SOSA

It wasn’t until about a month after arriving in Serbia and completing a Royal Compound tour that Mikell even realized Serbia had a royal family.

After a tour of the Royal Palace and learning about a number of charitable endeavors the Royal Family of Serbia was involved in, Mikell reached out to the Crown Princess Katherine Foundation, run by Crown Princess Katherine of Serbia, to see if they needed any help.  When researching the royal family, Mikell was struck by the work the Crown Princess Katherine Foundation was doing with local orphanages and domestic violence shelters and wished to somehow get involved.

Mikell herself and her family had been recipients of holiday toy drives, having grown up in an economically disadvantaged home, so the idea of helping to give back in the same way really drove Mikell to want to become involved. In addition, Mikell remembered how her own mother had struggled both during the holidays to obtain gifts as well as at back-to-school time, to provide all of the expensive school supplies her children needed to succeed in school.

Much to her surprise, Mikell received an email from the Princess herself, who asked for Mikell’s phone number. Not sure what to expect, a few days later Mikell received a phone call from Crown Princess Katherine of Serbia herself. The Princess was curious as to why an American would want to become involved in helping. Mikell let her know about her past and her work with refugees and women and children in need and wanting to use her extensive networks of pageant queens from across the globe to help collect toys and gifts for the orphans for Christmas and Easter holidays and school supplies to assist in their education.

After hundreds of hours working with her contacts and soliciting her network for personal donations, before she knew it, she had a garage full of toys and candy awaiting delivery to the Royal Palace for Easter 2021. Pageant titleholders from across four continents had donated to help the orphans in Serbia and Kosovo. Mikell, along with her children Danny and Francesca, helped to sort donations and put together small bags of candy and goodies for the Serbian Orthodox Easter holidays, in addition to toys, books and clothing.

The staff of the Crown Princess Katherine Foundation invited Mikell to personally deliver the Easter holiday gifts to the Royal Palace, where Mikell was met by TRH Crown Prince Alexander and Crown Princess Katherine who greeted her warmly.  She was then invited to tea with the Princess and staff of the Foundation.  She discussed with them further collaboration to help collect Christmas holiday gifts.

Altogether, Mikell was able to collect over $1500 in donations for the Easter holiday in 2021 and then worked further to collect donations of toys and school supplies for the 2021 Christmas holidays, succeeding in collecting more than $10,500 in donations of toys, clothing and backpacks filled with school supplies.  She was able to collect 68 backpacks in total, all filled with school supplies to help further the education of orphans and children in need.

This project continued to grow and for Easter 2022, Mikell was able to collect and deliver, along with her two children, over $5000 in toys and Easter baskets to the Royal Palace for delivery to local orphanages throughout Serbia and Kosovo by the royal family.

Most recently, Mikell and her son Daniel were given a small grant from the J. Kirby Simon Trust to continue her goal of providing new backpacks filled with school supplies to orphans in Serbia and Kosovo. She is also working to collect private donations to further the impact of the project in the hopes of providing at least 200 filled backpacks, along with toys, to be delivered for the 2022 holiday season.

If interested in assisting Mikell with her project, you may email her at mikell22@hotmail.com to learn what you can do to help.

In addition to Mikell’s work in collecting holiday toys and school supplies to orphans and children in need in the Balkans, Mikell also volunteered her time with UN Women Serbia and the Department of Justice, to lend her legal expertise and experience in working with victims of domestic violence to help train police officers and law enforcement officials in Serbia on how to work effectively with victims of domestic violence. 

Prior to her husband’s career in the Foreign Service, Mikell worked as a non-profit attorney, specializing in working with victims of crime. In her 5-year non-profit career, Mikell worked with over 6000 victims of crime, over half of which were victims of domestic violence.

Mikell worked in Hawaii at the Domestic Violence Action Center for three years and then for the National Center for Victims of Crime. In addition, she also worked with a number of crime victims during her time as a Consular Assistant at the U.S. Embassy Managua, Nicaragua, working in the American Citizen Services section.

Based on this background, Mikell was invited by ICITAP and the Department of Justice to present to Serbian Police University students and active duty police officers on how to effectively work with victims of domestic violence. She was also invited to present by UN Women to a large group of provincial policy makers on effective programming to help combat domestic violence, based on U.S models. Overall, Mikell was able to reach over 100 people with her DV expertise and assist in combating domestic violence and assisting victims in Serbia to obtain the best services possible.

Currently, Mikell is volunteering with INL at Post to help with a documentary on domestic violence that is being produced to help spread awareness for the UNWomen 16 Days Campaign, helping to combat gender based violence.

Previously, Mikell was the 2020 SOSA recipient for the EUR bureau for her work with helping to collect donations for refugees in the Balkans, a 2021 Daily Point of Light Honoree and a 2020 President’s Volunteer Service Award winner

Every Service Matters: Volunteering During the Pandemic

Zinat A. Kemper was nominated for 2022 SOSA award from the Africa Bureau for her dedicated work supporting her community in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania during the pandemic. There were eight nominations in the AF Bureau (the most of any bureau), and at least four, including Zinat’s, were recognized by the selection committee (representatives from the AF Bureau, from GCLO, and from AAFSW) as deserving of a SOSA Award. Zinat is an Eligible Family Member (EFM) working under a Family Member Appointment (FMA) in the Executive Office of USAID/Tanzania. She and her family have been living in Tanzania since August 2019. During the past three years she has undertaken several initiatives to support various beneficiaries, including a local school, an orphanage, and a small NGO, all of which had been suffering funding crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Soon after arriving in Dar, in November 2019, she organized her first fundraising event to support a local school at Pugu Kajiungeni in Ilala district that provides education to children with special needs. In early 2020, just a week before the first COVID case was diagnosed in Tanzania, she organized a large fundraising event with the Diplomatic Spouses Association to support an orphanage located in Morogoro. She raised almost $400, which provided funding for the orphanage to procure groceries for their 40 children for one month. 

Zinat has been involved with Women Empowering and Entrepreneurship Development Organization (WEEDO), a small Tanzanian NGO, since December 2020. WEEDO started operating in 2019 to provide English education, HIV prevention awareness, and tailoring training for adolescent girls and young women aged 13 to 22 in Kigamboni, a small rural town south of Dar es Salaam. WEEDO relies on volunteers and individual donations to support its program but lost all financial support when the corona pandemic started. Zinat learned about the NGO, their work, their funding crisis, and decided to help. In early 2021 she began a series of small fundraising efforts to help WEEDO to purchase educational materials and sewing machines. In 2021, during the height of the pandemic, she offered a virtual dinner delivery where meals were delivered to supporters’ homes.

That same year she applied for a J. Kirby Simon Foreign Service Trust Grant to support WEEDO. In June 2021, Zinat learned that her grant application was selected for funding trust. Her support of WEEDO and the grant funding are helping to ensure that the organization can continue its interventions to provide education and livelihoods for adolescent girls. WEEDO purchased educational materials, such as beginner ESL and advanced English grammar books and other classroom materials, as well as vocational training materials, such as industrial and regular sewing machines, fabric, and other inputs. This support has ensured WEEDO’s ability to avoid a possible shutdown of total intervention due to a severe funding crisis.  

In January 2022, she organized a used clothing and toy drive within the post USG community and brought warm clothing and toys for an orphanage near Mwanza, in northern Tanzania where temperatures get much colder. As a Muslim, Zinat mobilizes a global charity campaign every year during Ramadan through her network of relatives, friends, and friends of friends to raise funds and provide food packages to low-income families. In March 2022, she raised over $2,000 through a social media campaign which was enough to provide three weeks’ worth of nonperishable food items for 108 families. In April 2022, she delivered food packages to 20 families in Dar es Salaam at the beginning of Ramadan while the remainder were given to female-headed households and single parents in Bangladesh, her home country. 

Zinat is a dedicated philanthropist who looks for opportunities to help those in need wherever she lives. After moving overseas she realized the expat communities are the most privileged community in a developing country and they can be a great resource to mobilize to support any good cause. Her extraordinary social skills always help her to connect with expatriates outside the USG community. Before coming to Tanzania, Zinat’s family was posted in Pristina, Kosovo. At the Embassy there, Zinat also worked under an FMA in the Regional Security Office. Apart from her Embassy employment, she also served on the executive board of the International Women’s Club of Pristina (IWCP). During her tenure, she led fundraising events that raised more than €1,100 to support fire wood distribution among the poor during winter. With the help of the U.S. Embassy community in Pristina, she coordinated two additional volunteer efforts, coordinating a cookbook sale to support children with cancer and organizing a used clothing and toy drive for a children’s shelter in Pristina.

In recognition of Zinat’s volunteer work for her host country, U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania Donald Wright sent her a personal note where he commended her as a United States Ambassador to Tanzania.

Zinat’s family will depart Tanzania in summer 2023. She wishes to see her fellow Americans at post to carry forward the work she started. There are several areas where volunteers can support young children and women to improve their quality of life. Organizations like J Kirby Simon Foreign Service Trust will be willing to provide financial assistance to any volunteer work. If any volunteer is interested to learn more about the JKSFST grant, they are welcome to reach out to Zinat.  

Do you know an exceptional overseas volunteer who has made a positive and lasting impact in their host country, supported morale and well-being within the Embassy or Consulate community, or helped others in an emergency? 

Please consider recognizing their work and inspiring others by submitting a nomination for this prestigious award administered by AAFSW!

Volunteer opportunities are a key to good morale and a sense of purpose at many overseas missions. And volunteers within the U.S. foreign affairs community consistently demonstrate remarkable achievements, even during a few short years at post. 

Examples from the 2021 SOSA award winners include assisting victims of human trafficking in the Middle East; leading a complete turnaround of an international school’s curriculum, finances, hiring and security; creating cultural outreach programs in China; providing support to autistic children and their families; and creating English-language programs for local staff at two consulates. 

Learn more about the program and previous winners here: https://www.aafsw.org/sosa/ 

SOSA nominees can be any USG direct-hire employees under Chief of Mission (COM) authority, their spouses and family members over the age of 18, or their members of household (MOH). The SOSA Award is given for volunteer activities performed abroad while the nominee was posted to a U.S. Mission or on Involuntary Separate Maintenance Allowance (ISMA) status.

The award honors remarkable service to the mission community, outstanding activities directed towards the host country, or exceptional service in emergency situations. Factors considered in the selection process include: scope and reach of activities, sustainability, ingenuity, and leadership. 

The SOSA Awards are administered by AAFSW, and recipients, if qualified, are chosen from each of the six regional bureaus by a panel of AAFSW, GCLO and regional bureau representatives.  Winners receive a cash award of $2500 and a certificate signed by the Secretary of State. Travel to Washington, DC for the November ceremony (if held in person at the State Department) will be paid for by regional bureaus.

How to Submit a Nomination

All members of the Foreign Affairs community are encouraged to present nominations.

Nomination season for the SOSA Awards opened this year with ALDAC cable 22 STATE 9450, released on February 1, and nominations are due by April 29.

Nominations for all awards should not exceed three pages double-spaced and must include the following information:  the nominee’s name and position or relationship to the direct-hire employee; the nominee’s e-mail address; the nominator’s name and relationship to nominee; and a justification for the nomination, including specific actions and qualities that fulfill the award criteria.

Send nominations (as a Word document) for the SOSA Awards to office@aafsw.org.  

You may also contact your CLO or Management Officer for additional information. Please also feel free to contact AAFSW with any questions by e-mail at office@aafsw.org.

Your nominations help recognize the vital importance and value of volunteer work in the foreign affairs community. Furthermore, highlighting these achievements inspires others to pursue projects that create positive change, advance person-to-person diplomacy, and bring more satisfaction and meaning to their time at post. Thank you for supporting these awards!

Patricia Linderman, AAFSW SOSA Chair 2020-2022