Humphrey Fellow Recalls his Experience

Humphrey Fellow Recalls his Experience (State Department)

Edgar Guardia was awarded the Humphrey Fellowship over twenty years ago, but he says that the experience still benefits him in his daily work. When Guardia applied for the scholarship in 1987, he already had a master's degree in economics from Arizona State University and worked in a Bolivia-based NGO on rural development projects. His work experience helped him realize the importance of the development process, the scale of the challenges, and the need for more training and career development. He also thought that the Humphrey Fellowship was an ideal complement to his education.

Due to his résumé and work experience, he was selected to attend Cornell University, one of the most prestigious universities in the United States and one he had always dreamed of being able to attend.

The year that Edgar studied at Cornell exceeded his own expectations and was full of enriching activities. He attended courses to strengthen his professional skills and participated in group discussions such as the rural development committee at Cornell, where he had a chance to share his experience in Bolivia and to interact with senior U.S. professionals as well as with American and foreign students. The grant also allowed him to attend two Humphrey seminars, participate in several conferences and workshops in other cities and universities, and finally work as an intern at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington.

"This is a program tailored to your needs and to what you want to do," says Edgar. "That's the richness of the Humphrey Fellowship, and this is why it is aimed at serving  people in their mid-careers who already know what they want to do; the scholarship can guide their activities so that they best fit the fellows' interests and needs," says Edgar.

The Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program brings to the United States talented mid-career professionals from all over the world for one academic year of study and professional exchanges related to their areas of work. The program provides a basis for establishing lasting productive partnerships and relationships between citizens of the United States and their professional counterparts from other countries, thus fostering an exchange of knowledge and mutual understanding throughout the world. The program does not offer an academic degree but provides broad professional enrichment through a combination of activities designed to serve the interests of each fellow.

Humphrey Fellows are placed in U.S. universities that have been carefully selected through a national competition in the U.S. There is a Humphrey coordinator and tutors in each university, who provide academic and administrative support and help each fellow to design and implement an individualized program of post-graduate courses, as well as professional development activities.

"What the Humphrey Fellowship offers," says Edgar, "is freedom to undertake activities that could never be accomplished within a conventional credit-based academic program, and it allows you to maximize the resources offered by the university in addition to the general context of the program."

One of the fellowship requirements is that the applicant is currently working on a public or private entity in Bolivia and that the applicant agrees to return to continue working there. Guardia says: "This is a great thing about the fellowship, because the idea is that you return to your job to improve the quality of your performance with new skills and practices acquired during the fellowship year and also with the professional contacts made in the United States."

Upon his return from the United States, Edgar Guardia worked twelve more years in the DESEC NGO, where he applied many of the skills learned at Cornell. The contacts he made also helped establish additional funding contacts and his levels of motivation and efficiency rose to unprecedented levels. According to him, the Humphrey Fellowship was the best thing that could have happened to him to improve the quality of his performance and to make an impact on his organization.

Today, Edgar Guardia continues to actively work in the field of rural development. Since 2001, he has been the Executive Director of Fundación Valles, an organization that provides support to the agricultural sector in Bolivia. In just a few years, Fundación Valles has contributed to raise by 85% the income of more than 43,000 farming families. The strategy includes the use of a business model and market approach focused on supporting small farmers by providing access to technology and markets. The results have proved this strategy highly successful.

The deadline to apply for the fellowship is August 15. Each applicant has to meet the following requirements:  Bolivian citizen resident in the country (the candidate must not have a dual U.S. citizenship); between 30 and 50 years old; academic degree equivalent at least to a bachelor's degree; strong professional curriculum vitae; at least five years of professional performance after graduation; at least an intermediate level in English language proficiency, with at least 440 points in the TOEFL exam.

For more information please contact (591)(2)216-8471 or lapazfulbright@state.gov