Another world

Amy Brathwaite is on assignment
for the UN in Bangladesh

By Melanie Jones

Born in a rural Ontario town of about 4,000 people, 27-year-old Amy Brathwaite (BA’01) is a long way from home. Working with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Brathwaite sits above a chaos of traffic, rickshaws, bicycles, and the occasional emaciated cow. Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, is home to more than nine million people, most of them Muslim. The country is at sea level and cut through with rivers—the source of many of its major challenges, including terrible flooding and monsoons.

Brathwaite, a thoughtful and articulate young woman, graduated from U of C with a BA in development studies and an African studies minor. She credits professors Ronald Glasberg and Wisdom Tettey with inspiring her love for international concerns, but the attraction may have come many years before, flipping through the pages of National Geographic. In 2005, she earned a master’s degree in development and international relations from Aalborg University in Denmark.

She worked briefly in Africa in 2004, an experience she describes as “raw and eye-opening.” There, she was thrown into grassroots development work in HIV/AIDS awareness, seeing first-hand the incredible challenges African populations face. “I learned so much from these young people, who had so little, yet were so inspired to learn, to listen and be an active part of their community,” she explains.

“ It was an incredibly rewarding, frustrating, hopeful, resolute, [and] motivating time for me.”

The experience working with HIV/AIDS awareness was one of the catalysts for her current role with the UNDP Bangladesh’s HIV/AIDS Program. She sees her role as critical in preparing for the inevitable effects of AIDS, although the layers of bureaucracy frustrate her. “I felt more tangible impact more quickly [in Africa],” she says. “I feel a bit disconnected to what is happening on the ground here, as I’m way up on the 18th floor
of the UN building.”

Every day, she faces challenges, from finding fresh food to the amount of attention she garners as a badeshi, or foreigner. But, the intensity itself has affected her. Amid the bustle and chaos of Dhaka, she says she “feels more” in this vibrant but poor country.
“ Everything is different, but it’s still real life. It’s still [my] life.”

Amy Brathwaite’s current UN contract will expire in March. She’s considering signing on for another six months or returning to Africa.

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