Tag Archives: International

BBC News

BBC News Intern

Bilal Sarwary, 2010

Read about Bilal on the BBC Here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5283580.stm

During January of 2009 I worked as an assistant producer at the BBC Kabul bureau. I was mainly working with correspondents Ian Pannel and Martin Patience, who were working on stories about tribal police forces, the lack of reconstruction progress, and the lack of security in the volatile southern and eastern provinces. We also worked on stories regarding the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. I was responsible for gathering news from across Afghanistan for television, radio and online news services. I also recorded and arranged for interviews with Afghan officials and tribal chiefs. . I was also responsible for translating from local languages into English. I also helped produce stories, for instance a story on the difficulty of traveling in the northern snowbound provinces .and the cold Afghan winter.

In one sense, I have now become a one-man news service, filling everyone in about events in post-Taliban Afghanistan. – The BBC has learned to trust my judgment. I know my country: when I sit next to Afghan officials, intelligence officers, tribal elders and warlords, it is my job to keep them talking. At some point in a conversation, I usually find some connection with whomever I am speaking. My British colleagues would not be able to understand what is being said. – I talk to people in Pashto, the melodious-sounding language of the Pashtunes, Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group. By now I have won the trust of my sources in the Afghan government and community, and when I speak with them a surprising tale always emerges

My affiliation with the BBC goes back a long way; during the in-fighting among various Mujahideen factions in 1992, I used to listen to the BBC‘s Pashto and Dari news bulletins broadcast in Kabul the about the war that left 70,000 dead and destroyed Kabul. I was not exempt from the conditions of war- I lost everything. Like any other child, I always woke up to a warm breakfast, but during the war, everything was taken away from me. When I moved to Peshawar in Pakistan, I had to make my way by selling water on the streets of the city. I could no longer go to school, watch cartoons or play with my friends as I used to in Kabul. Given the circumstances, I continued to receive my education from the BBC, and the BBC World Service Educational Programme called “New Home, New Life.”

Through BBC radio, I was taught about my culture, my language, and my situation. While eating in our home, my family would listen to the BBC. The BBC was known as the 6^th daily prayer among many Afghan families.

I had never imagined that I would end up working with the BBC, reporting the news in Pashto, Dari, Urdu, Hindi and English. I have never imagined that I would travel to London, the United States, or India. How could such an extraordinary life come to a boy who sold water on the streets of Peshawar, worked for a transport company smuggling carpets and dry fruits, and flogged fake antiques?

After 9/11, I returned back to Afghanistan; the country where I had witnessed the worst tragedy of my life, one that I will never forget or forgive. It is through this experience that I resolved to always work to prevent such atrocities, and it is as a result of this credo, that my BBC career began.

With all of this in mind, I hope to become the full-time BBC News Online reporter and Producer for the Kabul Bureau for Afghanistan upon graduating in 2010. When in Afghanistan this past January I traveled to distant Afghan provinces in search of the best stories, while cultivating an array of contacts. I utilized this method, and it proved tremendously effective. As a result of my efforts the BBC has access to many Afghan provinces, governors, police chiefs and intelligence officials. On top of this, I have developed a large network of contacts in Kabul due to my trips to these provinces.

Contact the Career Services Office for more information about this internship!

La Biblioteca Kitson in Nosara, Costa Rica

Kelly Bennion, 2010

I feel that I performed very well throughout this month. After hearing students from the year prior describe that they went surfing each day, I came into the internship underestimating the amount of work that goes into planning two English classes each day. I had to plan different lessons for the children’s class and adult class because although my adult class was still comprised of beginning and intermediate speakers, there were activities that were only appropriate for one group or the other. The four of us that were together in Nosara worked incredibly hard to be prepared each day, and we certainly received recognition as a result. One of our supervisors, Faith Burke, who sat in on our classes to observe us, said that we were the most prepared group that she has seen throughout the entire fourteen or so years of the program. It was quite an honor.

Each day, after I taught my morning children’s class (children ages 10-14), I would immediately prepare for the next day’s lesson. Planning lessons took at least a couple hours, simply because we had to write formal lesson plans, including the motivation for the lesson, necessary materials, development of the lesson, and reinforcement activities. This also required studying the books that we were given (The ExpressWays series and the Ready-to-Go series) in order to figure out which topics were deemed “important” in the realm of learning English, as well as seeing how the experts have determined is the best way to teach English. Also, every lesson included some sort of physical activity (sometimes using the book Total Physical Response), which would give the class a small break to keep active and move their bodies.

I usually planned my adult lesson each afternoon, after planning my children’s lesson. The adult lessons took a significant amount of time to prepare, simply because the classes were two hours long. It took a great deal of creativity to plan lessons that would keep the adults interested, without a break, for two complete hours. I really enjoyed planning these lessons, simply because the adults were incredibly motivated to learn. Some of my favorite lessons included a scavenger hunt including the words, “next to,” “between,” “across from,” “on,” and “around the corner from,” asking the students, “Is there a ___________ in the refrigerator?” or “Are there __________ in the refrigerator,” having given them a picture of a refrigerator and food that I drew, playing clapping and rhythmic games with the days of the week, months of the year, cardinal and ordinal numbers, doing charades of present progressive verbs, having them draw a picture of a house and describing activities that people commonly do in each of the rooms of the house, etc. The students asked me for a “game” everyday, so it took a lot of time to think of ways to make classes interesting without compromising the amount they learned. Overall, I think that I found a good balance between oral activities, textbook activities, guided review sheets, quizzes, and physical activities. The most wonderful part of my whole experience in Costa Rica was knowing that for a month, I was not a student teacher, a helper, or even a substitute teacher. I was a teacher.

What I Learned About Myself in the Career Industry

Ever since I was five years old, I have known that I have wanted to be a teacher. I have never known what age students I would like to teach, but I have been blessed with teachers who are so passionate about teaching that I knew that I would want to positively affect others’ lives in this manner. This internship has confirmed for me that I would like to be a teacher for at least a considerable duration of my post-college life. At first, I was worried that being a teacher, at least an elementary school teacher, might not be challenging enough for me. However, this month has taught me that teaching is indeed challenging! As an elementary education minor at Middlebury, I have student taught in a 6^th grade classroom at Mary Hogan Elementary, a 1^st/2^nd grade classroom at Cornwall Elementary, and at the Aurora School (K-6). I have taught many classes in my lifetime, including church Confirmation classes, dance classes, J-term workshops, and more, but this internship is the first time I realized how difficult being a teacher really is! I am incredibly grateful for this realization, and it makes me even more excited to be a teacher!

Also regarding the career industry of teaching, this month has taught me that I would like to be a college professor. I have been pondering the idea since entering Middlebury, but I think I am certain that I would like to be a psychology professor. For me, there is something incredibly stimulating about teaching a group of students who are a) incredibly motivated to learn, and b) sharp and educated enough to ask difficult questions and keep teachers on their toes. I absolutely adored my adult class, which was comprised of students between 16 and 22. Seeing them progress in their English speaking ability and their eagerness to practice their English with me both inside and outside of class was more rewarding of an experience than I have ever experienced.

Reflections on the Entire Experience

In all seriousness, living and teaching English in Costa Rica has been the richest experience of my entire life. Before being selected for this internship, I had been debating the decision whether or not to study abroad as if it were a fifth class. I spent countless hours worrying about whether or not I was making the correct decision, and as soon as I was selected for this internship, I decided that Costa Rica would be my only abroad experience during college. I arrived in Costa Rica a week before the program began and have chosen to travel various parts of Costa Rica during February break.

Besides the teaching, the best part of living in Costa Rica was learning about the culture of the Ticos (the name of the native people). We (the four Middlebury interns) lived in a very small house together, in the center of town, within walking distance from the library. Many of the wealthy Americans that we met in Costa Rica felt incredibly bad for us because we were living a primitive lifestyle, but it was honestly amazing. It was life-changing to see how everyone in Nosara lives – without internet access, only being able to drink well water, cold showers, a house of open air (our walls did not connect to the roof), no air conditioning in the sweltering heat, and bugs everywhere! It was also incredibly liberating not being dependent on my cell phone and to wake up to the sun rising rather than my usual alarm clock after a sleep-deprived night at Middlebury. Also, not having a car, it was quite an experience to hitchhike or walk anywhere we desired to go.

As these six weeks for me comes to a close, I am so incredibly glad that I took J-term to teach English in Costa Rica. I love Middlebury perhaps more than anyone, so it was very difficult for me to be away from my friends and the place that I have called “home” for two and a half years now. However, my time abroad has been an experience that I would not trade for anything. My students are some of the greatest people that I have met in my entire life. The Ticos are genuinely wonderful people; between inviting us over to share the little food and wealth that they have, to picking us up when we hitchhiked, to towing our car out of a ditch when we decided to rent a car and travel to Volano Arenal and Monteverde…the Ticos were there every step of the way! Even my experience traveling between hostel and hostel by myself has been absolutely life-changing.

As a result of this internship and the opportunity to live in Costa Rica in general, I now know that I want to become a teacher after graduating from Middlebury. I do not know if I will ever teach English again, but I will certainly be teaching psychology if not. I would love to return to Costa Rica some time within the next couple years in order to teach English in Nosara again. The only problem with this program is that after the Middlebury interns leave, there are perhaps 70 Ticos frustrated by the fact that they can no longer progress in their English learning. If I decide to graduate a semester early, I hope to return to Nosara to teach English for at least four months to continue where next year’s Middlebury interns will leave off. Even for those who may not want to become teachers after graduating, I highly recommend this internship for the life experience and the opportunity to truly be immersed in another culture. It will most certainly change anyone’s life in a positive manner.

Contact the Career Services Office for more information about this internship!

World Camp for Kids

World Camp for Kids- Malawi, Africa

Lauren Barrett, 2011

For winter term, I traveled to Malawi, Africa to spread HIV/AIDS awareness. Before arriving in Malawi, I was unsure of what I was getting myself into. I had hardly read anything about the World Camp program, but had a friend who referred me to the program so I decided why not? It will be a great experience. When telling anyone about the adventures I was about to embark on, the most common response was, “That is going to be such an amazing experience” and I would just nod and agree. But it was not until I actually arrived in Africa that I could actually put those words into action. The “amazing experience” that I had imagined I would live was not anything like what I stumbled upon in Africa. Everything I witnessed in Africa was unlike anything I could have ever prepared myself for.

For the month of January myself and ten volunteers, five coordinators, and various Malawian translators traveled to six different rural schools around the city of Lilongwe to teach about HIV/AIDS and the environment. We spent three days at each school, cramming as much information as we could into those three days. Every volunteer was assigned a teaching partner, changing partners from school to school, together teaching a class of around 30-40 kids. Each pair worked with a translator because the kids did not speak English. In the villages we were teaching in, they spoke Chichewa. The language barrier was very difficult for me to adjust to and in many cases left me feeling very vulnerable. At first I was incredibly frustrated that I could not talk one on one with the kids. This meant I could not go around the classroom while the kids were working quietly and comment on their work, or help them, without the translator. Not speaking their language also made me feel very vulnerable at times. When the translator was not in the room, like during lunch, there was no way to converse with the kids. Many times the kids would come up and surround me, talking in Chichewa. Since I could not understand them, there was nothing I could say back. After they spoke they would turn to each other and laugh. This left me feeling very uneasy because I had no idea what they were saying about me. Were they making fun of me? I had no way to tell. Every day we taught from 10 am- 3 pm beginning and ending the day with songs and games. The curriculum we taught the kids was very detailed and the kids were so interested in learning. They were some of the best-behaved children I have ever interacted with. Beginning the day with songs and games was always a pleasure. Playing games and singing songs got the kids to really open up to us. Along with getting the kids to open up to us, the songs and games really opened my eyes to a great aspect of Malawian culture. It was fascinating to watch kids from ages 9-16 sing and dance to the songs that we taught them. The songs were equivalent to songs we would sing in the U.S. at around age five. The kids loved the songs, and it was great to watch because it was so different from how I would normally see 9-16 year olds behave in a similar situation. If anyone were to try and teach kids in the U.S. the songs we sang with the Malawian children, they would think we were crazy and majority would not sing along or dance. Later, I found out that singing is a huge part of the Malawian culture. This is one aspect of their culture that I would love to adopt to American culture. At multiple points during the day the kids would just burst out into song, and everyone would sing along. They sang about everything from fruits and vegetables to god and living a healthy life. Not only would they all sing together in harmony, but they all had great voices! There were definitely some staple songs that we heard over and over at the different schools, but it was great to listen and watch the kids as they all sang together. The kids would sing when walking to and from their classrooms, back and forth from lunch, and then if any class ended early you often found the kids outside the classroom in a circle singing and dancing.

Being in Malawi really opened my eyes to what it means to really have nothing. The people living in the rural villages are so happy with nothing. They do not have electricity, running water, or even furniture. Still, with so little, they were some of the happiest people I have ever met. We did a home stay in one of the villages and the people were so welcoming. The families we were assigned too were so giving with the little that they had. They would provide us with the best room in their house, leaving them only one room for the rest of the family to sleep in. They pumped water and heated it for us so we could bathe in the morning. They made sure we were satisfied and were willing to do anything to help us. It was really comforting to feel so welcomed into their village and treated with such respect. All of the kids in the family were so interested in us. The father of my home stay family spoke some English, which made it easier to converse. He translated for me so I could talk with the kids and the mother. They were so interested in my life and what America is like. I did not want to share too much about what like is like in America because one of the reasons why they are so happy is because they do not know what else is out there. They have never been exposed to life in America, so they do not know what it would be like to live with running water or electricity.

Going to Malawi was a very challenging experience for me, I put myself in a place that was foreign to me and had to adjust very quickly. However, all things considered, I think I performed well and gave it everything I had. I went into every day with high energy, even when I was exhausted. Something I like to remember is the last week of being in Africa. During the last week, I was exhausted, and fairly ready to go home. I was really starting to miss home: my bed, good food, my family, everything. However, I was going to make the most of every day while I was there, because I did not want to look back on the experience and have regrets. It took a lot of motivation to rally for the last week, especially because I was starting to get sick, not just homesick, but physically sick. During the last camp I had a high fever. I could have easily not gone to the last day of camp and stayed home sick, but I gave it everything and went to camp. It was one of the longest days of the entire month but at the end of the day, I felt good about my decision. Going to every day of camp for the entire month is something I congratulate myself on.

The following students also participated with World Camp for Kids:

Christopher Chung, 2010; Stephanie Henderson, 2011; Monica Ralston, 2009;

Please feel free to contact the Career Services Office or visit www.worldcampforkids.org for more information on this internship!