol

g min

dy System Bud ouse/Partn er Sp Welcomin

We l c o

Surv

Family -F Me

To t s

Volu

Vol

st its b

Boo

atio n

Multi-Org a Emergen Pe

Com

es s dn

STA FF

EC A

lum

oca v d A

Volunte

erin

surance Plan e rs are Visas

onsultatio n ily C se p S ou Issu

vice es

WBG Policies ndly rie l In

Ser

Welco m

cPlus l l o w Pa

nteerin

sai

akes gM a oming

bsite We

olu

D h M MD

Posters ne Intra t Ar ual Rep

s ticle rt o

Vol

Volunte

erence Diff Kit

g ua Lan ge

ent erm m o g ra

RA MEM

AMA

Classes

N MC

eering unt

Teen Summer

nteering

WBF N

ing

and

erin

Executive Committee President President Elect Secretary Chairs Members @ Large

llery

g Culture Shoc ivin lasses k rC ute eracy t Cl l Li

n Volu teer

ges

ach

ours

uisine al C

Clubs

Information

lectio

tre

W BF N G a Bike T

ridge

ass

Forum nts

Gran

nt Eve

Recip i

ock e Sh

Spanis

erin

ual

Ann

ard Bo ments hip

Volunte ations D on i Fa r Board

ntation Pro O ri e offee gC

Packi

e ogeth rs t-T g Cu ivin ltur

st m Inve ent C

Internation

Chess Cl

& Tots

Voluntee

ations Don Sorting

FUN

eering unt

eering u nt

m gra

jec t

eering unt

eering u nt

ring

Pro

nteering

Book C

ots

g & Dinner tin rt Cont s A Exh e al i

ring

Annual Mee Childrenâ€™ Annu

Parents

Tots DC

â€™s Holiday Part ren Picnic

Voluntee

to Down wn Ba Parents & T

nts & Tot Pare s Mothers &

Chil d

nteering

le Spouse Act Ma Quilting

bie

eering unt

p rou ities iv up Gro bs

Vol

ring

eering unt

Cul l and tural Pro c i a tional Cultu gra ral m rna

lub

Voluntee

MAR

«A

nnual

Exhibits

Chair: Annemarie Brink Olsen Volunteers Gulira Alieva Sadeem Alkadi El Batoule Alaoui Karthika Audinet Miguel Barreto Gertrud Bojo Sarah Brau Karen Clarke-Stange Carmela Cosans Gilda Dadush Carmen Eliam Rachida El Yadari Philippe Futa Tania Gnesdilova John Hanson French Immersion School Chorus Charlotte Jones-Carroll and, other MMMF volunteers Lisbet Kemp Margret Kroyer Sharmishtha Kulkarni Maaike le Grand Belkys Lopez Rabello Sally Macartney Karen Manzanilla Karin Metz Juliet Namaganda Musiitwa Gonzalo Navaro Fiona Oliphant Parastoo Oloumi Michele O’Neill Veronica Penaranda Joana Peta

Alexandre Picard Vidya Rangan Susana Mariel Ruiz Azanero de Franco Jennifer O’Riordan Mari Parker & other WWIC members Joana Peta Sandra Prescod-Dalrymple Constance Puech Andre Tiacoh Sadia Ruby Shamayleh Louise Shimizu Masaharu Shimizu Deepika Shrestha Laura Smaldon Zena Soudah and, other Book Project volunteers Isabelle Tausch Johannes Tonn Fatou Toure Tom Tsui Ibrahim Turk Elena Ungureanu Ljubica Uzelac Amber Van De Genachte Kaltrine Vrenezi WBG Fitness Center Karate Club WBG Fitness Center Tai Chi Club Inela Weeks Guili Zhou

Annual Dinner Coordinator: Annemarie Brink Olsen Volunteers Margret Kroyer Constance Puech

«A

nnual

Family Picnic

Coordinator: Marie Elisabeth Aubry-Camus Volunteers El Batoule Alaoui Miguel Barreto Gilda Dadush Philippe Futa Maaike le Grand Alexis Massenet Karin Metz Anuradha Mishra Annemarie Brink Olsen Nieves Rubino Ruby Shamayleh Selene Sopelana Loyo

Annual Membership Meeting Chair: Maaike le Grand

Annual Report Editor: Louise Shimizu Assistant Editor: Christinne Secrest Layout: Gilda Dadush

Dharana Nepal Vilaykham Phomsouvanh Vjollca Saliu Laura Smaldone Selene Sopelana Loyo Mawussi Zevounou Bossou Juan Monica Zhang Guili Zhou

Book Groups African Coordinators Melitta Carter Monica Schott American Coordinator Michele O’Neil English Coordinators Myra Jacobs Sabine Tourreilles French Coordinators Phi Fostvedt Leonore Oblitas German Coordinators Sigrid Blobel Ursula Revuelta

Arrivals & Welcoming

Chair: Jennifer O’Riordan Welcoming Team Hema Badrinarayanan Jose Dinglan Mariela Eberhardt Rachida El Yadari Caroline Guiriec Saadia Latif Angel Mugabi Juliet Namaganda

Book Project Officers President: Hilary Welch/Zena Soudah Secretary/Packing Room Coordinator: Tessa Ravry Shipping Coordinator: Doina Olievschi Book Donation Coordinator: Pushpa Pherwani Volunteers Suniti Bhand

Laura Byerlee Anna Dahlborg Marie Forget Yvonne Kurz Lucy George Osvaldo Mabyaia Antje Liese Muentinga Agnes Nuval Asuka Okumura Willy Raparaoelina Evelyne Taffin Shubangi Welch

Bridge Coordinators Marlene Bolze Leila Nelson Kathryn O’Brien

Chess Club Coordinator: Willy Raparoelina

Children’s Art Competition

Coordinator: Amber Van De Genachte Judges Huda Batterjee Sadeem Alkadi Volunteers Kosar Aftab Maheen Aftab Sadeem Alkadi Nada Al Husayni Laila Al Robian Marie-Elisabeth Aubry-Camus Huda Batterjee Evelyn Bautista-Laguidao

Mabel Cabezes Damarias Cortez Simone Eckle Rachida El Yadari Joyce T. Gomez Anna Regina Heck Maaike le Grand Dakota Oliphant Fenna Oliphant Fiona Oliphant Willem Oliphant Annemarie Brink Olsen Sofie Olsson Nieves Rubino Laura Smaldone Jana Zavadska

Children’s Holiday Party Coordinator: Amber Van De Genachte Decoration Team Leaders: Mabel Cabazes Karen Manzanilla Activities Planning Team Leaders: Nieves Rubino Ruby Shamayleh Refreshment Team Leader: Anuradha Mishra Graphics Designer: Margret Kroyer Volunteers Gulira Alieva Hannah Anderson Tatiana Maria Arias Henrietta Bakarr Vania Castro Piya Chandramani Preeti Chandramani Kaouthar Chebil

Rupes Dalai Axel Diesel Rachida El Yadari Noah Espinola Sarah Fié Joyce Gomez Rosanna Gomez Sihem Hadhiri Alicia Hetzner Evelyn Laguidao Elizabeth Legrain Nicolas Legrain Sayfeddine Merzouk Antje Liese-Muentinga Belkys Lopez-Rabello Vanessa Mojica Adriana Navarro Aurora Navarro Hoa Nguyen Russell Nunes Annemarie Brink Olsen Bojana Pandza Fani Papalamprou Lagny Epineuse Sabine Rosmarijn Sales Vjolca Jusufi Saliu Louise Shimizu Swati Srivastava Uta Steckhan Pascal Tiberghien Inela Weeks Mai Yokoyama Janka Zavadska Guili Zhou

Computer Classes

Instructor: Tania Gnesdilova

EC Nominating Committee Chair: Belkys M. Lopez Rabello

Expecting Moms Instructors Huda Batterjee Gertrud Bojo

Financial Education Coordinator: Sally Macartney

Financial Literacy Courses Instructor: Cary Clark Facilitators Djyldyz Kydyrova Sally Macartney Tessa Ravry

Wandering Winners Investment Club President: Tessa Ravry Vice-President: Mari Parker Treasurer & Archivist: Patricia Caicedo Parliamentarian: Sally Macartney Secretary: Djyldyz Kydyrova

Get-Togethers Hosts Marlene Athie Marie Elisabeth Aubry-Camus Rachida El Yadari Margret Kroyer Besma Huc

Nandini Lal Karin Metz Annemarie Brink Olsen Constance Puech Laura Smaldone

Graphics Team Miguel Barreto Gilda Dadush Margret Kroyer Duina Reyes

Information Seminars Coordinator: Monika Sergo

Sarah Brau Carmela Cosans Helen Maybury Michele Schimetat O’Neill Frank Sterrett French Teacher Catherine Gouarne Spanish Teacher Isabel Moreno

Male Spouse Activities Coordinators Philippe Futa Robert Marson Johannes Tonn

International Cuisine Coordinator: Catherine Labaste Hosts Phi Fostvedt Catherine Labaste Martina Luzuriaga Isabelle Tausch Lesley Younes

International Cultural Group Committee Vim Maguire Shirley Scheyer Pat Streifel

Job Seekers Club Coordinator: Johannes Tonn

Language Groups

English Teachers

Margaret McNamara Memorial Fund (MMMF) Honorary Advisors Harriet Baldwin Sigrid Blobel Charlotte Conable Anne Dickerson Sukriye Karaosmanoglu Patsy Preston Carla Scearce Ruby Wingate Elaine Wolfensohn Hannah Woicke Officers President: Charlotte Jones-Carroll Vice President: Georgine Ahmad Treasurer: Jayati Datta-Mitra Secretary: Kristine Martin Coordinator Cecile Ferri (until December 2010)

Martina Adank (starting November 2010) Directors Sarah Brau Nadereh Chamlou Tembiso Chikosi (starting April 2011) Gilda Dadush (until November 2010) Joanne Garrity Dominique Lallement Suman Mehra Talaat Moreau Kathleen McNamara Elisabeth Rice Hilary Welch Andree Wynkoop Historian: Harriet Baldwin Advisors Caroline Berney Hada Zaidan Lois Khairallah Priscilla Linn Friends Chair: Nadereh Chamlou Financial Secretary: Christine Stover Founding Member: Harriet Baldwin Recipients’ Hospitality Hosts Georgine Ahmad Sarah Brau Glaucia Fernandes Charlotte Jones-Carroll Dominique Lallement Clare Scrimgeour Hilary Welch Andree Wynkoop

Selection Committee, Africa South Africa Team Chair: Melanie Jaya* Washington Team Chair: Elna van Greuning* Committee Members Simon Akala Corrie Bridgman Enid Burki Debra Byam* Rodney Chasumba Madeleine de Kock* Khetsiwe Dlamini Jemima Harlley Vesna Heysch de la Borde* Conrad Jardine Patrick Kabuya Nalinie Kouame Juliet Munchenje Nokuthula Mathobela Radhika Minocha Phindile Ngwenya Selene Sopelana Loyo Judy Wolf Selection Panel Members Faith Babalwa Chirwa Gloria Sindano Mmenyane Seoposengwe Thiru Naidoo-Swettenham Selection Committee, US/Canada Chair: Vesna Heysch de la Borde* Co-Chairs: Madeleine de Kock*, Vania Castro* Committee Members Maria Alcover Glaucia Fernandes Gabrielle Herderschee Reiko Niimi*

Dorine Otieno* Jacqueline Rivero Swati Srivastava Olga Pang Stein Fatou Toure Judy Wolf* Aparna Zaveri Juan Monica Zhang Selection Panel Members Isabel Chatterton Barbara H. Kalema-Musoke Elizabeth Legrain Selene Sopelana Loyo Erinn Wattie *also on Selection Panel IT Volunteer(online applications) Louis Angel Rivas Audit Committee Chair: Joanne Garrity Committee Members Jessie Dagdag Dzung Minh Nguyen Margarita Radeva Investment Committee Chair: Jayati Datta-Mitra Committee Members Mary Choksi Charlotte Jones-Carroll Suman Mehra Vilaykham Phomsouvanh Fatou Toure Communication/Strategy Committee Sarah Brau Nadereh Chamlou Dominique Lallement

Kathleen McNamara Talaat Moreau Andree Wynkoop

International Arts and Crafts Fair Chair: Georgine Ahmad Volunteers Caroline Berney Sigrid Blobel Sarah Brau Elide Cabello Lauretta Cosenza Gilda Dadush Jayati Datta-Mitra Ineke de Haan Ursula Deheja Karim Derrahi Marie Diop Karima Elmaghraby Na’ava Feder Miren Fernandez Joanne Garrity Charlotte Jones-Carroll Anna Jubiz Linda S. Kaufman Yvonne Kendall Lilian Kew Lois Khairallah Marlene Jacome Catherine Labaste Vim Maguire Jessica Marquier Barry McIsaac Kathleen McNamara Talaat Moreau Folusho Olusi

Mari Parker Louise Shimizu Christine Stover Zane Stuggins Elna van Greuning Samantha van Greuning Barbara Yurivliker Hada Zaidan

History Project (30th Anniversary) Co-Coordinator: Viola Gnocchi Co-Coordinator: Busharah Azhar Committee Members Caroline Berney Charlotte Jones-Carroll Dharana Nepal Deepika Shrestha Betty Nakiwuka Twesiime Monica Vidili Ana Maria Zuniga Graphics & Design Miguel Barreto Gilda Dadush Volunteers Mawussi Zevounou Bossou Christine Carmody Stephan Eggli Ela Tomris Ilkgelen Juliet Namaganda Rosario Navarro Veronica Perez Vilaykham Phomsouvanh Xie Zheng

Member Management System

IT Specialist: Tania Gnesdilova

Members Abroad

Coordinator: Karin Metz Volunteers Amy Chamberlain Philippe Futa Ghusai Gubraiel Linda Kaufman Karen Manzanilla Isabelle Moullier Johannes Tonn

Messages for Japan Project Project Coordinators Mika Imamura Junko Nakayama Yoko Yamamoto Project Graphics Lead: Gilda Dadush Volunteers Takako Eguchi Mutsuko Fukui Emi Kikuchi Emma Masse Mariko Oka Yoshiko Okushi Mari Parker Yaeko Perera Machiko Shikibu Louise Shimizu Masaharu Shimizu Kanami Takamura Eriko Tominaga Reiko Yoshino

Messages from Cairo Project Coordinator: Akiko Kimura

«M

osaic

Editor: Vidya Rangan Volunteers Valery Andrades Eva Calonder Gilda Dadush Maaike le Grand Mishi Mirza Mashudah Annemarie Brink Olsen Deepika Shrestha

Ibrahim Turk

Quilting Group Coordinator: Vivienne Mordasini Volunteers Stefanie Borchert Anja Gutschera Gabriele Hofmann Patricia Garcia Uribe

Representative Council Multi-Organization Meetings Coordinator: Maaike le Grand Volunteers Karen Clarke-Stange Philippe Futa Johannes Tonn Fatou Toure

Office Assistant Mariela Eberhardt

Parents & Tots Downtown Babies Coordinator: Aminata Bojang MD Parents and Tots Coordinator: Adriana Ferreira Heery MD Spanish Parents and Tots Coordinator: Gabriela Gonzalez VA Parents and Tots Coordinator: Louise Touber

Photo Team

Rachida El Yadari Annemarie Brink Olsen

Chair: Maaike le Grand

Spouse Issues Committee Chantale Holzmann Barry McIsaac Fiona Oliphant Annemarie Brink Olsen Rosa Lia Troch Diana Vainstein Hilary Welch

Surviving Culture Shock Facilitators Nancy LeBaron Yvonne Quahe

Teen Summer Program Team Martina Adank Marie Elisabeth Aubry-Camus Eva Clymans Karim Derrahi Philippe Futa Karin Metz

«WBFN B

eer

Club

Coordinator: Johannes Tonn

WBFN Gallery Coordinator: Na’ava Feder Exhibitors Huda Batterjee Margret Kroyer Parviz Steeds Vanita Venugopal

WBFN Website Webmaster: Gilda Dadush Team Marie-Anne Chambonnier Mishi Mirza Mashudah Alexis Massenet Cristina Ospino Mikael Reventar

A cultural visit to Dumbarton Oaks Garden as part of the Representative Council Appreciation Day