A delegation of students from Tufts attended the second annual Women as Global Leaders conference in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from Mar. 12-14.
The conference, which was sponsored by Zayed University and took place in UAE capital Abu Dhabi, hosted delegates from 87 countries.
After an opening ceremony Saturday night, students heard keynote addresses throughout the day on Sunday. The addresses were delivered by female leaders including Mary Robinson, former Prime Minister of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights; Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan; and Linda Ellerbee, former anchor of NBC News Overnight.
At the roundtable discussions and poster sessions that followed on Monday, sophomore Jessie Anderson presented on research she completed on Ghana's Domestic Violence bill over winter break.
"All of the lectures on human rights were really interesting," Anderson said. "A lot of different cultures disagree on what should be defined as human rights. It was a great look at cultural relativism and what constitutes violation of human rights."
The conference's lavish setting, which included a gala dinner and a desert barbecue including fire-eaters and camel rides, met with rave reviews from attendees.
At the same time, it raised questions, leading Anderson to wonder whether the opulence was "masking errors in the [UAE] society," making it "hard to be objective" about the culture.
"I really felt that they didn't get at the very hard issues, skirted around things," said attendee Beth Bishop, a senior. "One lady Kuwaiti activist was awesome. She kept saying, 'We've got to stick up for what we're doing and stop being passive little wimps.'"
Anderson and Bishop were both able to connect with students at the conference.
"It was great for contacts and networking," Anderson said. "The Zayed University girls were great, just to speak with them over a meal and discuss politics, their culture. They were really open to discussion."
Bishop was invited to dine at the home of some Emirati students whom she met there. "They're such a wonderful hospitable people," she said.
Under fire
Eight Tufts students traveled to Philadelphia to research gun violence in a joint effort with Jim MacMillan (M '88) and EXPOSURE, a photojournalism initiative through the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL).
MacMillan, a photographer for the Philadelphia Daily News, guided the students as they met with groups and individuals affected by gun violence, including community groups fighting to stop violence, city police, families of gun violence victims and young people who have committed violent gun crimes.
Sophomore Jesse Gossett, one of the students who went, was particularly impressed after meeting with groups of 14-to-18-year-old youths who had been issued felony charges.
"They were very open with us and very honest," he said. "It's a very, very deep issue. It's really affecting the community at large."
"The relationship between the police authorities and local community isn't what it should be," said Anderson, who went on the Philadelphia trip as well as the UAE one. "The police are supposed to provide safety, but since they're having such a tough time relating to local people...the local people are taking matters into their own hands by buying guns."
Three main elements kept the problem at a high, Gossett said. He said these were the ease of obtaining guns, the lack of father figures in many homes, and the tendency to jump to gun violence when any dispute breaks out.
"They're jumping straight to guns when they have problems," Gossett said.
Anderson said the group also explored the implications of a proposed gun control law that legislators are fighting to pass.
The law would restrict purchases of handguns to one per month in an attempt to stop "straw purchasers," or individuals with no criminal records who legally buy multiple handguns in order to smuggle them into the illegal community.
"A lot of people were pretty pessimistic and didn't think it would work," Anderson said. "But it's one step to getting less guns on the street."
The groups hope to disseminate their work in a variety of outlets, including the Daily. It is not yet certain where else the work will be published.
The group met little hostility, Gossett said. "Pretty much everyone was excited that somebody outside of the city cared about the issue and was taking a look at it," he said.
After the Storm
Forty Tufts students - 32 from the Tufts Democrats and eight from the School of Occupational Therapy - traveled to New Orleans to assist with continuing relief work in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Though the group originally planned to work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), they ended up working with an organization called Helping Other People Everywhere (HOPE). HOPE is an offshoot of Common Ground, a community-initiated volunteer organization that offers short-term support to hurricane victims.
If they are structurally sound, devastated New Orleans homes must first have damaged furniture and possessions removed, and then must be "gutted" - that is, have their drywall, wiring and other components removed.
Many Tufts volunteers assisted residents in clearing and gutting homes.
Other volunteers worked in distribution centers, where they gave out food, clothes and toiletries. Others circulated throughout the neighborhood, asking residents what their needs were.
Tufts students also donated $700 worth of Tvkek suits, protective gear necessary for cleaning out devastated houses that is generally requested by area charities.
"They were very grateful," Burke said of the residents. "One woman wanted to pay students and stay in contact." He added that she offered to drive to her sister's home to cook the group dinner.
Volunteers also helped homeowners salvage memories out of the wreckage. While going through her personal belongings, the same woman who offered to pay students was trying to find "memories she could take with her," Burke said. "She was very emotional."
One of the houses the group worked on belonged to a Tufts student in need - sophomore Rebecca Abbott. Her Lakeview house was rendered uninhabitable after it was flooded with five feet of water.
Little had been done to rebuild her house since the hurricane struck. Abbott's family relocated to Georgia, and then to a small apartment in New Orleans. They have not yet been able to attend to the house.
"The stuff had been sitting there for more than six months," Abbott said. "We didn't have the manpower to do it."
Abbott provided the transportation for "as many kids as I could fit in the car," she said. Tufts students were able to completely clear out the furniture and other wreckage from the entire house.
Everything extracted was put in the front yard, though the family was able to extract very little from the house. "It was a pretty amazing pile," she said. "It was really helpful for us, [so we] took them out to dinner."
Abbott is still unsure of the future of her hometown. "The neighborhood isn't really coming along at all," she said. "I don't know what we're going to do with the house or whether the neighborhood is coming back."
Other students observed continued devastation on a bus tour of the city. "It's just amazing: You look around and nothing is being rebuilt," Burke said. "Wal-Marts and McDonald's are there, but it's essentially a ghost town."
"You can't capture it in pictures," he added. "I really don't know what some of these people are going to do."
Volunteers witnessed an outpouring of goodwill, though the amount of work that remains to be done is still daunting.
"I was amazed at the community members willing to help one another, but lots still needs to be done," Burke said. "It's tough [to know] where to start."
According to Tufts Democrats organizer and sophomore Nate Grubman (a former Daily sports editor), the project arose out of combined interest from former president Jon Parnes (LA '05) and current president Aaron Banks, a senior, as well as from within the club.
"I believe as a Democrat that government has a responsibility to help people who need help, and anytime we're going out and helping, it's definitely something that fits into our club," Grubman said.
The Gift of Health
A group of 24 Tufts students traveled to the Dominican Republic for the week as part of the Tufts Timmy Foundation to help set up medical clinics in four villages. They stayed with an organization called Dominican Crossroads.
They arrived on Mar. 18, and the next day took a tour of one of the poorest villages in the area.
According to sophomore Laura McNulty, one of the students on the trip, the village was "mostly populated by Haitian refugees that work in the sugar field."
We "set up medical clinics in the villages in the area," she said. The group visited four villages over the course of the week.
"We had a 'book idea' of what we were dealing with," McNulty said, but she added that she was not fully prepared for the conditions she experienced.
She believes that the group gave hope to the refugees, who lack medical aid from the country's government.
"We showed them that someone did care about them," she said.
