If you were not able to join the MENAR Applicant Info Session last night but would like to see what was covered, a recording is available here.
In particular, be sure to check out the short video from our current fellow, Timothy Loh, with some words of advice and encouragement for this year's applicants.
The following is a reflection written by our current fellow, Timothy Loh, who is working with the Collateral Repair Project (CRP) in Amman, Jordan for the 2016-2017 fellowship year.
“Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanise. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.”
-- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Danger of a Single Story
I am an aspiring anthropologist and I love stories. Narrative holds such power to dislodge and remake our assumptions, to give us another perspective on life, and to open a window, even for just a second, into the rich inner worlds of other people. In graduate school, some of the best books I read were chock full of stories that challenged hegemonic thinking about a range of different issues. Diana Allan’s Refugees of the Revolution, about Palestinian refugees in Shatila camp in Lebanon, forced me to rethink what I understood about the right of return. Farha Ghannam’s nuanced ethnography of manhood and masculinity in Egypt, Live and Die Like a Man, rejected dangerous stereotypes of the violent, backward, misogynistic Arab man. Salim Tamari’s work on the life of Wasif Jawhariyyeh, a Christian musician who lived in Jerusalem at the turn of the 20th century with Muslim and Jewish neighbours, deconstructed the prevalent but mistaken notion that Islam and Christianity have been in a state of enmity since time immemorial. I also saw the power of stories firsthand outside the classroom in a retreat program I was involved in called ESCAPE, which aimed to help first-year and transfer students transition to Georgetown. Student leaders gave talks about their experiences before college, during their first year of college, and as a senior in college, and participants would break into small groups after and share openly with each other about how college has been for them. Giving my talk as a senior about how difficult adjusting to college had been was a cathartic, even therapeutic, experience, and the talks of my fellow leaders revealed surprising things about their lives that I would never have guessed had I met them anywhere else.
Here at the Collateral Repair Project, I’ve been given the immense privilege of listening to the stories of the refugees whom I serve and with whom I work. Every Wednesday, I sit in on the diwaniyyeh, the hour-long men’s support group session (that often stretches to an hour and a half) during which men from our community come together to talk about their struggles, which make my problems seem tiny by comparison. The regular feedback we have had is that the men truly appreciate the diwaniyyeh and that they leave feeling better than they had when they arrived—the very act of sharing their stories brings them some measure of peace. Twice I’ve had to hold back tears as I hear my coworker present to visitors to our center his story of escaping Syria with his family after his daughter was injured in a bomb attack by the government. Recently, an American couple came to Amman to volunteer with CRP and to document refugee stories for a local television station they were affiliated with in their home state, and I heard yet more stories of escape and pain from Iraq and Syria from our beneficiaries. One of them had his entire immediate family resettled in another country but had been waiting for years to be reunited with them due to administrative and political delays. Tell our stories, they told the couple. Tell your government that this is what we are going through. Tell them what we want because they’re not listening to us.
I hear these stories almost every day. Then, at 5 pm, when work ends, I hop into a taxi and go back to my apartment in West Amman where my life after work and on the weekends is far removed from the refugee issue. This is also a privilege. The disjuncture between these two “lives” can be shocking at times and, to be honest, I am still trying to figure out how to reconcile them. Of this, though, I am sure: refugees are not there just to tell their stories. They tell their stories because they want something to change. In a sensitive 1997 article entitled “The Appeal of Experience; The Dismay of Images: Cultural Appropriations of Suffering in Our Times,” Arthur and Joan Kleinman critique the commodification of suffering, through which experiences of suffering are “remade, thinned out, and distorted.” I’ve seen a version of this process play out in the way that journalists and academics often reach out to CRP to interview our beneficiaries so they can better understand and depict “the refugee experience”—important work, of course—but those we serve are many times frustrated by that they have told their stories multiple times to various audiences but nothing seems to change. I am the last person to claim I have an answer to this dilemma, but as I continue on in the MENAR Fellowship, I hope to gain a deeper sense of how I can become a better steward of these stories that I’ve had the privilege—and responsibility—of hearing.
Interested in applying to MENAR but want to learn more or have specific questions?
MENAR will be holding an online information session for prospective applicants on Monday, November 14th at 8 pm EST. To join the session, follow this link and log in as "Guest." The session will last approximately one hour and will allow ample time for Q&A.
Our application for 2017-2018 fellowship positions has been posted! Read all the details here. The application is open to current college seniors and recent graduates, and the deadline is Thursday, December 15, 2016 at midnight. Contact us with any questions.
We are very pleased to be working with four excellent partner organizations at this point: Bayt.com and Collateral Repair Project in Amman, Jordan; the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI) in Doha, Qatar; and Endeavor, which has offices across the MENA region. Please continue to check back between now and the application deadline as additional positions may be posted.
We are so thrilled to introduce Timothy Loh, our 2016-2017 MENAR Fellow, who will be working with the Collateral Repair Project in Jordan. He brings a ton of great experience and perspective, and we are excited to see what he will achieve with CRP next year! Read more about him on our Current Fellows page.
Our application for 2016-2017 fellowship positions has been posted! Read all the details here. The application is open to current college seniors and recent graduates, and the deadline is Tuesday, December 15 at midnight. Contact us with any questions.
We are pleased to announce an amazing new partner organization for the 2016-2017 fellowship year, Collateral Repair Project:
Collateral Repair Project is a grassroots effort to bring much-needed assistance to refugees and other victims of war and conflict - those commonly referred to as "collateral damage." We seek to repair some of this damage and, through these efforts, foster peace and reconciliation. We are located in Amman, Jordan - temporary home to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Syrian refugees.
Interested in working with them? Our application for upcoming fellowships will be open within the coming week! Check back here soon for updates.
The deadline for 2015-2016 MENAR Fellowships has passed and we are no longer accepting applications. Thank you to all of the excellent candidates who submitted applications!
Take a look at our new MENAR video, featuring the members of the Steering Committee and one of our former fellows!
The MENAR Fellowship Program now has a Facebook page! Check it out at https://www.facebook.com/menarprogram and click "Like" to support us.
We are pleased to announce that the application for fellowship positions during the 2015-2016 year are now open. The MENAR Fellowship Program will be facilitating placements with Endeavor, a global non-profit that is leading the high impact entrepreneurship movement around the world. For more information on fellowship requirements and how to apply, click here. We look forward to receiving your application!
As you know, a group of young Princeton alumni came together in 2011 to found a post-graduation fellowship organization that would enable graduates of Princeton and other universities to live and work in the Middle East and North Africa for a year. Originally operating under the name “Princeton in the Middle East” and with administrative support from Princeton in Africa, we placed our first fellow (Tal Eisenzweig, Princeton Class of 2012) in Morocco during the 2012-2013 year.
In order to better reflect the fact that we are not affiliated with Princeton University, we have recently changed our name to the Middle East and North Africa Regional (MENAR) Fellowship Program, and we plan to register as an independent 501(c)3 organization in the coming months. The word “menar” means “illuminated” in Arabic, and reflects our goal of opening the door for insight into the region’s cultures and promoting cross-cultural exchange.
Despite no longer having the word Princeton in our name, we remain inspired by the other “Princeton in” organizations (Princeton in Asia, Princeton in Africa, and Princeton in Latin America) and we continue to draw on the extensive Princeton alumni network to facilitate placements and support fellows. Our fellowship opportunities are open to top graduates of all U.S. universities.
The MENAR Fellowship Program is proud to announce that its second fellowship position is currently underway. Rachel Webb, Princeton Class of 2014, began her fellowship in August 2014 with Endeavor in Dubai. We look forward to sharing updates from her experience with you in the near future. In addition, applications for 2015-2016 fellowship positions will be accepted beginning in October.
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