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Ava Leone (left) in Palestine with her friend and coworker Taghreed.10/20/2009
MAAS Candidate Takes Honorable Mention in HANDS Essay Contest
CCAS graduate student Ava Leone won an honorable mention in the 2009 Hands Along the Nile Development Services (HANDS) essay contest, surpassing over 800 other entries and earning a $500 prize.
HANDS, a non-profit striving to further socioeconomic development in Egyptian communities through dialogue and exchange between Egyptians and Americans, asked contest participants to address the question “How is community development in the Middle East important to the U.S.? Why is it particularly crucial to focus on Egypt?”
In her essay, titled “Community Development in Egypt: In the Interest of Us All,” Leone argues that true development is best achieved by forging ties between ordinary people, not just between nations via political leaders. “I imagined that many of the essay submissions would take an uncritical view of what is a very complex process,” she says. “I decided to advocate a cautionary approach to community development.”
She writes:
Aid to the Middle East is often justified by drawing a straight line connecting poverty and political extremism. In fact the connection is not so simple, and its perpetuation jeopardizes efforts to promote honest exchange between equals. True dialogue does not commence because one partner fears the other, but rather because two equals meet with the expectation of shared benefit. This can only happen if we aim to effect positive change in communities in the Middle East with the understanding that we, too, will be changed.
Leone’s insight comes from both her MAAS academic focus on development and from firsthand experience. After graduating summa cum laude from the University of Alabama, she moved to Cairo, where she interned for the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram Weekly. It was in Cairo, she says, that she began to understand that “projects and policies don’t always affect people’s lives as planned.” From listening to the experiences of friends who had been the beneficiaries of development projects, Leone says she learned “that it is essential to ask people how you can partner with them and to keep them involved at every level.”
This theme of active partnership is a key component of Leone’s essay and life. After living in Egypt, she moved to Palestine, where she has since spent a great deal of time. She studied at the Hebrew National University and worked to teach methods of nonviolent resistance in the West Bank. Her experience gives her a fresh, honest perspective on development work that is visible in her writing:
Development assistance is still too often viewed as a gift, from a rich man to his poor neighbor. That attitude has led to serious mistakes that serve only to increase Egyptians’ suspicions of American motives. In several cases, U.S. government interventions have reinforced existing power structures and served to further alienate those most in need of assistance. These failures resulted primarily because programs were conceived through an assessment of American—rather than Egyptian—needs
Currently, Leone is in Palestine working with an organization striving to cultivate entrepreneurial skills in youth and doing field research for her thesis, which will address the effect of NGOs on Palestinian civil society.
To read her full essay, please click here.
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