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Letter from AMIDEAST Program Coordinator Doug Duncan
Dear Business Internship Alumnae, greetings to you all.
On the occasion of the Spring 2005 edition of BIP NEWS I was able to announce that MEPI/ECA had decided to continue the Business Internship program for yet another year. Since that time, we have learned that AMIDEAST has been selected by ECA to conduct the recruitment and the Alumnae portion of the new program. We are very pleased indeed to be able to continue this association in basically the same role we enjoyed during the first program iteration. In July, AMIDEAST activated the program web site on our home page located at http://www.amideast.org . By clicking the green MEPI banner in the center of the page, the visitor can access detailed program and eligibility information and also complete an on line application for consideration. As of today (August 16, 2005), the participant recruitment is off to a good start with 406 variously completed applications resident in our on line recruiting pool and just a little less than a month before we reach the application deadline of September 10, 2005. We earnestly solicit your assistance in this recruiting effort. This is a great opportunity and we hope you will help spread the word. Specifically we ask that you take some time to visit the web site and reacquaint yourself with the program goals and participant requirements. Then, we ask that you spread the news to all of your colleagues who might be interested and suitable for participation. This is your big chance to do some very positive networking. Help spread the message and help your Alumnae network grow. On a related note, I urge you to visit the AMIDEAST web site regularly to check for other program announcements as well. I have been very gratified over the last couple of months to see a significant improvement in the quality of the Alumnae Website and also in the BIP NEWS . Both have increased in size and in quality since they were activated. Here at AMIDEAST headquarters, Hannah Hogensen has been spearheading improvement efforts with our information technology department. In particular however, a key part of the improvement stems from increasing interest and contributions from our alumnae. Many thanks for that indeed. We have received pictures and personal updates and a few articles as well. Additionally, we received some very high quality responses to a new feature, the “Question of the Quarter." We encourage you to continue supporting your newsletter and we look forward to the time when the participants who will be selected in October 2005 will be able to participate as newly returned alumnae as well with fresh perspectives to share. We were just advised that our new MEPI program officer for the BIP program, Lucy Jilka, will be moving on to a new position to be replaced by Laura Alami. We enthusiastically welcome Laura in her new role and look forward to working with her on the project. Note that we have included a letter from Laura elsewhere in the newsletter announcing the change. We are very sorry to see Lucy depart. While only with the project for a brief time, she proved very insightful, energetic and helpful. Warm regards to you all. Sincerely, Doug Duncan |