About the Author: Esperanza Tilghman serves as Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer in the Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Ralph Bunche, U.S. diplomat and the first African American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (1950), once said: “If you want to get across an idea, wrap it up in a person.”

I could not agree more, and we are doing just that through U.S. Embassy Kabul’s Mission Speakers Program (MSP). The MSP recruits speakers from throughout the embassy by simply finding out about our colleague’s experiences, and then building a relevant outreach event around their expertise for Afghan participants. For example, the first MSP activity connected a female diplomat who happened to be a former college basketball player with a group of high school girls participating in an embassy-funded sports and leadership program. Her presentation to the girls underscored the value of hard work, determination, and goal-planning, as she told the group: “Don’t be afraid to fail and don’t fear what others… more »