Uncategorized – Postcards from the Field

Believing in the power of people

Dear Class of 1957,

Near the end of my internship, the Baltimore IRC office held a community appreciation event at a nearby church. The event provided our staff the opportunity to thank people who collaborate with our organization and with our refugee clients. Employers like Under Armour and Chipotle, philanthropists, local school groups, families, and legislators all joined us for the dinner. My boss also invited several of our asylee clients, families who we knew would appreciate the food and community atmosphere. I stood in the back of church with Mohammed, a tall, quirky 22-year-old Iraqi refugee that I had become especially close with. Without our translator it was difficult to communicate, but we both appreciated the company and welcoming atmosphere.

The guest keynote speaker, a local politician from Maryland, opened the night. Speaking in waves of passion, arms rising above his grey hair and pale face, he congratulated donors and volunteers on their influence helping Syrian refugees. He described our clients as cold, hungry, tired and weak families, welcomed with open arms into communities. He called us “heroes…reaching down, lifting Syrians up and saving their lives”.

Mohammed chuckled next to me, saying in broken English “That man does not talking about me.” He smiled. I shrunk farther back in the audience, embarrassed, praying that neither Mohammed nor our other asylee guests could understand the way the congressman described them. Despite having lived in camps across Iraq, Syria and Turkey, Mohammad and his family all possessed a warm sense of humor and pragmatic resilience. They proudly worked night shifts at a jewelry factory to make ends meet, and burst into our office smiling on Monday mornings to show us their newest paystubs. Certainly they were not the ones being “saved” by our team.

The IRC attracts employees who are knowledgeable and passionate about refugee resettlement. Many caseworkers are experts in the field because they and there families are immigrants, with firsthand experiences with the resettlement process. My boss is a political asylee from Ethiopia, and others in our office are Palestinian, Sudanese, Iraqi and Burmese. The American-born employees come from similarly diverse cultural, linguistic and ethnic backgrounds, heritages that allow them to communicate professionally and personally with our clients. This diversity has allowed the IRC to be notably void of a patronizing mentality. In the office, refugees are just clients, who looking like and talking like our employees. No one is “reaching down” to help them; they are served the same way any business helps its customers.

Alia El-Assar and Beyenech Taye, my bosses in the Asylee Department at the IRC. Alia, a Palestinian-American from South Florida, connects well with many clients by speaking in their native Arabic or Spanish languages. Beyenech applied for political asylum when she fled Ethiopia in 2003. She has been working at the IRC for 13 years, and won the “Employee of the Year” award for her professional, kind and patient work.

The refugees I’ve met certainly are not the stereotypical weak and feeble people the politician described. In fact, we work each day to empower people to move beyond this unflattering image, so they can get accustomed to working and living in the USA. I have been consistently humbled by our clients, people who inspire me each day to work towards building a more hospitable world. Women like Zahra, who learned six languages fluently by watching foreign TV programs in Afghanistan, and now translates at John’s Hopkins trauma center. Or Carine, a sixteen-year old asylee from Cameroon who waited eight years to rejoin her father in Baltimore. While most American girls her age are learning high-school algebra, she’s starting college nursing courses only two months after arriving to the country. Many of our clients were forced to flee promising careers by war and conflict. Aasif, an interpreter for the US Army in Afghanistan, is pumping gas right now in a Baltimore suburb, preparing for the day he can start his own company in Washington. And, Aamira, a woman who wraps sandwiches at a local deli in her brightly colored hijab, once ran a large non-profit consulting firm in Sudan.

Our clients will accomplish incredible things in their new American communities, and many are already underway building these dreams. Above all else, this term has taught me to treat refugees and asylees with the respect they deserve. Our nation should believe in them, too. Because at the end of the day, unless our nation can move past viewing immigrants as “weak and feeble refugees”, we can never fully embrace the powerful, intelligent, savvy, frustrated and complex individuals they truly are.

Best,

Milan Chuttani ‘18

**names have been modified in this post to preserve the anonymity of IRC clients**

Josue, a refugee from El Salvador, Mario, a parolee from Cuba, and I at an IRC picnic and soccer event for resettled youth. Both Josue and Mario are as eager to learn English as I am to practice Spanish. We’ve had long conversations about everything from Central American politics to the American healthcare system to various styles of music.

Arctic explorations from the comforts of campus!

Nose red and fingers frozen, I stepped out of the arctic wind and into the welcome warmth of Rauner Special Collections Library. Okay, maybe “arctic” is an exaggeration – but the 25-degree Hanover weather really helped me empathize with the men of Adolphus Greely’s 1881 polar expedition aboard the ship Proteus. Although physically thousands of miles from the earth’s coldest regions where Joanne recently completed her travels (see our previous postcards to read about her adventures in Antarctica!), first-year students and members of Dartmouth’s class of 1957 were transported that morning to a faraway, 19^th century world, where brave souls explored uncharted waters while their entire countries waited, captivated to hear of their adventures and discoveries.

At the Great Issues Scholars event, Special Collections Librarians Jay Satterfield and Julia Logan guided attendees through primary source materials from two infamous arctic explorations: Greely’s previously mentioned Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, and the 1845 “lost” expedition of British naval officer Sir John Franklin. Rauner Library contains artifacts from both trips, including original maps, handwritten diaries and letters, and even a menu from a special Christmas meal aboard one of the ships! According to Ross Virginia, Professor of Environmental Studies and Director of the Institute of Arctic Studies, Rauner’s arctic collection is premiere in the world; scholars travel from far and wide to study its offerings. The Dickey Center takes this legacy of arctic scholarship one step further by offering the Stefansson Fellowship, a stipend for students to travel to the polar regions to conduct cutting-edge scientific research.

The librarians described to their spellbound audience the Greely sailors’ journey of hope then horror, telling how technical issues forced the men to spend a rough winter huddling together in a primitive shelter, awaiting rescue and resorting to cannibalism when their meager supplies ran out. One student could not hold back from interrupting the presentation to exclaim, “it’s just like a movie!”

Although not all of the attendees were particularly interested in the arctic or environmental issues, each was able to connect the story to their own international interests. Namrata Ramakrishna, a freshman planning on studying global health, was most interested in the cooperative partnership between the numerous countries that sponsored missions to the Arctic in the International Polar Year of 1882, noting that scientific research can often be very competitive. As a pre-law student, I was particularly intrigued by the crude justice system formed by Greely’s stranded men – one diary entry revealed that the men sentenced and shot one of their compatriots for stealing extra rations.

On the way to Baker Library for further discussion of the event, Great Issues Scholar Mentor Patrick Iradakunda noted how despite its rural location, Hanover is incredibly connected to the world. Bruce Bernstein, Dartmouth Class of 1957, felt the same way during his time at Dartmouth. Bernstein noted how college President John Sloan Dickey’s mandatory Great Issues course forced senior students to think about the world beyond the “Hanover bubble.” Rauner’s arctic collection is the perfect embodiment of this paradox: although braving the Hanover cold is the closest most students will get to the polar regions in their lifetimes, any of them can make the short trek from their dorm rooms to Rauner to experience the collection firsthand.

As campus correspondent (that’s me with hands cupped in the picture above), you can expect to hear from me on a few occasions, as I tie the work that Dartmouth students like Joanne are doing abroad with happenings on campus. Stay tuned for the next postcard, which features a junior and his work with refugees.

Until next time,

Freya

Reflections on Antarctica

As a follow-up to my last blog-post, I wanted to expand on my takeaways from my ten-day excursion to Antarctica. One of my best learning opportunities was simply observing how others passengers interacted with the land, and consequently, how effective the International Association of Antarctica Tour of Operators (IATTO) was in practice. IAATO is a self-governing mechanism that promotes environmentally responsible travel to Antarctica for private operators, such as OneOcean expeditions.

While crossing the Drake Passage, the “roughest stretch of sea in the world,” on our way to Antarctica, we attended two mandatory lectures under IAATO, which outlined Guidance for Visitors to the Antarctic. These sessions informed us about the importance of leaving no trace, respecting protected areas, and distancing ourselves from wildlife (Reflections, 2007). With the latter example, failure to do so could have disastrous consequences, such as scaring the penguins, causing them to run away and potentially break a foot or change path, forcing them to exert extra energy when going down to the ocean to feed.

Our first stop was in the South Sheltand Islands at Yankee Harbour. The other passengers and I were lucky enough to witness elephant seals and chinstrap penguins interspersed infrequently throughout the gentoo penguin dominant colonies. Despite this being the first excursion however, I noticed that some passengers willfully ignored some of the guidelines discussed during the IAATO briefing; as I vividly recall one passenger got within three meters of an elephant seal. It was interesting to see how some animals adapted to a humans’ presence better than others; for example, the penguins at Port Lackroy were quite comfortable around humans, in contrast to the scua I saw on Yankee Harbour, which howled at me as I inadvertently got close to its eggs. This phenomenon demonstrates how vital IAATO is in preventing alterations of animal behavior.

The main problem with IAATO, is that monitoring is sparse, therefore, the voluntary provision is very hard to enforce. From my observations, the honor system wasn’t always enough to avoid such violations, and it would be unrealistic for the OneOcean staff to micromanage every passenger while on land. Subpar boot washing also occurred as the quality of the scrubbing severely diminished over time. This ties directly into The Agreed Measures for the Conservation of Antarctic Flora and Fauna of 1964, which deals with the restriction on interference of wildlife, the establishment of protected areas, restrictions on introduction of non-indigenous species, and a category of specifically protected species introduced (Liggett, 2015).

Moreover, I was shocked by the lack of effort taken to cover up large indents in the snow as a result of a human step, or our sleeping holes when camping out on Leith Cove. On our daily hikes, people would often stray from the designated path or walk over penguin highways without much awareness of the ecosystem impacts. A few of my classmates set out to help cover up these holes, however I feel that a simple check by the crew could help avoid some of this negligence displayed by fellow passengers, in preserving the terrain. Although failure to cover up these holes has less to do with the possibility of penguins getting trapped in the snow, the concept of leaving no trace was not executed in every interaction with the land.

Although the aforementioned experiences are very targeted learning experiences, I never would have known that IAATO is breached consistently. I think it is admirable that many tour companies voluntarily abide by IAATO and do their best to avoid altering animal’s habitats. However, I think monitoring and enforcement mechanisms could be better, such as stationing one staff member at the boot washing station following excursions. It is entirely possible for a company to be a part of IAATO and not abide by its guidelines, but I commend the OneOcean staff for attempting to adhere to the provisions. Overall, I believe that we did a good job of minimizing impact, but need to compensate for others in the group who often forget about the harmful effects a footprint can have.

This experience complements my Dartmouth education as it reinforces fundamental concepts from my environmental justice, environmental law, and issue’s of the Earth’s cold regions. I hope to learn more about Antarctica’s unique environmental policy in the context of global relations and excited at the prospect of implementing feasible solutions to become an effective Antarctic ambassador and policy leader in the years to come.

References:

Guidance for Visitors to the Antarctic. (2016). Retrieved December 9, 2016, from http://iaato.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=022e237f-740e-4e7a-b952-a8acfe5d45c8&groupId=10157

Liggett, D. (2015). Tourism in Antarctica. Exploring the Last Continent, 379-398. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-18947-5_18

Reflections: At the end of the Earth. 2007. (pp. 1-51, Rep.). (n.d.).

Campus Event(s) invitation

We invite Class of 1957 members and spouses near Hanover to join students for one of the on-campus events this winter:

TWO EVENTS for members of Class of 1957 & Dickey’s Great Issues Scholars:

Sat., 2/4/17 Adventure, Exploration, Cannibalism! 19th Century Expeditions to Find the Northwest Passage, 10am-Noon Environmental Studies Professor Ross Virginia and Special Collections Librarian Jay Satterfield show original diaries and other documents from Dartmouth’s internationally famous Arctic Collection from two expeditions to the Arctic.

Franklin & Greeley Expeditions, 10-11am, Rauner Special Collections Library
Discussion with students, 11am-Noon, DCAL Teaching Center, Baker Library 102

Weds., 3/1/17 Ice Core Lab Tour – 4:30-5:30pm, Cummings 200, Thayer School of Engineering (Meet at Dickey at 4:15 to walk to Thayer) Have you ever seen a 200 year-old ice core? Learn the facts about climate change from Thayer engineering graduate students who are studying how climate change is affecting Polar Regions. Then take a rare tour of the ice core cold room and see first-hand how ice recovered from Polar Regions holds clues to the history of the earth’s climate. (Come prepared to bundle up and enter a sub-zero cold room where scientists work with ice cores retrieved from the Arctic. Don’t forget a coat!)

Welcome Class of 1957

As you may already know, one of the strengths of Dartmouth’s Dickey Center is our ability to work with students on AND off campus as they explore a wide range of international issues. This approach helps students formulate opinions and actions in areas of relevance to them. Through on-campus classes, lectures, and other events they are introduced to a wide range of problems in the world today. Through Dickey Center internships and research programs students are able to take these budding interests and get into the field to learn from practitioners and experts on projects underway across the globe. These experiences also help students build skills in working across cultures, languages, and systems. When they come back to campus, they return to the classroom and activities with a deeper understanding of the complexities of “the world’s troubles” as John Dickey so aptly put it. Their newly found knowledge is put to the test as they dig deeper in their study and as they share their experience with their peers. It is this very process of on and off campus exploration of critical issues in the world, that we want to highlight and share with the Class of 1957 this year.

POSTCARDS FROM THE FIELD: Great Issues Exploration with the Class of 1957

We have selected four students as “correspondents” to the Class of 1957— each will share their work, study, and discoveries with the Class in a series of “postcards” in the coming months. We will compile their writings and photos and provide these to you for your class newsletters AND in this online blog. Three students are receiving project grants from the Class of 1957 Great Issues Innovation fund to support a portion of their off-campus work this year:

Milan Chuttani ’18: Refugee crisis and response with the International Rescue Committee
Joanne Nazareth ’17: Environmental change and tourism in Antarctica
Kennedy Jensen ’18: Health access in under-resourced communities in Latin America

They will each write two reflections to the Class of 1957 about their work and personal insights. Another student, Freya Jamilson ’17, will write 3-4 posts to the Class while she covers global security, environment, international development, and health events on campus.

We invite classmate near Hanover to join students for one of the on-campus events this winter:

TWO EVENTS for members of Class of 1957 & Dickey’s Great Issues Scholars:

Franklin & Greeley Expeditions, 10-11am, Rauner Special Collections Library
Discussion with students, 11am-Noon, DCAL Teaching Center, Baker Library 102