Care for the World, Issue #3

Dear Readers,

The weeks flew by, and already the Ford Motor Company Global Scholar Program’s first students are packing their bags for departure. But we’ll return to our homes as changed people.

The knowledge we’ve gained about the homelands and cultures of our fellow students is something that wills surely enrich our future career paths.

Perhaps even greater is the understanding, appreciation and even love we have for the foreign strangers we met 15 weeks ago.

The last and final edition of this semester’s “Care for the World” is a collage of habitual international advocacy articles, but also goodbyes and inspirational stories. Turkish-American Elif Cila, South African Mokete and American student Amy Storer tell us the importance of civic engagement. Juli Digate and Mokete give sentimental goodbyes, and I threw in a personal story of my own call to action.

We appreciate your time and your support for our newsletter. Hopefully our worldwide passions and concerns in the past few months have become yours as well from reading. We hope you’ll return next semester, when a new group of students voices an fresh set of global perspectives and cares for the world.

And good luck to the current Ford Fellows in their bright, promising futures.

All my love and God bless,
Rachael Marie Bade

Newsletter Articles:

Testimonials from Juli Digate and Mokete Mokone

Tue, 01/06/2009 - 8:50pm — Andrey Gidaspov

Juli Digate: I am so happy I participated in the Ford Global Scholars program this semester!

Besides the obvious positives of being in Washington D.C. as a political science major (especially since this was an election year), the Ford program allowed me to make friends with students from all over the globe. I truly feel like I've made global connections, and I've learned so much about countries that we rarely study in the United States (i.e. South Africa and Brazil).

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1070 reads

From Pointe to Purpose - Discovering my Role on the World Stage

Tue, 01/06/2009 - 8:52pm — Rachael Bade

By Rachael Marie Bade

Dressed in a pink tutu laced with rhinestones and bows, I was not yet 6 years old when Dad posed the question. Sitting on his lap, atop a stuffed, lay-z-boy chair, he asked something I wouldn’t truly answer for 12 years.

“What will you do with your life?” he challenged. “What will you do for the world?”

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1180 reads

Change Requires Action by Elif Cila

Tue, 01/06/2009 - 8:51pm — Elif Cila

By Elif Cila

To change the world one must be aware of what needs to be changed. It’s logical. And such awareness is no doubt one of the qualities The Washington Center strives to instill in its interns through classes, living in the U.S. capital and intercultural interaction.

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996 reads

My Civic Engagement Project

Tue, 01/06/2009 - 8:49pm — Mokete Mokone

By Mokete Mokone

To enhance my practical experience and make a difference in the lives of ordinary people at the local level, I participated in various civic engagement activities.

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1029 reads

Fighting for Orissa…in our nation’s capitol

Tue, 01/06/2009 - 8:48pm — Amy Storer

By Amy Storer

Parishes, hospitals and convents have been attacked. Christian nuns have been raped. Churches have been burned to the ground. Over 60,000 followers of Christ have been driven from their homes while their villages went up in smoke.

A violent Hindu extremist group are attacking innocent Christians in India, and students in Washington can’t stand to watch.