I met Secil working in Southeast Turkey in 2013 on a project to help Syrians. Secil was one of the many Turks on our staff who opened her heart and life to the Syrians on our team...
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Abacha is not loud or flashy; he doesn't dominate a room or a conversation; he is not an authoritarian manager. Instead, he listens, he considers, he speaks when he has something important to say (which means people always listen when he talks), and he gains the respect of his team by being respectful and being a person other people want to follow...
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Anyone who has met Aya will agree: she makes an impression. She is a whirlwind of passion, opinions, love, laughter, principle, and loyalty. I met Aya working in Gaziantep, Turkey, shortly after she had moved there from her native Aleppo in 2013...
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Dr. Abu-Nimer was one of my graduate school professors at American University, where he teaches in the International Peace & Conflict Resolution program at the School of International Service...
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I met Nouhayla in the summer of 2010 just moments after she arrived in the U.S. for a year of study at an American high school...
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Amr and I went to grad school together at American University in Washington, DC, where we got our degrees in International Peace and Conflict Resolution. Amr stood out to me for a few reasons...
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Aizada is a super star, who overcomes challenges and achieves everything she sets out to do. I've known her since she was 13 and she walked into my 8th grade English class when I was a brand new teacher in her village in Jon-Aryk, Talas, in Kyrgyzstan...
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For a while, I wondered if Ebrahim actually lived at our office in Gaziantep, Turkey, where we worked together for several months in 2013 on a program to help Syrians. Every morning, he was already at his desk working when I arrived - earbuds in place to insulate him from the distractions of our high-energy team - and was still at his desk working when I left in the evenings...
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Esin is someone who cares deeply. She takes on the problems, burdens, crises, and heartbreaks of others, her countries, and the world, and she makes them her own...
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Abubakar was one of the first team members on our North East Nigeria program, which means he weathered the early days of startup challenges, in addition to the challenges of helping his state recover from the ravages of Boko Haram...
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Zineb is a go-getter with seemingly endless energy, passion, and initiative. One of my favorite exchanges with her involved her apologizing for being "too pushy and too persistent." She is indeed persistent, and is incredibly effective because of her drive...
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I met Assad in 2011 working in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he managed our team's projects in Kandahar City, one of the toughest places in the world to work. In my experience, Afghans are shrewd survivors, and Assad a quintessential example of this...
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If Sarah isn't a patriot, I'm not sure what a patriot is! Sarah was born in New York, and for over 10 years, she's worked on US-government programs overseas in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan, Syria/Turkey, and now Libya/Tunisia...
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Zouheir and Nemat are two of the most wonderful people I know. They are both so full of life, caring, and purpose. They live in Istanbul now, but I met them working in Gaziantep, Turkey, several years ago. Zouheir and Nemat met working together in Damascus, and they fled Syria when things became too violent for them to stay...
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I met Zarami in Nigeria, where we worked together when I lived in Abuja in 2014-16...
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Aisulu means “beautiful moon” in Kyrgyz. She is the youngest child and only daughter of my host family when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kyrgyzstan...
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