Student Impact
5 Reasons to Know...
Who: Inbal Alon, Ed.M. '07
What: Canadian-born master's student
Where: Raised in Israel and the United States
Why: Since high school she's worked with NGOs, refugee camps, and student groups on issues ranging from sending supplies to struggling schools in Ghana to helping young girls in western Tanzania understand that health services are important to use.
1. She's only 25 years old and has already worked in orphanages and refugee camps in nearly half a dozen countries, including Ecuador, Tanzania, Ghana, Canada, and the United States.
2. Despite the potential risk, she plans on returning to refugee camps, most likely in East Africa, to do what she can to keep schools open. "Time doesn't go back," she says, explaining the decision, which makes her parents nervous. "There might be a peace agreement in three years, but that doesn't help the kid who's six now and will be nine then. They've already missed so much."
3. A full work load at the Ed School isn't enough for her. In her spare time, she co-runs the student Education for Global Citizenship group, which brings speakers to campus to talk about how education can foster global citizenship, cultural understanding, and tolerance.
4. Although she's worked in places where basic services are scarce and people have lost everything, her optimism has, surprisingly, become stronger. "If you're passionate and genuine and willing to work with others, you can achieve a lot. Small steps do add up to things that are important."
5. She doesn't feel like the people she helps owe her anything. In fact, it's the other way around, which is part of the reason why she's at Harvard. "There's a feeling for me that if I'm going to make a commitment to education in Africa, than I owe it to everyone there to be really well informed, not just making decisions based on intuition or guesses."
About the Article
A version of this article originally appeared in the Winter 2007 issue of Ed., the magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
photo by Martha Stewart
