SoftPower/FulStories

"I am interested in what it takes to be the happy endings that our elders have been waiting for." --Kao Kalia Yang Award-winning author Kao Kalia Yang's voice has always been there, even though it wasn't always obvious. But even when she held it in, even when others couldn't hear it, it was there. And before she became a singular speaker (and soft, powerful storyteller), that...

Note: This is the second of a two-part episode. We strongly recommend you start with Part 1. Paul E. White's stories cannot be contained in a single episode. In fact, this is the second of a two-part episode in which neither progresses past his very first assignment, in Laos in the 1960s. From there, he went on to become a legend in the USAID ranks--and it's easy to see why. In this episod...

Paul E. White's stories cannot be contained in a single episode. In fact, this is the first of a two-part episode in which neither progresses past his very first assignment, in Laos in the 1960s. From there, he went on to become a legend in the USAID ranks--and it's easy to see why. In this episode, we meet Paul as a brand new International Voluntary Services teacher doing development work...

This is an episode about answering the call--whether it comes from a widowed father, a Maasai student, or a couple of guys named John F. Kennedy and Sargent Shriver. Diane Raleigh not only answered the call but also found herself needed in each situation. Again and again, stepping up for those in need. Answer the call, step up, repeat. SoftPower/FulStories uses first-person stories to explore why...

"You can't help people from a distance." - Sergio Viera de Mello When it comes to overseas experiences, Keith Mines has seen a lot, from a remarkable set of vantage points: from LDS missionary work to active-duty assignments as a soldier to various leadership roles as a diplomat, and finally serving at the United States Institute of Peace. Through it all, he never stopped fighting fo...

If you are a six-foot-six white guy in Liberia, you are going to stick out--and Glenn Ivers did stand out. But, if you add to that infectious enthusiasm, humor, and maybe throw in a new soccer pitch, you might become unforgettable. That describes Glenn, then and now. 'SoftPower/FulStories' uses first-person stories to explore why U.S. engagement in the world matters. Through conversations...

"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them." --Paul Wellstone Her name in Ojibwe is Anisiiwiikwe , which means "woman made of stone," an apt description of Ashley Fairbanks. And though her skills and experiences are varied — ranging from art and design work to writing, to political c...

"Come as a visitor, not as a spy." -Zambian proverb "Eliza" is better known as Beth Jere, who is cheered in her old Zambian village and the surrounding areas for good reason. She was the first American her village ever knew, and she stayed on--helping locally at first, then regionally. Wherever she found herself, she was on the front lines of the greatest lifesaving effort ever...

As a young man, Mike Tidwell traveled halfway across the globe to teach rural Africans a potential new livelihood. As with most Peace Corps volunteers, he found himself on the receiving end of the most prominent lessons. Decades later, after great success as a journalist, an author, and a climate activist, he still yearns to teach people about the environment. Only now, he works closer to home. Mu...

This special bonus episode of SP/FS features Troy University professor Michael Slobodchikoff, an expert on US-Russia relations. He pays particular attention to Russia's soft power efforts. In this fascinating conversation, he shares the history and distinct differences between US and Russian soft power. Our conversation goes from the Soviet Union to the modern day, and how Russia's most si...

Raised in a Ghanian-American family, Katherine Ntihmoah's parents instilled within her the idea that her only limits would be self-imposed. She took that to heart and has been expanding her limits throughout her life--with Americorps, the U.S. State Department as a diplomat, and now at Indiana University's prestigious Hamilton-Lugar School of Global and International Studies, where she seeks to br...

"No human is more human than another human" -General Romeo Dallaire. John Berry's long overseas career, spanning the Peace Corps, USAID, and the United Nations, took him to nearly 100 countries, with positive benefits for countless people. But there's one country that looms over all the others. The one with the people he couldn't save. And the real ghosts of Rwanda follow him to this day. SoftPowe...

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." - James Baldwin Ka Vang was born in Laos and raised in Minnesota, in a world shaped by memory, migration, and the quiet weight of what is carried across generations. As a Hmong-American storyteller and journalist, she exposes her culture and her experiences so they may be seen. It is telling, the...

Less than 24 hours after he graduated from college, Paul Barker was on a plane, en route to Iran, where he would spend the next five years as a Peace Corps volunteer, immersed in Iranian culture and history. And though he followed that with three decades of international work, he remained--remains!--in the thrall of Iran. And he understands, more so than almost anyone, the scope of the cataclysm u...

John Dinkelman--or "Dink" as he is known to countless current and former U.S. Foreign Service Officers--is something of a legend. He spent nearly four decades serving his country as a diplomat--and now he serves those same diplomats as the President of the American Foreign Service Association (or AFSA). And, if there's a more caring and compassionate steward, I have not yet met them....

As a child, growing up in South Minneapolis, Medaria Arradondo--or, "Rondo"-- was aware that the adults in his neighborhood were watching. They had the kids' backs, but their expectations were very high. Flash forward. After more than three decades with the Minneapolis Police Department, including as its Chief during the tumultuous period following the murder of George Floyd, Rondo&#...

Claire St. Amant left her beloved Texas to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine, halfway across the world. When she was finished, she was ready to return to Texas. But what she learned in between--in the classroom of the Peace Corps--were the skills that propelled her success as a reporter, then a producer on the television show 48 Hours , then as a podcast host and producer for Final Days...

Even though her classmates may have recognized her as a future ambassador before she did herself, Kate Byrnes' swift ascent from the U.S. Information Agency to the Department of State to, yes, becoming a U.S. Ambassador, left little to doubt. A big part of her success was learning at a young age (a very young age, in her case) the value of showing up, being present, listening, and finding the...

In the face of ICE's sweeping detention and deportation push, Minnesotans are responding not with panic or illegal action, but with a steady, deeply-rooted ethic of neighborliness--quietly organizing, opening their homes and houses of worship, showing up in public to bear witness, and drawing on the State's long traditions of civic engagement and moral seriousness, to insist that dignity,...

Everybody assumed that Marian Rivman would grow out of her high school fascination with the Peace Corps. She did not. But her early experiences in the Peace Corps left a lot to be desired. Dangerous areas, bats, rats, and snakes, and even a dead body in her living room, were enough for her to question what she had gotten herself into. Enter the Diaz family. And Marian Rivman's life would never...

(Note: This is the second of a two-part episode. We strongly recommend you start with Part 1.) Mark Ward is a committed humanitarian who led teams to provide critical help after natural or man-made disasters. He saved lives and restored hope to communities affected by many disasters over two decades, including the 2004 tsunami and the Syrian Civil War. In (so-called) retirement, he returned to Afg...

Mark Ward is a committed humanitarian who led teams to provide critical help after natural or man-made disasters. He saved lives and restored hope to communities affected by many disasters over two decades, including the 2004 tsunami and the Syrian Civil War. In (so-called) retirement, he returned to Afghanistan to lead a humanitarian organization. None other than George H.W. Bush dubbed him &quot...

From the time of her childhood, Christine Herbert seemed destined to follow those Saturday morning TV commercials proclaiming "the toughest job you'll ever love." In her case, it meant rural Zambia and, far more than the snakes, "flat dogs," or baby owls, it was the people she came to treasure. And they, in turn, loved the muzungu who kept them all entertained. SoftPower/FulStories uses first-pers...

PLEASE LEND YOUR EARS: This inaugural episode of 'Powerful Stories" (PS1) features a chorus of Minnesota voices—frontline witnesses, supportive neighbors, community leaders—bearing witness to the unprecedented and antagonistic ICE surge in the Twin Cities. Their impressions are raw, immediate, and very personal. Together, they help form a portrait of a deep, diverse community refusing to...

Cy Kuckenbaker is an award-winning American filmmaker, video artist, and arts professor. He is also something of an expert on Lithuania and its tortured past. First as a Peace Corps volunteer, then as a Fulbright scholar, his immersion in the small Baltic country was profound. The lessons he's learned echo powerfully in the present. SoftPower/FulStories uses first-person stories to explore why...