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Answering the Call to International Work
As we judicial branch education officers consider our New Year’s resolutions, it is a wonderful time to take stock of our professional goals and consider new avenues for our skills. Many of our colleagues have followed the call to international work because of the intrinsic rewards such work brings to our lives. Allow me to entice you to seriously consider a short term consultancy in the international rule of law programs or as a career after your retirement.
I know that all of you reading this column have those “magic moments” in our careers where we know we’ve touched lives by our programs. I recall the newly-appointed judge who told me that his entire sentencing philosophy in DWI cases was changed after a program I helped develop showcasing the stories of ex-offenders. Or the experienced appellate judge who thanked me for introducing adult education techniques into our programs because he now realized how much better an instructor he had become. And then there’s the courtroom clerk who stopped me in front of the courthouse to remark how much improved the trainings had become since I became director. These events reminded me of the power of continuing education to change lives.
Now that I have been working with women leaders in Kosova for over two years, I see tangible results of how an effective training intervention can not only enrich their lives, but also uplift an entire country through their leadership practice. Every time I travel to Southeastern Europe, I experience the inspirational energy of a country with a new vision for its future. To know that I played a small part in creating those visions is immensely gratifying.
These types of challenges exist all over the globe. There are more and more opportunities for judicial educators who want to make a difference to become involved. Let me list a few.
Rule of law projects are operating in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, South and Central America, new democracies in the former Soviet Republic, Southeast Asia, and on the continent of Africa. These projects include developing judicial education systems, supporting modern court administration, instituting ethical guidelines for judges and other public officials, and creating entire ministries of justice. ABA-CEELI, Chemonics, East-West Management Institute, United Nations Development Program, DPK Consulting and IREX manage some of the larger rule of law grants. They routinely advertise full time in-country staff positions as well as short term travel consultancies. A quick look at their websites listed below will describe their current projects:
In addition to projects directly related to our current work, there are also exciting opportunities to assist women to take their place in emerging democracies. The United States, mainly through USAID grants, is supporting International Women’s Issues Initiatives all over the world. Our program, the Hope Fellowship Program operates in Kosova but will expand to Macedonia, Albania and Serbia-Montenegro during the next three years. In Afghanistan, the State Department has initiated a U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council, which is operating literacy and job training programs in over half of Afghanistan’s provinces. In Iraq, the U.S. has targeted $10 million to assist Iraqi women in political organization, election preparation, coalition building, leadership training, and entrepreneurship. The Middle East Partnership Initiative has budgeted $293 million for women’s empowerment. Among other projects, it sponsors a ‘Women and the Law” workshop with a regional association for women in the legal profession and is operating a public education campaign on women’s rights and equality.
There are also dozens of programs that might appeal to those of you who are invested in domestic violence prevention and quality of life crime reduction. The U.S. in 2004 funded 271 programs to the tune of $82 million to combat trafficking in persons. This has become a major global problem in Southeast Europe, Southeast Asia, and Africa. The European donor community is also sponsoring major grants in an attempt to turn the tide on this horrendous violation of human rights.
So, spend some time in this new year thinking about how you might become actively engaged in making this world a better place for our children and grandchildren.
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