Her journey started in the Central African Republic, where she spent two years after college volunteering with the Peace Corps, a group established in 1961 for Americans to help people and communities in different countries all around the world. Part of her mission was encouraging girls to stay in school. (Unlike in the Unites States, the law there doesn't require kids to go to school.) Her experience inspired her to attend graduate school to learn more about international affairs.
Central African Republic RPCV Wendy Henning has worked as a diplomat for the United States government for about seven years. It combines two of her favorite things: traveling and helping people.
A lesson in diplomacy
Tuesday, May 4, 2010 3:35 PM
By Moira E. McLaughlin
THE WASHINGTON POST
Caption: As part of her job, diplomat Wendy Henning travels to Africa a few times a year to help refugees.
COURTESY OF WENDY HENNING | THE WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON-
Does the idea of traveling the world, meeting people from different cultures and who speak different languages sound like fun? If so, maybe you'd like to be a diplomat when you grow up. KidsPost caught up with diplomat Wendy Henning to find out what it takes to have a career in diplomacy.
"You need to really like living in a place very different from where you come from," she told us.
Second, since you'll be working with people who come from different backgrounds, you'll have to "be willing and wanting to understand someone else's point of view," Henning said.
Henning has worked as a diplomat for the United States government for about seven years. It combines two of her favorite things: traveling and helping people.
Her journey started in the Central African Republic, where she spent two years after college volunteering with the Peace Corps, a group established in 1961 for Americans to help people and communities in different countries all around the world. Part of her mission was encouraging girls to stay in school. (Unlike in the Unites States, the law there doesn't require kids to go to school.) Her experience inspired her to attend graduate school to learn more about international affairs.
Diplomats do a lot of jobs that involve working with people from different countries. Henning's job is to help refugees. Refugees are people who have to leave their homes because their country has become unsafe. She makes sure refugees have things such as food, water and shelter. Then when their home countries become safe again, Henning helps them return. She does much of her work from her office in Washington, where she works with other groups, including the United Nations.
But a few times a year, Henning travels to countries in Africa, including Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi, where she stays for two to four weeks. It might be hard to imagine living in a country where the nearest school or hospital might be 100 miles away - and where families don't have cars but feel lucky if they have a bike.
Recently, Henning spent two weeks in Zambia, helping 500 people return home to southeast Congo. She traveled by bus and boat with the refugees. When they arrived in Congo, she made sure they had a place where they could rebuild their huts and replant their crops.
Safety is something else to keep in mind if you want to be a diplomat. Sometimes diplomats working in foreign countries have to leave suddenly because it becomes dangerous.
According to Henning, lots of people with different skills become diplomats. She encourages kids, regardless of what they want to do when they grow up, to learn languages. Henning speaks French, Spanish, Sango, which is spoken in the Central African Republic, and a little Dari, which is spoken in Afghanistan, where she lived for a year. Even just trying to speak someone else's language, she said, shows people that you are "interested in learning about them."
And learning about different people and countries is what being a diplomat is all about.
