Smoke interns tackle international issues

The Richard Smoke Summer Internship program, named for the prominent Watson Institute scholar who died in 1995, is open to any undergraduate proposing work with a recognized organization on a contemporary global problem, whether through research, advocacy, service or any combination of the three.

by Mary Jo Curtis

This past summer Gabriel Corens '06.5 left behind the life he knows at Brown. As an intern for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, he spent 10 weeks stationed in a field office in Kibuye, a small town on the western border of Rwanda.

Three times a week Corens made a 45-minute drive from Kibuye to Kiziba Refugee Camp, a shelter for some 16,000 Congolese refugees. There he listened to and recorded the refugees' stories to determine if they qualified for resettlement. The stories were painful to hear.

"I interviewed refugees who watched their families murdered before their eyes, refugees who spent months walking to escape violence, and refugees who were victims of torture and rape," he said. "The simple act of listening made a difference in their lives. I say this not to draw attention to any sort of charity I performed, but rather to better portray the lives of people truly stripped of their most basic of rights."

Corens was one of five undergraduates selected this past year for the Richard Smoke Summer Internship program, named for the prominent Watson Institute scholar who died in 1995. The program, formally dedicated to Smoke's memory in 1999, has been a joint effort between the Watson, the Office of International Programs and the Swearer Center for Public Service. The internships, while highly competitive, are open to any undergraduate proposing work with a recognized organization on a contemporary global problem, whether through research, advocacy, service or any combination of the three.

"It's amazing how creative students can be and what a rich array of organizations and projects they want to pursue around the world," said Geoffrey Kirkman '91, associate director of the Watson Institute. "We're only able to fulfill some of the demand through the Smoke Fellowship, but we're pleased that we can expose Brown students to cutting-edge international issues and help them make essential contributions to important work."

Corens' stint in Rwanda impressed him deeply, although he says he "only saw the tip of the problem": There are an estimated 31,000 refugees in Rwanda alone, 1.3 million in Central Africa and the Great Lakes Region, and more than 17 million worldwide. Even worse, said Corens, 3.3 million people died in the last Congo War, another 800,000 died in the Rwandan genocide, and 300,000 have perished in Burundi in the ongoing fighting since the mid-1990s.

Although there are typically three options available to refugees - repatriation to their country of origin, local integration in the country of refuge, or resettlement to a third country - the only solution currently available to Congolese refugees in Rwanda is resettlement.

"Large-scale repatriation isn't possible due to ongoing fighting in the Congo, and local integration isn't possible due to the political climate within Rwanda," said Corens. However, resettlement is a complicated and costly solution, one the U.N. is using only for the most vulnerable of refugees - "single women head of households, refugees with medical problems untreatable in Rwanda, and those whose legal and physical protection cannot be guaranteed in the camp."

"My world seemed wholly incompatible with that of the refugees sitting on the other end of my desk," he continued. "Faced with widespread and utter human rights abuses ... I developed an urgency to my beliefs that previously didn't exist."

Kirkman is planning an event that will give Corens and his fellow interns the opportunity to report on their experiences. That session will include Delphine Hanmei Huang '05, who traveled to Puerto Rico to study drug adherence in postpartum women living with HIV/AIDS; she's documented her work in a women's clinic through a photographic journal and informational booklet. Srigowri Vijayakumar '06 spent the summer working with women at risk for pregnancy and STIs/HIV, focusing on female-controlled methods of sexual protection in the Reproductive Health Research Unit at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital and the University of Witwatersrand in Durban, South Africa.

Katy Gross '05 interned in Ghana with Women in Progress, a relatively new nonprofit organization that helps local women - mostly seamstresses - run their own businesses and sell some of their products in the United States.

"WIP is launching a project called 'global mamas,' an online shopping center to sell clothing and other products the women make. My role was to take photos of some of the 'success stories' for the Web site," said Gross. "The photographs can be used to publicize the organization and draw attention to the issues these women face."

The organization also sponsored workshops for tourists interested in learning Ghanaian traditions - batiking, fishing, drumming and dancing, and cooking. Gross worked with two siblings to develop the cooking workshop in their restaurant; she helped them create a menu, determine costs and develop instruction methods. She served as photographer for all four workshops - and found the fishing expedition to be the most rewarding.

"It gave me a chance to really see the daily life of local people," she said, noting it takes some 100 men about two hours to pull the huge fishnets ashore.

Working in the Dominican Republic with the Dominican Dream project (see related story), Annemarie Guzy '05 taught at an elementary school and a summer camp.

"Despite the hard work and challenges, at the end of three months, I realized how much I had learned," she said. "Not only had my teaching skills and Spanish-speaking skills improved significantly, but I had also learned so many little things from my students. ... My time in the Dominican Republic strengthened my ambition to teach. I realized how important education, particularly arts education, is in developing creativity and self-confidence."