In early 2014, the Felsman Fellowship program, generously funded by WomenOne, partnered with Save the Children-Jordan and YUVA, a non-profit in Turkey, to allow our Fellows to take part in the response to the Syria crisis. At the time there were approximately 600,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan and Turkey each (total approx. 1,200,000). From February 2014 to June 2014 our Fellows worked through their respective organizations to learn about the situation of women and girl refugees and work towards providing them with educational opportunities and protective environments. Our two fellows in Turkey were stationed both in Istanbul and Kirikhan and our two fellows in Jordan were stationed in the Za'atari Refugee Camp, just outside of Amman.
Braxton Hood: YUVA, Turkey (Feb. 2014-June 2014)
Braxton is a filmmaker and artist from North Carolina. She holds an MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University, and a BA in Cultural Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her documentary work is focused on the theme of home, particularly the ways in which individuals claim a sense of belonging to place in the context of homelessness, urban renewal, and forced migration. Past projects include work with teen runaways, former sharecroppers, earthquake survivors, and archeologists. Her production experience has developed through a variety of outfits in the States and Turkey, from commercial and educational media projects to NGO-lead initiatives, and with independent artist collectives, community theater, and outreach groups such as Hidden Voices, Thomas Day Education Project, Accessible Life Association, Empowerment Project, and Artists' Television
Access. She has taught documentary workshops at United World Colleges, Center for Documentary Studies at Duke, Durham
Community Media Center, and SAGE Academy.
Read Braxton's blog...
Braxton's Final Project: Photography Exhibit
Access. She has taught documentary workshops at United World Colleges, Center for Documentary Studies at Duke, Durham
Community Media Center, and SAGE Academy.
Read Braxton's blog...
Braxton's Final Project: Photography Exhibit
Hardy Vieux: Save the Children, Jordan (Feb. 2014-June 2014)
Hardy has had a long career of advocating for those with little means or voice to advocate for themselves. He has extensive experience with asylum law, including recent work on two successful Afghan refugee matters involving college-age students. He also handled a high-profile case involving a United States Army soldier facing court-martial after blowing the whistle on the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Recently, he was a human rights observer at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during the pretrial proceedings involving alleged 9.11 plotters. In 2011 and 2012, he co-led two service-learning trips to Haiti where medical and lay personnel provided primary medical care to local residents. These two trips came on the heels of a humanitarian relief mission to Haiti two weeks after the 2010 earthquake. Before moving to private practice, Hardy served as a criminal appellate defense counsel in the United States Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps. He frequently serves as a commentator on military justices issues on NPR, CNN, and The Wall Street Journal, among others. In May 2013, he wrote an opinion piece on military sexual assaults, which was published in the digital edition of The New York Times. He received his A.B. at Duke University and
J.D./MPP from the University of Michigan.
Read Hardy's blog...
Hardy's Final Project: Child Rights Situation Analysis Conducted in the Za'atari Refugee Camp
(please e-mail our program specialist to request a copy)
J.D./MPP from the University of Michigan.
Read Hardy's blog...
Hardy's Final Project: Child Rights Situation Analysis Conducted in the Za'atari Refugee Camp
(please e-mail our program specialist to request a copy)
Laura Doggett: Save the Children, Jordan (Feb. 2014-June 2014)
Laura is a community artist and educator who believes in the transformative power of creative expression and storytelling in the lives of young people. She has worked with teenagers from underserved communities in DC, NYC, and the mountains of WV and KY to tell their stories through video, audio, creative writing and visual arts. She is working on a series of regional, collaborative portraits of young women documenting transitional moments in their lives through various artistic approaches to storytelling. She holds an MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University.
Read Laura's blog...
Laura's Final Project: Waves of Childhood - Photography, Video & Writing by
Syrian Girls in Za'atari Refugee Camp
Read Laura's blog...
Laura's Final Project: Waves of Childhood - Photography, Video & Writing by
Syrian Girls in Za'atari Refugee Camp
Stephanie Dorman: YUVA, Turkey (Feb. 2014-June 2014)
Stephanie is an international development professional. She graduated with a B.A. in International Studies and a Certificate in South Asian Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2009. Following her graduation, Ms. Dorman served as an AmeriCorps VISTA in Milwaukee, developing and implementing strategies to improve family and community engagement and social services in low-income schools. She then served as a Clinton Fellow in India, where she worked with an NGO to develop and launch an English curriculum in primary schools, conduct educator trainings, and evaluate government school quality improvement programs. She graduated from the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University in 2013 with a Master’s Degree in Public Policy and Certificate in International Development Policy. While at Sanford, she worked with UNESCO to develop recommendations for decentralized management of education policy. Ms. Dorman has most recently been working with Social Impact, an international development consulting firm, on impact evaluations of literacy, sanitation, governance, and girls’ education programs.
Read Stephanie's blog...
Stephanie's Final Project: Educational Needs Assessment for Urban Syrian Refugees in Turkey
Read Stephanie's blog...
Stephanie's Final Project: Educational Needs Assessment for Urban Syrian Refugees in Turkey
Why the Syria Response?
Syria has been embroiled in civil war since March, 2011 due to ongoing armed conflict between the Ba'ath government and those seeking to oust it. Currently there are an estimated 2.5 million Syrian refugees who have sought safety in countries including Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. Refugee camps and informal settlements have been set up in many of these countries, however, access to basic services such as healthcare and education remains a challenge. Women and girls are particularly at risk of gender-based and sexual violence and thousands of children have had their educations interrupted. For the most up-to-date information, visit the UNHCR Inter-Agency Information Sharing Portal.