Global Community Day: A Celebration of International Service
Welcome to our celebration of international service at Meridian Hill / Malcolm X Park!
— D I G I T A L P R O G R A M —
➡️ Check in and tell us about yourself!
Please fill out our check-in form here. We’d like to know more about this community. All of the questions are optional, so you can provide as much or as little information as you like, and responses will not be shared outside the event sponsors.
Your hosts
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Miguel is an ANC commissioner and the chairman of ANC 1B. He first came to Washington to train as a Foreign Service Officer. After working and studying overseas, he settled here and spent several years as an intelligence analyst in the federal government. He now advocates for democratic reform in the U.S., and especially in the District.
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Luis Figueroa is a proud humanitarian. He worked in a variety of roles at USAID after a career at the World Food Program. He holds an MPA from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.
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Former Deputy Assistant Administrator for Humanitarian Assistance, USAID
Marcia K. Wong has over thirty years of diplomatic, development and humanitarian experience with the US government and international organizations, most recently as a Deputy Assistant Administrator in USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. Before rejoining the US government in 2022, she led a team to advance humanitarian diplomacy and partnerships as the Head of Policy of the International Committee of the Red Cross/Regional delegation to the US and Canada, 2015-2022. Other complex crisis positions at the State Department included establishing the Bureau for Conflict and Stability Operations, serving as Senior Coordinator for complex crises in the Office of Foreign Assistance, and as Associate Dean for Stability Operations training; at USAID, she served as a senior policy advisor in the former Bureau for Democracy, Humanitarian Assistance, and Conflict.
Her diplomatic career also focused on energy, security and economic sector reforms, with overseas tours in Russia, Northern Macedonia (and support to Kosovo) and Japan, with extensive travel in Africa, Middle East and Asia while serving on the executive staff of three Secretaries of State. She has degrees in International Relations and Political Science from Brown University and was a MIT Seminar XXI Fellow.
Keynote speakers
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Executive Director, Executive Director at the Alliance for Peacebuilding
Liz is an international lawyer and a conflict expert with more than 25 years of experience in senior leadership positions in bilateral, multilateral institutions and NGOs. She has extensive experience in policy and advocacy and overseeing sizeable and complex peacebuilding programs in conflict-affected and fragile states in Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa.
From 1997-2001, Liz was seconded by the US Department of State to the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo as the Chief Legal Counsel and Head of the Election Commission Secretariats. In these positions, she was responsible for developing the legal framework and policies in support of the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords and UN Resolution 1244. After 9/11, Liz worked for the International Rescue Committee in Pakistan and Afghanistan where she established and managed the Protection Department for Afghan refugees and returning IDPs. Starting in 2004, she served in leadership positions and helped establish the Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation at USAID developing programs and policies to improve the USG’s ability to address the causes of violent deadly conflict. In 2007, Liz was the Chief of Party for Pact where she managed a USAID funded conflict resolution and governance program in Ethiopia. She also served as a Technical Director at FHI 360 where she managed a USAID funded peacebuilding and governance program in Senegal with a focus on the Casamance one of Africa’s longest-running civil wars.
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J. Brian Atwood is a Senior Fellow and a member of the Board of Governors of the Watson Institute at Brown University. He was Dean of the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs from 2003 to 2010. Atwood served for six and one-half years as Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) during the Clinton Administration. In 1992/93 he led the Clinton transition team at the State Department and served as Under Secretary of State for Management prior to his appointment to head of USAID. He was elected Chair of the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD in 2010. During the Carter Administration Atwood served as Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations. He was President of the National Democratic Institute from 1985 to 1993, and served on the UN Secretary General’s Panel on Peace Operations in 2000. He joined the Foreign Service in 1966, and was Senator Tom Eagleton’s legislative advisor for foreign policy from 1972 to 1977. He was Dean of Professional Studies at the Foreign Service Institute in 1981–82. Atwood received the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award in 1999.
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Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, is a renowned surgeon, author, and public health leader. He was Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID from January 2022 to January 2025. He was previously a practicing general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He co-founded and chaired Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally. From 2018-2020, he was CEO of Haven, the Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase healthcare venture.
Dr. Gawande is also a longtime writer for The New Yorker magazine and has written four New York Times best-selling books: Complications, Better, The Checklist Manifesto, and Being Mortal. He was executive producer for the Emmy-nominated documentary film adaptation of Being Mortal (2016) and for the Oscar-nominated documentary film, To Kill A Tiger (2024).
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Uzra Zeya is the current President and CEO of Human Rights First. Prior to that, she was Senate-confirmed and sworn in as Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights on July 14, 2021. In this role, she leads global diplomatic efforts to strengthen democracy, advance universal human rights, support refugees and humanitarian relief, promote rule of law and counternarcotics cooperation, fight corruption and intolerance, prevent armed conflict, and eliminate human trafficking. On December 20, 2021, Secretary Blinken announced her designation to serve concurrently as the U.S. Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, for which she leads U.S. efforts to support the human rights and meet the humanitarian needs of the Tibetan people and preserve their unique cultural, religious, and linguistic identity.
Under Secretary Zeya brings to these roles over three decades of diplomatic and leadership acumen at the intersection of international peace, security, and human rights. From 2019 to 2021, she served as president and CEO of the Alliance for Peacebuilding, a non-partisan global network of more than 130 organizations working in more than 180 countries to end conflict by peaceful means. During her 27-year Foreign Service career, Zeya served as deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires in Paris; acting assistant secretary and principal deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; chief of staff to the deputy secretary of state; political minister-counselor in New Delhi; and deputy executive secretary to Secretaries of State Rice and Clinton. She also served in Syria, Egypt, Oman, Jamaica, and in various policy roles at the Department of State. Zeya speaks Arabic, French and Spanish.
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Assistant to the Administrator, USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance (Former)
From 2021 until 2024, Sarah Charles led USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), the U.S. government lead for international disaster response. During her tenure, Ms. Charles led U.S. humanitarian responses to: the global food security crisis, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, historic drought and conflict in the Horn of Africa, civil war in Sudan, and complex emergencies in Haiti, Pakistan, Türkiye, and Syria. She championed key strategic initiatives to transform humanitarian assistance, focusing on localizing aid delivery, reforming and expanding the treatment of malnutrition, strengthening responses to sexual violence in crisis settings, increasing early warning and disaster risk reduction, and supporting climate resilience in vulnerable communities. Previously, she served for four years on the Obama National Security Council (NSC) Staff and worked for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Washington, and overseas in the Horn of Africa and Afghanistan.
Stories of Resilience with Eric Smith of the Deep Cuts podcast
Eric Smith hosts the Deep Cuts podcast, which examines the deep, sudden cuts made by the U.S. Federal Government in 2025, as told by the people most affected by them.
Today, he will be in conversation, on the theme of STORIES OF RESILIENCE, with:
Christopher White
Sara Westrick
Michele Sumilas, former Assistant to the Administrator for Management and Resources of the U.S. Agency for International Development
Leon City Sounds
Today’s entertainment comes to us from Leon City Sounds, “two selectors from Washington, DC and Lima, Peru with a lot of love for roots reggae, dub, ska, rocksteady, cumbia, chicha, guaracha, kompa and afrobeat”! They are all local and all vinyl!
Sponsoring organizations
Advisory Neighborhood Commission 1B, serving the communities of lower Columbia Heights, Cardozo, LeDroit Park, North Shaw, Meridian Hill, the U Street Corridor, and lower Georgia Avenue
OneAID, sustaining and empowering the U.S. foreign assistance community
Washington Parks & People, DC’s hub for breathing life into public lands & waters for broad community revitalization
Special thanks
Our event could not have taken place without the generous help of:
We are here to recognize the service of, and show gratitude to, our many neighbors who have been terminated from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the State Department, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, Voice of America, and their many implementing partners.
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