Alumni Interview: Five Things That Matter with Meg Chandler '13

Work in international development felt as natural to Meg Chandler ’13 as going to work for the family business. Born in Bangkok, and spending her early years in Burma, Meg and her brother James ’10 moved with their family to Dorset in 1999. After watching her parents dedicate their careers to international service, Meg said she always knew that she would spend her career in a similar way. 

Meg graduated from St. Lawrence University in 2017 with a BA in Global Studies. While there, she conducted research for her senior thesis in Nepal, Burma, Kenya, and Tanzania, studying street art through the lenses of colonialism, nationalism, and globalization.

For the next five years, she worked in Washington DC in international development and humanitarian aid for Tetra Tech, a United States Agency of International Development (USAID) contractor, and Mercy Corps, an NGO focused on humanitarian aid. At Tetra Tech, Meg had the opportunity to work in Afghanistan supporting two USAID programs on short-term technical assignments—Promote: Women’s Leadership Development Program (WLD) and the Initiative to Strengthen Local Administrations.

The project overview for WLD describes the program as one that, “enables Afghanistan’s most talented young women to become future leaders in government, business, and civil society. Over the course of 5 years, WLD recruited and enrolled more than 25,000 women who demonstrated exceptional leadership potential and commitment to positive social change.” In the best and easiest of places and circumstances, this would be difficult work, but during the time of the quarterly report from January to March of 2019, the program encountered infrastructure issues with keeping the buildings heated, as well as a suicide bombing attack.

Traveling and working in Afghanistan in 2019 and 2020, Meg was unknowingly on the brink of upheaval and unrest both within the country and the world. She could not have known at the time that she was working against the clock - on the cusp of both COVID and the fall of Kabul and Afghanistan. 

Few of us can forget the feeling of watching the fall of Kabul in August 2021. Hundreds of Afghans packed into US airplanes. Mothers desperately handing their babies over a fence. People running after one of the last planes as it taxied away from Kabul International Airport. For Meg, it was personal. After having spent several years delivering educational programming aimed at educating the next generation of Afghan women leaders, the overthrow of the Taliban and the swift and complete silencing of progress was deafening. 

Reflecting on the moment a year and a half later, those moments and the ensuing utter lack of information flowing out of the country still feel fresh to Meg. She hopes that the lessons learned by the women in the programs she helped administer will stick and sow seeds of hope and progress within the families of Afghanistan.

Meg recently sat down to talk about her work and career, and share her experience with us as she works to bring education for all from the halls of Burr and Burton to practice on the world stage.

I was in Kabul for about three and a half weeks in 2019. Then I went back in 2020 for about two and half weeks for a different project. I worked on two programs:  the Jawana Program is for university-age women or graduates (women in their 20s or early 30s), and the Royesh Program was for high-school-aged girls. The programs were tailored for different purposes based on where you lived in Kabul or in the provinces. For example, the Jawana programs in the provinces were focused on skill-building, entrepreneurship, and accounting, so women could develop technical skills, like tailoring and budgeting. And then, these women could take these tools to start their own business and manage it from a financial standpoint. There was also a networking component, and some of it was done through a private Facebook group for program participants. The younger participants in the Royesh program participated in life and work skill-building workshops that also aimed to increase their self-confidence. For these younger girls, when the program introduced the idea of women’s rights or basic human rights - things that they should have access to - some of the girls would say, ‘I didn’t know this existed.’ These girls were interested in sports and activities that I think we take for granted here. For my generation, at least, I grew up being able to play whatever sport I wanted to play. And these girls can’t at all. 

The USAID programs (through Tetra Tech) ended in 2019. Those programs are typically funded for 60 months and were started under the Obama Administration. There was talk about a follow-on project but it never came to fruition. The Women’s Leadership Development Program (WLD) was one of three similar projects that all focused on different components of women’s empowerment. The other two focused on women in governance and women in the economy. 

Another part of the program was working with the families and educating the men on women’s empowerment - that women can do things and should have access to education, services, the workforce, etc. In other words, women can take care of themselves and their families while also having a life outside of the home.

Some of the best conversations I had were with my colleagues - the Afghan women I worked alongside. One woman had two daughters, and she had just gotten one of them a bike for her birthday. Her daughter made a comment that she had only ever seen boys ride a bike, and now she could too. Growing up, I thought I could do anything my older brother could do - I can’t imagine not having him as a role model or not having other women and girls to look up to. My experiences showed me how lucky I am to have grown up in a community that supported me for who I am. Those connections with the project staff were really amazing.

It’s non-existent. I don’t know what happened to the Facebook groups, and girls can’t go to school anymore. A lot of female activists and aid workers are being targeted or have left the country. Many of my coworkers were trying to get out, and some have resettled in the United States. In the two years since the WLD project finished until when Kabul fell in 2021, I’m not sure what happened, but USAID had not figured out a follow-on project. I don’t know if it was because it was initially started under Obama and maybe policies and priorities had changed with Trump. Everything that I had worked on was over and the in-country staff had moved on to other programs when things fell apart in 2021. I don’t really know what’s going on there right now in terms of international presence, but I have to believe that there are more humanitarian aid programs working tirelessly. 

I think people can critique the U.S. presence in Afghanistan for the 20 years that we were there in a lot of different ways. However, it gave a lot of individuals an opportunity to gain an education. I guess my hope is that through some of those educational experiences as well as being able to go to university and having higher literacy rates among the generation that grew up alongside the U.S. presence, this may give them a foundation where they can either continue to educate their children and change future generations, or enable them to build connections with different diaspora groups who can help bring about change from outside the country. A lot of these women, especially in the provinces, can’t leave Afghanistan due to poverty and a lack of access to the outside world. 

The history of Afghanistan is very rich and complicated - when the Soviets invaded in 1979, they destroyed much of the existing infrastructure resulting in multiple generations of lost education, none of which was rebuilt when they left or under Taliban rule in the late 1990s. I’m hoping Afghanistan can figure out what they want their future to look like based on the generations of Afghans who were forced to leave their home in the past and/or in recent history. 

After Kabul fell, I was in touch with some of the women I worked with. Some reached out and asked for help. And that was hard, because there was very little I could do. Some left for neighboring countries or the West, but I don’t know what happened to most of them. 

I just finished my first semester of a two-year program at Tufts University, pursuing a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy with a focus on International Security Studies and International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution. I’m interested in intelligence and policy, as well as security. I don’t really know where that leads, but maybe the Foreign Service, State Department, the National Security Council at the White House, or the Department of Defense, but generally public service, and generally government work. 

Women’s empowerment is a component of everything. During the time that I was in that world (international development, working in Afghanistan with Tetra Tech and Mercy Corps), there was always a component of women’s empowerment in each program but it was often times siloed. It should be incorporated across every activity, component, and objective. After my experience, I hope to bring this perspective to future roles if it does not already exist. I think that historically, (international security work) has been predominantly white men, but they are trying to diversify a bit. Wherever I end up, women’s empowerment will always be a component of what I do. 

Well, I loved my freshman year history class - World Cultures with Meg Kenny. But, I was mostly influenced by my parents. They both worked on the NGO (non-governmental organization) side of international development, and my mom worked for the United Nations at different points. This is what I’ve wanted to do my entire life. Growing up overseas, there were times when I just wanted to get out of Vermont and wanted to explore other cultures, and experience more diversity. But I do think that the small, close-knit community of BBA and our greater community in Dorset and Manchester are very special. I’m very happy to have had those experiences. Even in rural communities worlds away, whether it’s in rural Tanzania or Afghanistan, the concept of community is so central to humanity and how we relate to one another. Growing up in a small town enabled me to relate to people in other rural areas where I worked. Culture is different and daily practices are different, but relating to people, and relying on people is not that different. My experiences at BBA and being able to maintain connections with high school friends who are doing amazing things are integral to who I am. It has been really wonderful to have that commonality of where we come from. I feel like my friends from high school have similar values that we grew up with and learned at BBA and apply to our lives in different ways now.

Don’t forget where you come from. It’s so easy to want to leave and move on to different things. Appreciate the experience that BBA is. It is a really incredible school and community. Cherish that and try to maintain some of those relationships with your classmates and teachers. That has been one of my favorite things about growing up in Vermont and being at BBA.