Embassy of the United States Ottawa, Canada

Gary Pieters, Study of the United States Institutes (SUSI) Program for Secondary Educators at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2010

"I attended the National Alliance of Black School Educators (NABSE) 39th Annual Conference, themed 'Education is a Civil Right: Today's Strategies that Build Tomorrow's Leaders of African Descent" from November 15-20, 2011 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

"This is my 3rd NABSE Conference having previously attended the 2005 Conference in Detroit Michigan and the 2010 Conference in Indianapolis Indiana.

"The workshops and presentations explored all aspects of education and how educators and those working in the education sector can better serve the needs of African-American Students (applicable to African-Canadians and Racialized Students of all diversities internationally).

"There were several thousand delegates from across the United States, Canada, Europe and the Caribbean.

"Noteworthy was the strong representation of Canadian delegations from the Greater Toronto Area, Nova Scotia, Quebec whose estimated number was in the region of one hundred educators whose roles include school and system superintendents, principals, vice-principals, teachers, Ministry of Education officials, curriculum development programmers and retired educators from school boards across the GTA and Nova Scotia.

"I felt that the conference was beneficial to my knowledge building and have provided me with a greater sense of purpose, network of support and motivation to engage students, parents, staff and community partners to strengthen our collective commitment and theory of action to improving student achievement, fostering equitable and inclusive schools and infusing culturally relevant and responsive teaching and learning practices into curriculum, teaching and learning to close the various gaps that impede on educational attainment and the life chances of black and racialized students.

"During my time in New Orleans, I had a variety of professional experiences which included:

• School site visits and walkthroughs to three schools in the St. Charles Parish of Louisiana. The schools were St. Rose Elementary School (K-5); R.K. Smith Middle School (6-8); and Satellite Centre (10-12).
• Attendance at the opening session of the conference which featured keynote speaker Reverend Jesse L. Jackson Sr., Civil Rights Activist and Founder & President of Rainbow Push.
• Opportunities to engage, spend time and learn from various presenters at workshops and seminars including "Leave No Principal Behind: Leadership Coaching Using the School Principal Change Model as n Approach"; Research Roundtable;
• Opportunities to share as well as learn from various Canadian and American delegations
• Leadership in sharing how the Achievement Gap Report from the Toronto school system aligns with some of the gap closing initiatives being pursued by NABSE and spearheaded by School Districts in Southern California.
• A group meeting with the Toronto District School Board delegation facilitated by School Superintendent Uton Robinson."

(Gary Pieters is a vice-principal in the Toronto District School Board and the president of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations in Toronto)

Ailsa Craig, Canadian Fulbright Scholar, 2000-2001, York University to New York University

Craig, along with Fulbright alumnae Yolanda Wiersma, Jennifer Selby, and Angela V. Carter, received a Community Leadership Program (CLP) award to work on LGBTQ issues in Newfoundland and Labrador.

"It is well known that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth are often bullied for their sexuality or gender expression. It is well known that LGBTQ youth are a disproportionate number of Canada's homeless young people. We know that LGBTQ youth are at a higher risk for suicide and that growing up LGBTQ presents a host of other challenges, including not having -- or not knowing -- mentors that can help open doors, point to different paths, and listen.

"I've worked for freedom of sexual diversity and gender expression for many years. Having spent my Fulbright years in New York City pursuing my PhD, and being from Toronto originally, urban queer communities have always been 'home'. In 2006, I moved to St. John's, Newfoundland to work at Memorial University in the Sociology Department. While it is different in many ways, like Manhattan and Toronto, St. John's is a capital city—a place full of people who love where they live and invest their energy into their communities -- and it can feel like it's the centre of the world. It is a place filled with energy, art, and thriving community values. One of the differences, of course, is the size of the population, and how close to rural life the city of St. John's is fortunate to be.

"As the capital city of the province, many LGBTQ youth are pulled to St. John's as a larger centre where the possibilities of queer community can thrive -- but as I met LGBTQ youth through my work at the university, the need for more resources and services to youth across the province became very clear. While the popular 'It Gets Better' foundation with its hopeful videos has done so much for LGBTQ youth and raising awareness, we need to also build the resources that exist for youth where they are right now, even while we continue showing them the promise LGBTQ lives can hold.

"So when the call came for applications to the alumni Community Leadership Program, I jumped at the chance to create something to promote awareness of sexual and gender diversity, contribute to LGBTQ youth peer advocacy, and provide much-needed resources to Newfoundland and Labrador youth not only in St. John's, but across the province. And so, 'Make it Better NL' was born—a peer advocacy, resource, and awareness project that is well on its way, and has been able to contribute in ways we didn't even envision at the start of the project.

"Through our community partnership with EGALE Canada, we will be able to distribute our poster and pamphlets to schools across the province, ensuring that we reach every guidance counselor in Newfoundland and Labrador. In August 2011, in conjunction with another community partner, The Newfoundland and Labrador Sexual Health Centre (Planned Parenthood), we did the first Make it Better NL peer advocacy workshop, which culminated in youth making their own 'Make it Better' videos. These videos, along with others, will be edited and posted on a website hosted by Planned Parenthood, and will be linked to by our third community partner, the San Francisco-based 'Make it Better Project' which works to ensure youth participation and empowerment in the ongoing work of confronting homophobia, transphobia and the challenges of growing up queer. Aside from the work of creating poster and pamphlet resources, through the project, and unexpectedly, as the founder of the project, I've presented on sexual diversity, gender diversity, and peer advocacy at several highschools, performed peer-advocacy training to university student volunteers, and been invited to deliver a keynote address for the National Association to Prevent Child Abuse, where I spoke to social service providers, police officers, and family lawyers from across the country on the connections between homophobia, heterosexism, and child abuse.

"Because the project is committed to peer advocacy, resources, empowerment and change, youth are active participants—not only through making videos or attending workshops and talks, but as partners in doing the work of the project. When Make it Better NL goes to Corner Brook this August, a youth member will come to do outreach and resource work. And when Raymond Taavel was killed outside a gay bar in Halifax this spring, it was a youth member who spoke on behalf of the project at the St. John's memorial that was held in solidarity with those in Halifax mourning this committed activist's violent death. It was also a youth member who spoke on behalf of the project at the St. John's Pride Week Flag Raising at City Hall, and it will be youth who will march with our banner on Pride Day, handing out buttons with our logo—a puffin's head with a rainbow beak, to show that LGBTQ life is everywhere, not only in the biggest urban centres, and that sexual and gender diversity are central to the diversity that make all of our communities better."

Karen Kedrowski, American Fulbright Scholar with the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada in 2010 "This June, I was invited back to give two presentations to the Grande Conference of the Quebecois Lactation Consultants Association (ACQ) in Laval, Quebec.

The first presentation was on how international human rights documents can be used to assert a positive right to breastfeed (on the part of the mothers) and to protect infants' interest in being breastfed, and the limits of such a right. Breastfeeding sits at the intersection of multiple rights-bearing entities and is fertile ground for legal tests relating to human rights.

The second presentation compared Canadian and US breastfeeding policies. In both countries, states or provinces have taken the lead in establishing breastfeeding policies. However, their approaches are very different. Canada has taken a public health approach, following the WHO recommendations, and focusing on earning 'baby friendly' designations for hospitals and community health clinics. The US has taken a legal, rights-based approach, protecting mothers' rights to breastfeed in public, exemption from obscenity laws, and employment accommodations. Yet despite their very different approaches, breastfeeding rates in the US and Canada are not as different as one might expect."

Jana Lee Morris, Canadian Youth Ambassador, Summer 2011

Alumna Travels to Romania with Tattered Tiaras to Volunteer with Trafficked Girls

*Please note that due to safety issues I am not able to include the specific name of the town or the names of any girls involved.

"Romania: it is the forgotten country in Europe bordering Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and the Ukraine. This country, Romania is the one country that most people do not want to visit while backpacking Europe. The country that people question why one would ever visit it. Romania faces many hard times today and just like the country itself, the people and their struggles are also forgotten.

"I, myself a nineteen year-old female, had the opportunity to travel to Romania this past May for two weeks. Prior to my departure I had a very difficult time gaining support from my family and my friends. Many questioned my decision and worried about my safety. My own family refused to watch the movie Taken until I had safely returned due to the fact that they were afraid the same would happen to me. Little did they know, that girls do not get kidnapped into human trafficking in this forgotten country, they get sold.

"Travelling with an organization called Tattered Tiaras, an organization that focuses on women of all ages and does the same abroad, it was my duty along with the six other team members, to focus on all aspects of life for girls in Romania, including those who have been trafficked.

"There is a small city in the countryside just outside of the capital, Bucharest, which has a rehabilitation center, called Reach out Romania, for girls who have been trafficked. A lady by the name of Iana runs Reach out Romania with her son Stephan. The center is set up very much like any other house in the area. The difference is that it is gated with electric barbed wire on the top. There are cameras that monitor every room and a security system that allows Organized Crime to arrive only three minutes after its activation. This security system, while seeming over the top, is necessary, as pimps have broken in to steal their "property" away in the past.

"The use of Organized Crime as opposed to the police may have been raised to question. In Romania, there are four sections of policing: Organized Crime, Criminal Investigations, Public Safety, and Administrative Police. Organized Crime happens to be the only section willing to work in the area of human trafficking. Unfortunately, all other policing sectors view the girls as prostitutes and use them as so.

"Many times, Organized Crime will be called to a certain situation where there happens to be young girls in prostitution and, working alongside Reach out Romania, will bring them to the center. Other times, Iana has happened into a certain situation and will meet with the girls privately where they express their desire to escape the situation. Thus meaning, that there have been cases where Iana has had to steal girls out of their situation.

"More often than not, the girls have not been kidnapped into their situation; they have been sold. The sad reality of this is that they have been sold by their mothers, fathers and boyfriends most of the time. At one point in time a girl was sold for four cigarettes by her mother. Men will date younger girls (minors) in order to be able to sell them for money: something that is prominent in the Roma (Gypsy) community.

"At any given time, the center holds ten to fourteen girls. At one point in time, they were mostly over the age of eighteen. Today, seventy-five percent of them are under the age of eighteen due to the fact that the girls being trafficked are progressively becoming younger and younger. Girls will be purchased in Romania and sent out to surrounding countries. This makes it harder to track girls down and harder for them to escape. One girl that I had the opportunity to speak with had been taken to Turkey where she refused to enter a life of prostitution. She was drugged and beaten. She was threatened and in the end forced into a life of prostitution. At the age of twenty-three, this young woman ran away and was helped by nuns who brought her to Reach Out Romania. Today she is in school and is striving to get a college education.

Stories like this are not unusual for girls of all ages. Sadly, they are not uncommon for young men either. The day of our visit the center was picking up a twenty-year-old male. This young man, whom I had the opportunity to meet, was full of life and on the outside you would never be able to guess what he had been through. He was hired as a bar tender and upon arrival was drugged, beaten and forced to be a homosexual in the sex trade industry.

"As sad as these stories are, Reach Out Romania provides help and hope for all of these sex slaves. They provide counseling, a family, education and life skills. The girls attend school, love each other, and have been making sheets for hotels. In fact the center is building a hotel to offer a place for the girls to work at after they leave and go out on their own. This is a hopeful opportunity to raise the success rate from eighty-six to one hundred.

"Why do you care about Romania? Maybe you don't. Maybe it is still the far off forgotten, dangerous country to you, but it's one country out of many that traffic women, children and even men. Next time you think about Romania, try to think of it as a generation crying out for help, think of it as your daughter, sister, niece, nephew or even your grandkids crying out for help; the kids being trafficked right here in Canada. Remember, it is not just a far off notion. Human Trafficking is happening right here at home, maybe even to someone you know. Next time you think of Romania, think that you can make a difference. You can be like Iana, a woman who has saved the lives of over 400 girls. You can be the change."

Toby D. Couture, Canadian Fulbright Scholar, 2008

"I was awarded a Canada-US Fulbright Scholarship in 2008-09 to undertake work in renewable energy in the US. Through the support (and eventual approval) of the Fulbright committee, I travelled from the east coast of Canada to Golden, Colorado, where I took up a research position as Energy and Financial Markets Analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Having just completed a Masters in renewable energy policy in Canada, this was an invaluable experience, and enabled me to share in, and contribute to, some of the incredible work taking place at one of the US' leading energy research labs.

"As I settled into my position in Colorado, I began building on the previous work that I had been doing in Canada. In the process, I was given the opportunity to lead the Lab's work on what are called renewable energy "feed-in tariff" (FIT) policies, which was my area of expertise. FITs are now widely considered to be the most effective renewable energy policy worldwide, and are currently being used in over 80 jurisdictions worldwide.

"(You're probably wondering, what's a feed-in tariff? For reference, FIT policies work by providing stable, long-term contracts to renewable energy producers to supply (i.e. feed-in) power to the grid, typically at a price that is based on the cost of generation. This allows anybody (private businesses, citizens, farmers, as well as investors) to invest in renewable energy projects, sell their electricity to the grid, and earn a return on their investment.)

"The idea has even begun to catch on in the US, having been adopted in the state of Vermont, as well as the cities of Gainesville, FL, and more recently Los Angeles, among others.

"I added a quick list of some of the reports we published during my time with the Lab, the first of which, which I am now told, is being used by governments such as Japan, India, Malaysia, and even Saudi Arabia as a policy guide to accelerate renewable energy deployment:

• Couture, T. Cory, K. Kreycik, C. Williams, E. (2010). Policymaker's Guide to Feed-In Tariff Design. TP-6A2-44849. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10osti/44849.pdf.
• Couture, T.; Cory, K. (2009). State Clean Energy Policy Analysis (SCEPA) Project: An Analysis of Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariffs in the United States. NREL/TP-6A2-45551. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. www.nrel.gov/docs/fy09osti/45551.pdf.
• Couture, T. Kreycik, C. Cory, K. (2011). Innovative Feed-In Tariff Designs that Limit Policy Costs. NREL TP-6A20-50225. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/50225.pdf.
• Couture, T., Kreycik, C, Cory, K., (2012). Procurement Options for New Renewable Electricity Supply. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL. www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/52983.pdf.

"After my time with NREL, I went on to do another Master's degree in London, at the LSE, and I'm now living in Berlin, working on renewable energy policy, and strategy."

News Release Regarding Stephen J. Farnsworth, Fulbright Scholar at McGill in Montreal in 2006-7

By Marty Morrison

Fredericksburg, Va.: Author, political analyst and professor Stephen Farnsworth will rejoin the faculty of University of Mary Washington in January to open the Center for Leadership and Media Studies on the Fredericksburg campus. He also will teach in the Department of Political Science and International Affairs.

The center will engage students in conducting research and political opinion surveys that study the role media plays in state and national politics, including the presidential election.

"So much of how we follow our government depends on what the media chooses to write or broadcast or post online," according to Farnsworth, who currently is associate professor of communications at George Mason University. "We will examine news content, conduct opinion surveys of citizens and evaluate how they view government officials, government policies and media sources."

Farnsworth, who taught at UMW for 13 years until 2008, expects the center to become operational soon after he arrives in January.

"We'll hit the ground running to look at the upcoming presidential campaign," Farnsworth said. "We plan to be in the thick of the campaign right away."

A major initiative of the center will be connecting current undergraduates with alumni who are in government or political science careers to boost student and alumni experiences.

"We want to maximize alumni involvement so they can share insights about their careers with the next generation of students," Farnsworth said.

An expert on media and politics, Farnsworth has conducted research on elections, the mass media, the presidency and public opinion in the United States. In addition to having his research appear in numerous scholarly journals, he is regularly quoted about political and communication issues in major media outlets.

He is the author of Spinner in Chief: How Presidents Sell Their Policies and Themselves and Political Support in a Frustrated America. He also co-authored The Nightly News Nightmare: Television's Coverage of U.S. Presidential Elections, 1988-2004 and The Mediated Presidency: Television News and Presidential Governance.

Farnsworth, who worked for 10 years as a newspaper journalist before becoming a professor, has lectured on the news media and elections, and he has led reporter-training seminars in India, the Philippines, Ukraine, Georgia, and Armenia through programs funded by the U.S. government. He also has assessed electoral conditions in Cambodia for the National Democratic Institute.

Farnsworth won three campus-wide teaching awards at UMW, including the Alumni Association Outstanding Young Faculty Member Award, the Mary W. Pinschmidt Teaching Award and the Richard Palmieri Outstanding Professor Award. In addition, he served as a Fulbright Research Chair at McGill University in Montreal during the 2006-07 academic year.

He received a doctorate and master's degree in government from Georgetown University, after having received a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Missouri and a bachelor's degree in government from Dartmouth College.