FSU student Alex Merkovic founded Global Peace Exchange, a service-oriented group that, with the help of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, were able to work in the Buduburam refugee settlement, a home to over 42,000 displaced people.

Tell us about why you created Global Peace Exchange.

When I was a sixteen, I tried to drop out of high school to go work with the post-tsunami relief effort in Sri Lanka. Being way underage and very much unqualified, I was understandably rejected by most NGOs. So, I resolved to begin my career in humanitarian aid as soon as I turned 18 and had some kind of skills to offer. When that time rolled around and I was a freshman at FSU, I found that the school had no organizations that did relief-trips. I also realized that there probably was a good number of students who, like myself, wanted to volunteer abroad but couldn’t find the eans. So instead of organizing a one-time trip for myself, I decided to create an organization that would allow future generations of students to do exactly what we did in Ghana.

You founded the organization in 2006. Could you describe the process you took?

A friend of mine, Nathaniel Whittemore, told me that the goal of anyone working in an NGO should be to make himself or herself useless. Inasmuch, I started creating a bureaucracy that would be able to function once I had left. I approached Nick Fiore (my current Assistant Director) about the idea of volunteering in Africa, and I encountered no resistance. Getting our name out at school was difficult, but we got enough people interested that it paid off pretty quickly. The next step involved attracting the attention of donors and facilitators. It goes without saying that this was quite possibly the most crucial part of our campaign. Finally, we made sure to keep our colleagues in Ghana as informed as possible regarding our project. Any organization seeking to successfully bridge borders has to respect its partners enough to keep in regular contact with them.

In your travel to Ghana this summer, what were some of the major problems you saw within the Buduburam refugee settlement?

Well, there is the issue of resources. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has a very limited mandate within the camp and only can take care of the weak or elderly. Thus, very few people have access to basic amenities. Running water and electricity aren’t really found in very many of the places. Moreover, there is the repatriation issue. Most of the refugees do want to go home, however Liberia is still incapable of hosting returnees, even though many refugees have been in the camp for over seventeen years. Most of these problems can be traced back to donor disinterest, though. Once the media hype is over, humanitarian crises become less sensational and the donors themselves lose interest. Inasmuch, lack of donor interest has forced the United Nations to cut its assistance to almost all of the refugees in the camp.

You’ve mentioned the high-risk of failure for many NGO’s in the settlement. What were some of the difficulties these NGO’s were facing, and what steps could they take to improve their impact in the area?

International NGOs operating in the camp, or any such area have to respect the efforts of those already working in the camp. Many donors equate financial assistance to local organizations or UN agencies as a means of exerting control. When donors try to micromanage their partners, failure is inevitable. Just because we are lucky enough to be born outside of the developing world, does not necessarily mean that we have some organizational prowess that those from these countries do not. One cannot stress enough how important it is to trust one’s partners.

How does one get involved with the Global Peace Exchange?

Very easily, just talk to one of us.

When not abroad, what do Global Peace Exchange members do?

Spreading the word about our projects, fundraising and talking to new students about how to get involved in the war on poverty.

When is your next service trip planned, and to where?

Rwanda. We’re working with a local NGO to build a school for street-children. We’ll be there in May of 2008. I’m pretty excited.