The Baines Report
If, as the adage goes, history rarely repeats itself but often rhymes, then Scottish voters may be dangerously close to the end of a verse. On Thursday, Scottish voters will go to the polls to vote on whether or not to leave the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, the plan for independence does not include monetary independence. […]
Ethiopia is a vast country with terrain that varies from deserts to lush green jungles. During my time in country, there was one aspect that stood out no matter where in Ethiopia I traveled: donkeys. Donkeys were everywhere. No, not the blue donkey taxis–the living and breathing animal kind. I could usually spot them grazing […]
Poverty can easily be seen throughout the capital of Ethiopia, but nowhere is it more evident than when you pass a beggar on the street. Beggars are everywhere in Addis Ababa, and they represent a vast range of demographics. There are men, women, children of all ages and conditions– some with their mothers, some without, […]
Running a small business across any national border can be tricky, and especially between Gisenyi and Goma. The women who buy and sell goods here have spent their lives caught up in the chaos on the border between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). But they have more in common than conflict […]
Sanitation work is often hard to define. It is not clear whether you should specifically be working on providing access to a formal sewage system, building a municipal sewage system, building individual toilets, educating users, cleaning toilets, promoting use, or providing security. It is unclear how one activity should be prioritized over another or how […]
While IUDs have become a course of controversy and new restrictions in the US, the Government of Ethiopia is actively trying to expand access to IUDs and other long term birth controls to women all over the country. In 2005 the Ministry of Health in Ethiopia began a Health Expansion Program that created paid and […]
Creating change is a hard, slow process. Creating organizational change may be even harder as it involves people, attitudes, and the work environment. Early planning for my summer internship with Peace Corps Senegal had me slotted to analyze the organization’s current Monitoring, Reporting and Evaluation (MRE) practices and processes. This was to be a two […]
There is widespread belief that small-scale farming is the sustainable and equitable solution to solving the crises of hunger and poverty in developing countries. For an international development course last semester, I reviewed Roger Thurow’s The Last Hunger Season, a journalistic account of how small-scale farming improved the lives of four farmers in rural villages […]
*Note from the author – In this article I only tell my personal experiences living and traveling in the Middle East. I do not discuss Gaza because I have no firsthand experience traveling in Gaza. Also, the portrayal of life in Israel is unique to my situation and does not represent the experiences of other […]