Locally Employed Staff Are the Lifeblood of Cultural Diplomacy.

• Author: Barbaro, Anne

Title: Locally Employed Staff Are the Lifeblood of Cultural Diplomacy

Author: Anne Barbaro

Of the many public diplomacy awards given by institutions and associations, only one is dedicated exclusively to honoring locally employed cultural affairs staff. This is the Lois Roth Endowment's annual Gill Jacot-Guillarmod Award (1), launched in 2013 to highlight achievements by local staff members working in cultural programs and exchanges at U.S. embassies and consulates.

The award helps demonstrate the value of the work of these individuals and their unique perspective on the U.S. diplomatic mission. Recipients speak of a tremendous sense of pride that their work is recognized not just in the embassy, but at the department level. Others recount that the award gave them increased confidence in their leadership skills and helped them expand their mentoring role with both FSO and local colleagues. Several also expressed that this award, in some small way, compensates for the restricted scope of promotion and career progression available to locally employed staff. And many commented on the pride and joy they felt in reading the flood of congratulatory messages they received from former FSOs and colleagues, when their awards were announced in a system-wide cable from the State Department

"After my nearly 40-year public diplomacy work, I feel grateful, on a daily basis, for being able to initiate, and strengthen relationships between our Israeli contacts and partners and the Embassy and together do amazing, empowering and meaningful programs to advance our Mission goals."--Felicity Aziz, Deputy Director of the American Center, Jerusalem The awards are one part of the work of the Lois Roth Endowment, which commemorates Foreign Service Officer Lois Wersba Roth, who died from cancer in 1986. At the time, she was head of the Arts America Program at the United States Information Agency (USIS), which was merged into the Department of State in 1999. Lois' remarkable contributions to educational and cultural diplomacy, her commitment to equality in the Foreign Service and her passion for mentoring fellow diplomats inspired friends and colleagues, led by her husband, cultural diplomat Richard T. Arndt, to create an endowment to honor her life and work. Although the Lois Roth Endowment has evolved over the last 35 years, Arndt's original concept--to focus on three areas Roth had excelled in: Fulbright exchanges, literary translation and cultural...