Hello everyone! My name is Hannah, a first-year student of IEDP at Penn GSE. Throughout this year, I will be posting to share different aspects of day in life of the IEDP cohort 2018-2019. Please (virtually) join our adventure in Philadelphia and the world of international education development! Continue reading IEDP Blog is Up!
Someone currently living in a serene island of Koh Rong Samloem in Cambodia told me that when he left his native country, never to go back, and decided to settle in a place very different than the one he came from, learning a new language and relearning new ways to live was like being a newborn again – everything is exciting but you are also quite vulnerable. My move to Cambodia for this internship was not as drastic of a change as his, but I could definitely relate to being wide-eyed excited about learning new things every day and at times feeling completely out of place. Continue reading Learning, leaving and looking back
Hasta la próxima. Until next time. I’ve repeated these words many times over the past several days as I bid farewell to my co-workers and friends in Peru, and each time I’m reminded of how different this departure feels. Every time I’ve left Latin America, I’ve been able to anticipate when I’d be coming back for my next extended stay. This time, as I hugged … Continue reading Hasta la Próxima
Although I have 4 more weeks of my internship to go, this will be my last blog post. My two months in Addis and at IICBA have been fantastic so far and I’m looking forward to what this last month will bring. As I reflect on the time I’ve already spent here, it’s very clear what the best part of my internship has been – … Continue reading I’ll take 3 more months, please.
It feels a bit weird to be submitting this “final” blog post now. While a lot of my IEDP classmates have already finished their internships and returned home or gone back to Penn for another semester, I still have two weeks left to wrap up here in Delhi. Or maybe I should say gear up, because there’s a lot to be done before I leave … Continue reading Sawaal Achchhe Hain
A three-month internship is a rather peculiar affair. It is short enough to ensure that you do not end up with anything concrete. And, just long enough to make you feel that you should have come away with something more solid. Continue reading He came, he saw…
On the 9th of August I attended an International Youth Day event organized by 4 organizations working on youth empowerment in Kenya, and funded by the EU. The theme of the event was “Nafasi Kwa Vijana” or “Safe spaces for youth”. The whole perfectly encapsulated my experience working in Mombasa for the last 13 weeks. It was hot, chaotic, partly inefficient but through it all … Continue reading A bittersweet symphony
“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” – E. B. White — Well, this is the end, my friends. Fourteen weeks in Senegal, a week in Istanbul, a weekend in Long Island and I am back where it all began … Continue reading When do you decide growth versus enjoyment?
The last week of my internship was completed by the Summer Camp. I would say it was an excellent conclusion to my internship. This event was organized by the whole ASSET team. We worked really hard last month in order to make this event very productive and enjoyable for the students. The total number of participants was 65. Basically, they were teachers and students from … Continue reading Shkolla Verore 2018 (Summer Camp)
Grace*, a 15-year-old, is happy with the kind of joy that comes from finishing a big exam. She attends a `community school’ in Amuru district in North Uganda – a school that the local community set up for their children because the nearest Government primary school is over 40 km away. The community school is still not exactly next door – Grace wakes up at … Continue reading An ode to data – Part 1
The International Educational Development Program 