In Wake of ISIS, Former UN Ambassador Helps Iraqi Nonprofits Take a Leading Role

Ambassador T. Hamid al-Bayati
Photo by Tom Stoelker

T. Hamid al-Bayati, Ph.D., the former permanent representative of Iraq to the United Nations, came to Fordham's Lincoln Center campus on Oct. 16 to respond to increasing violence in Iraq and Syria. The ambassador told a crowd of nonprofit leaders that their work is an important response for the war-torn region.

The event was sponsored by the Graduate School of Social Service and the Graduate School of Business Administration.

Al-Bayati, author of From Dictatorship to Democracy: An Insider's Account of the Iraqi Opposition to Saddam (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011) said that supplementing coalition forces with on-the-ground aid is essential for the people of Iraq to survive the effects of war. With more than four million refugees in the country, funding and coordination of the various NGOs is a must. To that end, the ambassador said he will be working with Fordham’s Center for Nonprofit Leaders to coordinate New York-area nonprofits and link them with their Iraqi counterparts.

The ambassador said that, with recent killings of aid workers by ISIS, it is best to let the Iraqi nonprofits take the lead rather than sending in foreign aid workers who might find themselves vulnerable to attack.

“Many are worried about WMDs (weapons of mass destruction), but you know what WMDs are now? A cell phone and an app,” he said, referring to readily available technology that has allowed recent beheadings by ISIS to terrorize Americans and other Western nationals in the privacy of their own homes.

Al-Bayati said that the consortium of NGOs in Iraq would allow donors to pick which nonprofit they would like to help. The NGO would in turn be responsible for reporting back to the donor with progress. He added that the Iraqi NGOs could also help bring businesses into the country as well.

The ambassador continually stressed the importance of coordination. He said that the United Nations still lacks the enough experience to coordinate NGOs, and they have their own bureaucracy to contend with.

“Communication is not the issue. Technology has solved that, but security remains number one,” he said. “By organizing our efforts, the NGOs can complete each other rather than compete with each other.”

-Tom Stoelker 

Our Daily Bread Takes First Place in Williamsburg Film Festival

A documentary film on the city's faith-based emergency food programs, created by Fordham's Beck Institute on Religion and Poverty, has taken first place in the short documentary category at the Williamsburg International Film Festival, which ran from Sept. 18 to 21. 

The 2013 film, Our Daily Bread: Feeding the Hungry in New York City, was directed by Dale Lindquist, L.C.S.W., D.Min., co-director of the Beck institute and a professor in the Graduate School of Social Service. The 45-minute documentary profiles three emergency food programs in New York City, all organized and run by churches and their affiliates.

In an interview, Lindquist said that many people do not realize just how much the faith community does to help the poor.

"From large programs in dedicated buildings to very modest programs running out of basements in churches, synagogues and mosques, there are incredible stories," he said.

Lindquist, a former documentary filmmaker, also runs Fordham's online master's in social work program.

To see a trailer of the documentary, visit the link:

New Social Work Journal Takes Cross-Disciplinary Approach

Social workers often find themselves on front lines of where the hard numbers of economics meet people's complex social and emotional needs. Yet, many students venturing into the field of social services often eschew the literature of other disciplines, like economics, that directly affect their clients. Now, a new journal supported by the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS), titled 21st Century Social Justice, seeks to merge social work research with that of neuroscience, economics, and law.

“During my research into social work, I have found it impossible not to wander into the literature of other fields,” said Zachary Alti, GSS ’14, the founder and editor of the inaugural issue.

“But neuroscience can seem intimidatingly scientific, and the cold realism of economics can be perceived as antagonistic to social justice.”

Alti approached Tina Maschi, Ph.D., an associate professor at GSS, with his concerns that there was a knowledge gap in social work research that needed to be filled. With the support of Fordham University Libraries, Maschi helped facilitate the message and the mechanics, while Alti recruited fellow students.

He issued a call for papers and wrote the opening statement. An editorial board of fellow students was formed so that papers could be peer reviewed. Maschi said that developing a student-led journal was already a goal at the school, but it was Alti’s initiative that brought together a “convergence of ideas.”

“This is a beyond the classroom learning experience,” she said. “Students need to realize their  own knowledge and their power, and know  that they have something to offer the other sciences. They’re the scholars. They have a valid, expert role in sharing their views with these other fields.”

Getting the various disciplines to join a scholarly endeavor led by social workers can to be a challenge, she said. But she added that social workers play a vital role in translating the science and economics to communities that are directly affected.

“Social work is a psycho-social-spiritual medicine,” she said. “It’s important to recognize that social work plays a primary role in preventing illness and promoting health and well being. The journal is just another step towards social workers being accepted as full and equal partners in knowledge generation.”

The inaugural issue highlights several topics, including little known social problems related to families caring for a fragile infant, breastfeeding women in the workplace, conditional cash transfers among women in Columbia, and the effect of climate change on vulnerable populations.

“Psychologists are often perceived as the industry standard for therapy,” said Alti. “I wanted to strengthen the view of social work as different from psychology, in that it has a distinct framework. We’re a much more externally oriented field, always looking at the environmental factors at play. We want the journal strengthening that distinction with knowledge from other fields.”

With Alti recently graduated and in private practice, student Merritt Juliano will take up the role of editor. Juliano is accepting papers for the next issue at mjuliano3@fordham.edu. All disciplines are welcome to submit.

-Tom Stoelker

Fordham BTEP to Mark International Human Rights Day

More than 200,000 women are incarcerated in American prisons. And among that population, 80 percent have school-aged children who are growing up without their mothers.

Next week, as part of Human Rights Day, Fordham’s Be the Evidence Project will host a screening of Mothers of Bedford, a documentary that follows five incarcerated women as they struggle to maintain relationships with their children from behind bars.

Mothers of Bedford screening and Q&A
Monday, Dec. 9
6:30 p.m.
Corrigan Conference Center / 12th-Floor Lounge
Lincoln Center Campus
113 West 60th Street, NY, NY  10023

Directed by Jenifer McShane, Mothers of Bedford follows five inmates with children ranging in age from infancy to adolescence. From the outside, moms Melissa, Tanika, Mona, Rosa, and Anneathia are like all other moms—they worry about their children’s grades, their first dates, whether they’re part of the wrong crowd. Where they diverge from normal is that they must worry about their children from inside the walls of Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.

The film follows the women over four years as they undergo such surreal experiences as celebrating Mother’s Day and their child’s first birthday inside prison, and help their children to understand why they have had to endure years of separation.

BTEP, which is part of Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service, will screen the documentary on the eve of Human Rights Day, which has been celebrated globally every December 10th since 1950. The day is meant to bring attention to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as “the common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations,” according to the United Nations.

The event is free and open to the public and will be followed by a Q&A with the film’s director, Jenifer McShane. For more information, email BTEP or call (212) 636-6640.

To read more about BTEP, click here.

— Joanna Klimaski

Event Puts Focus on Restoring Young Offenders to Society

Divine Pryor

At an event at the Lincoln Center campus, two men spoke with hard-won clarity about the early experiences that put them on the path to incarceration. The Rev. Divine Pryor, Ph.D., recalled that he struggled in class because he went to school hungry, but found himself labeled as having a learning disorder. Deon Richards was bullied as a child and later found the experience had wrought a frightening change in himself.

“I never thought I would actually become a bully from getting bullied,” he said.

The men were part of the Consultation on Restorative Justice and Youth Incarceration, convened on Nov. 18 to generate ideas for helping young offenders reclaim their lives and stay out of prison. The event was attended by judges, educators, university leaders, and representatives of churches, nonprofits and youth service agencies.

It was organized by a committee that included Cheryl Bader, clinical associate professor at Fordham Law School, and Anita Lightburn, Ed.D, director of the Beck Institutefor Religion and Poverty and a professor at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service.

One speaker—Robert McCrie, Ph.D., professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice—noted that incarceration rates in the United States have soared since 1973. “Why has that happened? Are Americans seven to 10 times more criminal than other countries?” he said. “No. It’s because of laws, and the laws within their hearts have come from Washington and then (been) replicated by the states.”

Peggy Shriver, co-director of the event and former assistant general secretary for research with the National Council of Churches, called for “better ways to lead our young people into healthier, more constructive lives, even after having done something destructive or harmful to themselves or to other people.

“If we bring together our individual insights, perhaps new mosaics of possibility will emerge.”

Pryor recalled growing up in a large family, saying there wasn’t always enough food for everyone. “It was difficult for you to pay attention in class if you were battling with your stomach,” he said. He was labeled early as disruptive, and a possible candidate for special education, he said, but added that he was a capable student who would have done better if given the right stimulation.

“When you’re not being properly stimulated, you do other things,” he said. After repeated detentions, and then expulsion, he said, “the streets welcomed me with open arms.”

He pursued an education in prison, and saw an extremely low recidivism rate among his cohort of fellow students. “If you really want to talk about what works, I can tell you, education works,” said Pryor, who is executive director of the Center for New Leadership on Urban Solutions, a think tank in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Alongside the bullying that left its mark on him, Deon Richards, a resident of the South Bronx, noted the lack of contact with his parents growing up. “I just started doing crazy things that I didn’t envision myself doing at that age,” he said. By age 14, he had been arrested eight times “because of things that I was trying to blame on my parents and blame on the streets.” 

After realizing he had to either “change or die,” he said, he turned his life around with help from the Center for Community Alternatives, based in New York City and Syracuse, N.Y. Through CCA he developed his passion for music, and also worked with youths facing troubles similar to those that he faced.

“I had an opportunity to actually help the young people like myself (who were) going through the same exact things,” he said.

Said Pryor: “Public safety is not exclusively a law enforcement endeavor. It’s about community cohesion and cooperation and respect, and how we look out for each other.”

--Chris Gosier