SOMALIA — Kamar Yousuf (’99) illustrates one of the many variations that “returning home” can take for Kroc Institute graduates. For more then 20 years, she has followed a circuitous route from her home country of Somalia to a job that has put her in a unique position to help her people. Having originally sacrificed a college education to help support her family, she worked for more than a dozen years in Somalia and Abu Dhabi before the outbreak of civil war in her home country in 1991 drew her back to east Africa. She worked in a refugee camp for 11 months while searching for her family.

After immigrating to the United States, Kamar worked at the World Bank and International Finance Corporation for six years while attending school at night. She received a bachelor’s degree from Columbia Union College in Takoma Park, Maryland, in 1998. She then earned an MA in peace studies from the Kroc Institute, followed by an MBA from the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California.

Kamar spent two years in the Africa Department of the World Bank as a management consultant, and from 2003-2004 served in Amman, Jordan, as regional finance manager for Air Serv International, which provides air transport, communication and information technology for humanitarian organizations working in Iraq. “In late 2004 and early 2005,” she writes, “I traveled to Somaliland for the first time in more than 10 years. I was pleasantly surprised by all the progress going on despite no international development assistance because no country recognizes it as a sovereign entity.” Somaliland, which is northwest of Somalia, declared its independence a decade ago.

In March 2005, Kamar moved to Nairobi, Kenya, to begin working for the United Nations Political Office for Somalia. She manages a multi-donor trust fund for peacebuilding activities. “It is an exciting position which gives me the opportunity to utilize my peace studies education, as well as the MBA,” she comments. “We are focusing on supporting civil society-driven (especially women’s groups) initiatives that promote dialogues of peace among contending groups who have been in conflict for over a decade. We also plan to rehabilitate and equip three Youth Service Centers in different parts of Somalia, to provide comprehensive programs that include vocational training, employment skills training and recreational activities for unemployed youth.” Email: k_yousuf@lycos.com

USA — Polly Carl (’90) is producing artistic director of The Playwrights’ Center (www.pwcenter.org) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She works with playwrights locally and nationally, producing and developing new plays, oversees artistic programming and maintains finances. She is working on a play about graduate teaching assistants organizing on a university campus, called “Organizing Abraham Lincoln,” based on a true story. It will be performed at the center’s 23rd Annual PlayLabs Festival, one of the nation’s most celebrated annual festivals of new work. Polly earned her PhD in comparative studies in discourse and society from the University of Minnesota in 1999. Her dissertation was titled Making a Good Story: Feeling Good about Queer Theory. Email: PollyC@pwcenter.org

SCOTLAND — Kurt Mills (’90), from the United States, is a lecturer in international human rights at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. His book Human Rights in the Emerging Global Order: A New Sovereignty? was published in 1998 (St. Martins and Macmillan). Kurt earned his PhD in government and international studies from Notre Dame in 1995, and has taught at Gettysburg College, James Madison University, Mount Holyoke College and the American University in Cairo. His research interests include human rights, refugees, international organizations, Africa, and the role the Internet plays in international relations. Email: vicfalls@mac.com

USA — Katherine (Kasia) Sikora Nelson (’91), from Poland, earned her LL.M. in Banking and Financial Law from the Boston University School of Law in May 2005. She then joined the forensic services practice of KPMG LLP, a major international accounting and advisory firm in Boston. Kasia spent the previous ten years with Fidelity Investments, most recently as the principal compliance officer responsible for anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing efforts. She is founding chair of the foreign lawyers committee of the Boston Bar Association (BBA) and is co-chair of the international law section of the BBA. She recently organized a Boston symposium on “The Law of War in an Age of Terrorism.” She also serves on the executive committee of the Boston Committee on Foreign Relations. Kasia earned a master of arts in law and diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University in 1993. Email: knelson@kpmg.com

USA — Ellis Jones (’92) has focused his energy on bridging the gaps separating academics, activists and average citizens. He co-founded The Better World Network, an organization dedicated to global social responsibility. The second edition of his co-authored book, The Better World Handbook: From Good Intentions to Everyday Actions (New Society Publishers) is scheduled for release in fall 2006 (www.betterworldhandbook.com) along with The Better World Shopping Guide. In March 2005 he helped organize the first Better World Handbook Festival in Vancouver, British Columbia. After Notre Dame, Ellis spent two years in the Peace Corps teaching environmental education in Panama. He earned a PhD in sociology from the University of Colorado in 2002. He now teaches sociology for the University of California at Davis. Email: so.doctor.jones@gmail.com

COSTA RICA — Jorge Vargas-Cullell (’94) is a project specialist for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Costa Rica and has written several human development reports for UNDP on sustainable development in Central America. He is also coordinator of the Citizen Audit on the Quality of Democracy in Costa Rica and assistant director of the State of the Nation Program in Costa Rica, sponsored by the state universities and the ombudsman. After taking a doctoral course with Guillermo O’Donnell that explored whether it is possible to define and determine the quality of democracy, Jorge returned home, formed a small research team, and secured funding for a “citizen audit” of the quality of democracy in Costa Rica. In 2004 he co-edited a volume with O’Donnell titled The Quality of Democracy: Theory and Applications (University of Notre Dame Press). The book addresses the concern that new democratic regimes vary widely in efficacy and impact, and that many citizens receive few if any benefits from democratization. Jorge was a guest scholar at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at Notre Dame for the spring and summer of 2005 while completing his dissertation. Email: jvcaam@sol.racsa.co.cr

PALESTINE — Jihad Hamad (’95) is professor of sociology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. He is also consultant for a new academic program in peace studies, conflict resolution, democracy and human rights at the University of Palestine International (http://upfl.ps), a private university in Gaza that teaches all courses in English. In January 2005 he was elected to the board of the Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights in Gaza (www.aldameergaza.org). From 2001 to 2004, Jihad was assistant professor of sociology at the Arab American University in Jenin, until Israeli authorities barred him from returning to Jenin. Jihad earned his PhD in sociology from Notre Dame in 2001. Email: gahad2010@yahoo.com

SWITZERLAND — Beatrijs Elsen (’96), from Belgium, has been appointed human rights officer in the anti-discrimination unit of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva. She moved to Geneva from Beirut, where she worked for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. From December 2003 to January 2005 though, she was on a peacekeeping mission as external affairs officer in the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo. Email: belsen@ohchr.org

USA — Matt Guynn (’96) works for On Earth Peace (www.brethren.org/oepa), an agency rooted in the Church of the Brethren, where he supports emerging leaders and fosters networks for peace and justice. He is also an associate with Training for Change (www.trainingforchange.org) in Philadelphia, which provides workshops on facilitation skills and nonviolent social change, and serves on the staff of Diana’s Grove, a retreat center in Missouri that uses myth and ritual for personal empowerment. He was previously co-coordinator of training for Christian Peacemaker Teams. Matt received an M.A. from Bethany Theological Seminary in 2003. His publications have included poetry, essays on theology and ethics, and a curriculum. His essay, “Theopoetics: That the Dead May Become Gardeners Again” will appear in the fall 2005 issue of Crosscurrents (www.crosscurrents.org). He lives in Richmond, Indiana. Email: mattguynn@earthlink.net

USA — Ithai Stern (’98), from Israel, has been appointed assistant professor of management at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He earned his PhD in business strategy from McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin in May 2005. Email: i_stern@kellogg.northwestern.edu

CZECH REPUBLIC — Dana Potockova (’99) is a dispute resolution consultant and trainer with Conflict Management International in Prague, where she provides conflict management, negotiation and intercultural trainings for national and international organizations, focusing on dispute resolution systems design. She is an adjunct professor at Charles University and Anglo-American University in Prague and teaches at the Central European University Summer University in Budapest. Dana recently was commissioned by the Ministry of Justice of the Czech Republic to design a training program for court-connected mediators. In 2000 she earned a masters degree in dispute resolution from Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu, California. Email: Danapoto@yahoo.com

THE GAMBIA — Agnes Adama Kalley Campbell (’02) is partnership coordinator for ActionAid International (AAI) in The Gambia, where her work integrates a rights-based approach to development and peacebuilding. She works with AAI partners at grassroots, regional and international levels in six thematic areas: women’s rights, and the right to education, food security, human security in times of conflict and emergencies, a life of dignity in the face of HIV/AIDS, and democratic and just governance. “We proactively engage the poor in dialogue, learning and reflective processes to address gender inequalities, patriarchy and discrimination in various areas of their lives,” she writes. Adama received her masters degree in social work from the University of Georgia in May 2004. Email:adamaldel@yahoo.com

PAKISTAN — Asma Pervaiz Khan (’02) is a visiting lecturer of international political economy to the masters and doctoral students at the Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology in Karachi, Pakistan. She was recently selected to work as a Junior Research Analyst for the Ministry of Defense, Islamabad, Pakistan. Asma completed a course on development, law and social justice from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague while she worked for the Pakistan Institute of Labor Organisation and Research. She previously taught at Karachi University. Email: asma_pervaiz@hotmail.com

PHILIPPINES — Marissa (Pay) de Guzman (’04) is a consultant on rural development with the Institute on Church and Social Issues (ICSI) in Quezon City, Philippines. She writes, “ICSI was founded in 1984 with the intention to improve the conditions of the poor and to reform the legal, bureaucratic, social and economic structures that affect them. Its tools are professional research, systematic advocacy and constant contact and engagement with the poor and marginalized sectors of the country.” A book Pay co-authored, The Anti-Development State: The Political Economy of Permanent Crisis in the Philippines, (Zed Books) was released in the Philippines in 2004. In January 2005, it was certified a “national bestseller” and is in its second printing. Email: paydeguzman@yahoo.com

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