When life echoes art (and vice versa)

From the (virtual) pen of our Executive Vice President, Joyce:

I spend most of my time doing Tanenbaum work, but recently I took time to be with friends and pay a visit to Broadway to see a play that reminded me how the theater can engulf you and still remind you of your work.

Syrian journalist freed from prison

I first came across the name Michel Kilo on Tanenbaum Peacemaker Hind Kabawat’s website.  I was doing research in preparation for a series of interviews with Hind for her Peacemaker in Action case study.

Kilo is a Syrian journalist and pro-democracy activist. In prison since May 2006, he was released ten days ago.  His three year sentence was for “weakening national sentiment and encouraging sectarian strife.”

“When you hate, it is like taking poison…”

I saw  Imam Muhammad Ashafa and Pastor James Wuye last night at West End Collegiate Church. Part of their presentation echoed a conversation we’d had together in the office earlier that day about how to measure impact. Pastor James spoke about the hundreds of people that were killed in Jos, Nigeria in November 2008. In this crisis many died, he said, but not the 57, 786 of another time in the same region, before the Interfaith Mediation Centre began its work. Powerful, and yet, this is not a comparison often made for evaluations and donors – because how do you assess impact in the negative – in the numbers not killed?

What do Mortenson, Hussain and Holbrooke have in common?

Last month, Greg Mortenson was awarded Pakistan’s highest civilian award, the Sitara-e-Pakistan. An American who has built 78 schools along the tribal belt that separates Afghanistan and Pakistan, Mortenson has garnered international enthusiasm for his work through his memoir Three Cups of Tea.

The book takes its name from the Pakistani saying, “The first time you share tea…you are a stranger…the second time you take tea you are an honored guest [and] the third time you share a cup of tea, you become family.” Though it sometimes wanes into a too-familiar tone of American, rugged-individual heroism, Mortenson’s story is a powerful testimony to the importance of building relationships (in this case, to the end of building schools).

Another American has recently written a different kind of book about schools in Pakistan: Peacemaker Azhar Hussain and the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy have just released

An Afghan Heroine

It’s a madhouse today! Weekly news will have to come on Monday. In the meantime, we offer some reflections on a deeply moving night from our EVP, Joyce Dubensky:

The news from Afghanistan is so often about violence, death, a rugged land where lawlessness reigns. But this week there was a celebration – and an Afghan heroine was at the center of it all. Tanenbaum’s Peacemaker in Action from Afghanistan – Sakena – got a very prestigious award. Heather and I were invited to attend and we watched as she received the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership. What a night! We got to say hello to her, but there was no time to talk – except as she asked me to quickly help her adjust her hijab.