Documentary Films
People can spend their entire lives in search for purpose. We understandably seek it in family, education, work that engages us. But sometimes that is not enough and some of us fall into a rut of the continuous grasping for power and prestige items like fast cars and McMansions that we think will satiate us and give our life purpose.
But the externals often fail to offer the balm we seek. Continue reading “Leadership In Africa: Are You Leading A Purpose-Driven Life?”
Being a leader takes courage, patience, resilience and vision. Deogratias (Deo) Niyizonkiza, Founder and CEO, Village Health Works, has those leadership attributes and many more.
Deo was born into a loving yet poor family in Burundi. At the outbreak of the 1994 Hutu/Tutsi genocide in Rwanda/Burundi, Deo was attending medical school in Bujumbura, Burundi. One day a group of Hutus came to his dorm looking to kill any and all Tutsis. Deo hid under his bed. After the perpetrators left, he fled to the woods of Burundi and Rwanda where he hid, while witnessing senseless slaughter, for six months. Continue reading “Leadership In Practice: Rebuilding A Nation After Trauma”
Africa is a region that has long been on the radar of the international investment community. With the rise of mobile finance, agriculture and according to the UN, a labor force of 225 million young people ages 15-25, which is expected to 450 million by 2055, the continent is ripe for opportunities. Continue reading “Is Investing In Africa For You?”
En route to Tehran from Isfahan, we drove a couple of hours to the holy city of Qom. The day of our visit happened to be the Day of Ashura, the remembrance of Imam Hussain Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
Continue reading “Dispatches from a U.S. Tourist: Day of Ashura Qom, Iran”
Iran. What it conjures in the American mind. When well meaning friends and family learned I was “vacationing” in Iran, they assumed I would be jailed or beheaded by ISIS or kidnapped by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. These western impressions could not be further from the reality. Continue reading “Dispatches From a U.S. Tourist: Iran’s Greatest Asset? Its People”
The Bund Tourist Tunnel takes people from Pudong New Area, the financial district in Shanghai, to the Bund or older center in Puxi, another district in Shanghai. About four minutes underneath the Huangpu River, the only locals we saw in the tunnel were the ticket takers. Most Shanghaiers take the wifi-friendly and highly efficient subway in a third of the time and a fraction of the price. Continue reading “Bund Tourist Tunnel, Shanghai: A Video Mashup”
With the 20th anniversary of the war in Bosnia Herzegovina, we thought it might be useful to review a 2006 interview with Activist and Author, Dr. Svetlana Broz, at her home outside Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina. She is the granddaughter of former Yugoslavia President, Josip Broz Tito.
Continue reading “Dr. Svetlana Broz, On Bosnia Herzegovina: Aftermath”
To Build a Nation: Kosovo, Behind the Lens examines the human effects of international interventions in war-ravaged Kosovo, more than five years after the war.
Although Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Feb 17, 2008, the time leading up to that was filled with frustration and impatience for all parties. This short project exposed the limbo that permeated throughout the province in 2003 and 2004 leading up to it’s independence. Exposing a few of the many complexities inherent in nation-building, and as American commitments multiply, it was time to examine closely the experience to date of one of these experiments, the 1999 US-led NATO intervention in Kosovo. Kosovo’s post-war experience provides powerful insights into the critical steps and missteps encountered in the nation-building experiment, and serves as a valuable lens for viewing the potential success or failure of other such experiments. Kosovo’s progress to date can teach us about the limits of externally-imposed agendas, and draw our attention to the critical need for home-grown solutions.
Continue reading “To Build a Nation: Kosovo, Behind the Lens #1”
To Build a Nation: Kosovo, Behind the Lens examines the human effects of international interventions in war-ravaged Kosovo, more than five years after the war.
Although Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Feb 17, 2008, the time leading up to that was filled with frustration and impatience for all parties. This short project exposed the limbo that permeated throughout the province in 2003 and 2004 leading up to it’s independence. Exposing a few of the agendas, and draw our attention to the critical need for home-grown solutions.
Continue reading “To Build a Nation: Kosovo, Behind the Lens #2”
Nancy Hatch Dupree, the founder of the Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University (ACKU), has created an archive that has more than 45,000 documents she began collecting in the 1970’s, with her late husband, Louis. Continue reading “Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University: Building a School Library”