This week IEDPers got together to make meals to share in The People’s Fridge (@thefridgeon52nd), a community fridge established as a form of mutual aid to provide access to food and water to anyone who needs it in West Philadelphia. Anyone is able to share what they want and take what they need. We gathered at Penn Women’s Center to prepare turkey and swiss sandwiches (dairy and dairy free), vegan three-bean chili stew, pasta with marinara sauce and an assortment of cookies. We were able to make a total of 45 meals! Look at Chagodi and Sveta gleefully distributing food. We had a blast ..read more

For this feature, Chippie wanted to focus on the set of conditions, considerations, and aspirations that ultimately led him to apply to and enroll in the IEDP. Chippie is from Malawi, a place he always reminds us is famously known as the Warm Heart of Africa. His roots are in Blantyre, in the Southern region of the country, where he conducted most of his studies. Always with a passion for education, Chippie received a Diploma in Education from Domasi College of Education, went on to teach Geography and History at a secondary school, and later graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Educat ..read more

What does your daily work life look like on Internship?  As an intern at UNESCO Paris, most days start with catching up on emails and keeping a close track of the work I am due to deliver. There are days when I find myself working on only one project and days when my work tracker sheet is put to the test. My tasks range from conducting background research to close reading/editing of publications. There is a fair amount of reading of past and current work of UNESCO, its partners and other agencies in order to be able to carry out tasks like the preparation of presentation slides, concept ..read more

I have been fully disregarding this Happy New Year rule and have been wishing, “Happy New Year” to everyone I haven’t seen since 2023. I’ll continue to do so through the end of January, so be warned. Happy New Year, everyone! We just finished the first week of the Spring semester. It’s an incredible irony to be speaking so much of being in the spring (semester) when we’re snowed in today and walks to school have been looking like this: Yesterday, we all saw each other again since going on break in mid-December and it was sweet to catch up and hear how everyone spent the month off. Some staye ..read more

8:00am Wakeup & Prep for the Day with Cafecito I try to be up and drinking my coffee by 8:00am. My morning routine this day consisted of making a to-go breakfast smoothie, packing lunch and getting out the door as fast as I could. 9:00pm Morning Library Session I rushed out not because of class or prior commitment, but because I’ve noticed that I’m way more productive in the morning when I’m somewhere far from my bed. So, I went to the Moelis Family Grand Reading Room at Van Pelt, (the main library on campus). There I read emails, caught up on slack, and got started on my final assig ..read more

For this month’s student spotlight, I sat with Rima, our second IEDP UNESCO ‘23/’24 fellow and first-year master’s student from Syria whose interdisciplinary interests in psychology and education have brought her to the IEDP. Rima is laser-focused on pursuing a career in Clinical Psychology in order to offer mental health and special education support to underprivileged and underrepresented communities, including Syrian refugee populations. While we’re just two months into our first semester, Rima has already scouted and established herself in spaces pioneering research and innovation at the ..read more

In this issue of our In Conversation With series, I got to speak with first-year IDEPer Fatima. She is brilliant, thoughtful and funny, and it is my pleasure to share a little bit of our conversation with you. In this conversation, we talk about the continuous impermanence of home, the philosophy of recognizing and celebrating the minimum, and the life-saving value of one very special pair of yellow Crocs. I hope you enjoy this. Tolulope: Hi Fatima, can you tell me a little bit about where you call home? Fatima: I think of my mom and the home that we shared. My mom has been infamous (just to ..read more

Initially, I was going to title this series “IEDP Student Profiles.” I sat with that title for weeks, and before tonight I did not really understand why it did not feel right. In the past, when writing profiles, I have sent out Google Forms or Google Docs with questions for the person of interest to respond to. And then I would take those responses, and craft them into a single profile. Something about this time made that approach feel wrong, and here’s why: The truth is a profile is at best a representation, some description of a person or a thing of interest that is usually created for infor ..read more

& all the ways we said goodbye. Hi everyone, I’m Jes and I will be your default narrator this year! Our semester began just 4 weeks ago. I’m still getting to know my cohort mates and all the ways our individual paths have converged at the IEDP. Together, we represent 16 countries spread across 3 continents and speak over 20 languages. Not only do we hail from vast regions, but we also represent a diversity of careers, interests, and thought. We come with backgrounds in Finance, Psychology, Engineering, Ministry, the Social Sciences, and of course, Education.   Just last month, we ..read more

Dawn Adrian I remember when Dr. Neuman called me into her office regarding internship matching, she asked me if I was still interested in indigenous education and I said ‘Yes!’. Next thing I knew, I was matched with the Inclusive and Gender Equality team in the Education Sector of UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France. A Parisian summer? Let’s go! I remember my first day at UNESCO, it felt – for lack of a better word – official. I was called into the office to get my photo taken for my official UNESCO badge. I took the elevator to the fourth floor – where the education sector was – and each dep ..read more