International Development and the United Kingdom

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Today the International Development focus group met with some pretty influential and powerful people in London.

We began our day at a bright and early 6am bus ride into the city center of London to meet with the representative from the British Department for International Development (DFID). The DFID meeting was interesting and inspiring. Despite the very low statistics about US giving to international development, the United Kingdom is doing an excellent job in sharing their wealth. Now, of course the DFID is going to up-play their positive work, and downplay the United States, lack thereof, but still, they are working considerably more than we are. As part of the presentation, we discussed the United Nation’s Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), which are set to be completed by 2015. Unfortunately, things are not looking excellent for the completion of all 8 goals, but many are on the road to completion by the deadline. Despite the predicted completion date for 10 years later than desired, the other statistics were refreshing to hear.

After the Department for International Development, we proceeded to Parliament to meet with MP Tony Baldry from the Banbury region. While it was exciting to be meeting with a real, live Member of Parliament in a conference room in the Houses of Parliament building, his discussion of the topic was not quite as interesting. Just a traditional politician, talking in circles.

Commonwealth Secretariat – Communications & Public Relations Advisor

Buttery Quiz Night

Stratford-upon-Avon

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Today we spent the afternoon in Stratford-upon-Avon, the famous home of William Shakespeare. Let me tell you, this cute little town has certainly capitalized on Shakespeare’s popularity, and it’s working. During our afternoon in Stratford, we saw his birth home, childhood home of his wife, grave site, and a whole string of places that he and/or family members frequented. It was just a nice afternoon in a small town.

Later on that evening, we saw the play Henry IV Part 1 put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company in their Courtyard Theater. The theater is a temporary theater to be used while the main RSC theater is under a three year renovation. Even though the Courtyard Theater was temporary, it was beautiful, with an “interactive three sided stage” for the audience to sit around the scenes. Two of the other CRL Fellows, (Abby and Megan) and I happened to be one of the first people to get our tickets from the director of the Alma College program, which meant we sat center stage in the second row for the amazing performance. We were sitting in the middle of the action and it was great.

Oh, and James Franco was in the audience.

Oxford

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Sunday was a day with a considerable amount of free time due to individual group meetings. Since my meeting time wasn’t until the end of the day, I called up an Alma alum from 2006, Julie Bolitho, and her husband and we spent some time together in Wroxton and then in Oxford. It was great to see Julie since I hadn’t seen her since her wedding reception in January. We compared differences between the American and English life, shared lunch on the street in Oxford and in the short time left, walked around the city with their 11 week old puppy.

London

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Today was our free day in London, which was quite an intense day. The bus dropped us off in the center of London in Trafalger Square in front of the National Gallery at 9am and then it was a great day of just walking around the city exploring the non-touristy sites, such as Portobello Market in Notting Hill, walking through Hyde Park, a quick stop to the department store of department stores – Harrods – a nice walk along the Thames and a lunch a cool little place called Eat (www.eat.co.uk). My friend Rachel and I gave in and jumped on a random red double-decker bus and rode around for a half hour into nowhere – just to explore the city, and indulged in her Harry Potter love by visiting Platform 9 3/4 at the King’s Cross train station. The day ended at 9:30, when the entire group of 44 students and 10 professors/staff met for dinner. It was another long day, but well worth the trip.

CRL goes to England

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We’re two days into Alma’s Center for Responsible Leadership and Wroxton College, in Wroxton England and they are keeping us wickedly busy. We literally begin every morning around 9am and have conference-like sessions until 9pm. Of course we stop for meals and the obligatory morning coffee break and afternoon tea break – both of which I have a glass of English water. Sorry, I will not be coming back a tea drinker.

Besides the super long days, everything has been interesting. Some of the sessions, like “Negotiating Industrial Relations” with representatives from the Trade Union and Employers Federation or the UK Chemical Industry panel haven’t been quite interesting as others that have dealt with peacebuilding after conflict, globalization impacts on the local world, agriculture – small farming, or immigration of Muslim people to the UK, but for the most part they have been somewhat informative and valuable. I guess the not-so-interesting sessions are good for practicing my English accent. 😉

As for now, it’s just a few more days here in England (with another trip to Oxford) and then off to Spain before a quick return to Alma on the 16th.

Oh and by the way, the address to the school and homes in the tiny village of Wroxton goes as follows:

“Wroxton College, Wroxton, Near Banbury, Oxfordshire” and then a string of letters & numbers for the zip code. How funny. I would never think to write on my address Dearborn, Near Detroit. 😉