EMU Connects With 'Future Generations' Students

L. to r.: Dr. Torill Iversen, Norway (working with Future Generations, Afghanistan); Sivan Oun, World Relief, Cambodia; and Margaret Kaggwa, Milago Hospital, Uganda, were among the 15 community leaders from 14 countries taking part in a fifth summer session of EMU's Summer Peacebuilding Institute, July 24-28; from there, the group went to Mennonite Central Committee headquarters in Akron, Pa.
Photo by Jim Bishop

by Chris Edwards

Sixteen students from almost as many countries passed through Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) recently on their worldwide quest for a masters degree in "applied community change and conservation." Their previous stop was India. Future stops will be Peru, Nepal and Tibet.

The students belonged to an innovative, two-year graduate program called "Future Generations," for which Daniel W. (Dan) Wessner is the academic director. Dr. Wessner is associate professor of international and political studies at EMU.

"We are small people," said Vietnamese student Dang Ngoc Quang, referring to his and his peers’ lack of wealth or political power. They are all grassroots workers from such countries as Ethiopia, Bhutan, Iran, Egypt, Rwanda, Uganda, India, Afghanistan and Canada’s Heiltsuk First Nation. "What can be our impact?" he asked in an EMU classroom.

"Leaders are needed at all levels. Don’t discount yourselves," responded instructor Elaine Zook Barge.

The students of Future Generations (www.future.org) do most of their academic work by computer, but gather for one month per semester at different spots on the planet.

Cultural Differences

In India, Dang Ngoc observed cultural differences and universal similarities at sites including the ashram founded by Gandhi.

Then, following several months back in their homes, students re-grouped in Harrisonburg to begin a month’s study in the United States. This leg of their journey in late July became an extra session of EMU’s 2006 Summer Peacebuilding Institute, which attracted more than 180 learners earlier this summer.

Wessner said EMU’s peace program was added to the itinerary this year after the 2005 graduates from Future Generations requested peacebuilding preparation. About 80 percent of Future Generations’ work focuses on practical fields such as conservation and healthcare. These will be covered this year in stops at New York’s Adirondack State Park and Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University.

Current participants received teachings on trauma resiliency and conflict transformation through EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP).

L. to r.: Ellen Lampert, Santa Fe, N.M.; Nguyen Tien Ngo, Vietnam; Margaret Kaggwa, Uganda; Dr. Dan Robison, Bolivia; and Dr. Kanno Tage, India, critiquing each other's research designs for community-based development, peacebuilding and conservation at the "Future Generations" conference hosted by Eastern Mennonite University.
Photo by Jim Bishop

As a child, Dang Ngoc, now 54, watched from a low bamboo and earthen schoolroom shelter as American rockets hit his North Vietnamese village, soon destroying it. Dang Ngoc confessed he hated Americans then.

Eventually, in 1992, Dang Ngoc met his first flesh-and-blood Americans: Mennonite Central Committee workers, including four who are now linked to EMU: Wessner and his wife Liz, and SPI director Pat Martin and her husband Earl.

After working three years for MCC, Dang Ngoc decided that work needed to be done by the Vietnamese themselves and founded the Hanoi-based Rural Development Services Center, one of the first non-governmental organizations recognized by the government. He works with diverse religious groups and farmers' organizations in three rural provinces, while training staff.

Generating Income

"Our focus is on livelihood – how to generate more income, have better access to credit, experiment with farming equipment," said Dang Ngoc.

Another Future Generations student, Sivan Oun, says that in these studies, "My most valuable experience is understanding about conservation and public health, how they are connected."

She’s a medical (equivalent to U.S. physician’s) assistant, educating rural residents in her native Cambodia, where more than one in ten children die in infancy. Though poverty often blocks access to healthcare, Oun says, "If you are sick, you go to the health center, but if you know how to prevent an illness, you don’t have to go." She does not disparage traditional remedies, such as using tree bark to treat a leading cause of infant mortality – diarrhea - but promotes modern sanitation, water filtration and latrine construction.

From Harrisonburg, the group moved on to Akron, Pa., for a seminar on "strategic methods of social movements,"taught by CJP staff members, Lisa Schirch and Carolyn Yoder.

Chris Edwards is a free-lance writer living in Harrisonburg.

— article by: Chris Edwards; posted August 2, 2006