I worked for six years as the press officer and editor in the London headquarters of Consumers International, a global federation established in 1960 that represents 240 consumer organizations in 120 countries.
I gathered information from sources around the world on topics ranging from genetically modified food to electronic commerce to world trade policy and wrote and edited reports on those issues.
As the press officer, I was frequently interviewed on the BBC as well as other national and local television and radio programs. My job also involved developing and writing newsletters, press releases and contributing to CI’s Web site.
I ran the press offices for the triennial World Congresses in Montpellier, France, in 1994 and Santiago, Chile, in 1997, and for the Consumers International delegation to the World Trade Organization’s 1999 meeting in Seattle.
The USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education was founded by director Steven Spielberg after completing his award-winning film Schindler’s List. The film tells the story of German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who saved the lives of more than a thousand Polish Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his factory.
The organization has collected more than 52,000 interviews of witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust, makes its testimony available in specialized programs for school teachers, scholars, in part, to the general public. It is now expanding its work to document other genocides, such as those that occurred in Rwanda and Cambodia, which I wrote about in the USC Dornsife Magazine.
I also researched and wrote an extensive press kit covered the founding of the Foundation, as well as its use by teachers in classrooms -including its innovative iWitness project – ongoing research into the role of eyewitnesses testimony in scholarship and the multiple technical challenges involved in saving such history.
The Local Initiatives Support Corporation – LISC – helps communities transform from distressed neighborhoods into healthy and sustainable communities.
I was asked by LISC to write a piece for the Huffington Post looking at how LISC and other community development organizations are figuring out how to rigorously measure the impact of community development work on the health of a community:
Using Health Know-How to Build Healthier Communities
And I was sent to Covington KY to write about the efforts of the area’s community development organization, with LISC’s help, has used the arts in a myriad of creative ways to revitalize neighborhoods:
Rebuilding, Artfully, in Kentucky
Previously, I wrote about the Barton Street area in Pawtucket, RI, which was once overridden with prostitutes and decimated crack houses, but – with the help of LISC – is turning itself around.
Project RENEW, in collaboration with local police and politicians, addressed the problem by working with and for the women who once saw no alternative but drugs and prostitution. It provides everything from toiletries and clothing to connections with social services. And most importantly, Project RENEW gives them a belief in themselves.
