Living dangerously – Bethesda native and award-winning journalist Christina Goldbaum found her calling covering conflict in Africa

Posted on April 18, 2020 by Line

Early one morning in April 2015, Christina Goldbaum was pounding on locked metal doors at the mostly closed Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi. She was trying to find an airline with a flight that would take her to the Kenyan city of Garissa, where terrorists had killed more than 145 people and wounded dozens more at a local university.

After hearing sketchy news reports of the attack, she had driven three hours to the airport from the small town where she had been working on a documentary for a nongovernmental organization. As she drove, she frantically emailed an editor she knew at Agence France-Presse (AFP) and learned that the international news agency did not have another freelancer available to cover the mass shooting.

With the few flights to Garissa already full, Goldbaum was able to snag a spot on a four-seat charter flight booked by a South African news crew. When she arrived in Garissa, she got to work, shooting video while under curfews and dealing with regular power outages and unreliable internet access.

“It was so important that journalists be there on the ground to show that those killed were so much more than statistics,” says Goldbaum, now a reporter for The New York Times. “People hear about terrorist attacks and they don’t connect” to the victims.

While it’s common for American journalists to start their careers by covering local news, Goldbaum, now 27, found her journalistic footing overseas. The Bethesda native, who graduated in 2010 from St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, got her first reporting job at the Cape Times in Cape Town, South Africa, at the age of 22 after graduating from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. She then spent four years in Africa as a freelance foreign correspondent and field producer for outlets including AFP, The Atlantic and Foreign Policy, shooting her own photos and video as she covered stories ranging from political upheaval in Burundi to a massive truck bombing in the Somali capital of Mogadishu in October 2017 that killed more than 550 people and injured more than 300. MORE

H-1B Cap Season 2020

Posted on March 25, 2020 by Line

First of all, though USCIS has announced numerous operational changes (including a temporary reprieve from the requirement for wet ink signatures, and the – not unexpected – suspension of premium processing) at this time they have not announced any changes to the cap lottery and filing timeline.

Here’s what you can expect:
March 31: Date by which USCIS intends to notify selected registrants.
April 1: The earliest date that FY 2021 H-1B cap-subject petitions may be filed.
Registration Selection Notifications USCIS intends to notify registrants (employers) and their representatives (attorneys) with selected registrations via their USCIS online accounts no later than March 31, 2020. A registrant’s USCIS online account will show one of the four following statuses for each registration:
Submitted: A registration status may continue to show “Submitted” after the initial selection process has been completed. “Submitted” registrations will remain in consideration for selection until the end of the fiscal year, at which point all registration statuses will be Selected, Not Selected or Denied.
Selected: Selected to file an FY 2021 H-1B cap-subject petition.
NotSelected: Not selected for this fiscal year.

Please note that a registration will not reflect a status of Not Selected until the conclusion of the fiscal year. In the event that USCIS determines that it needs to increase the number of registrations projected to meet the H-1B regular cap or the advanced degree exemption allocation, USCIS will select from registrations held in reserve to meet the H-1B regular cap or advanced degree exemption allocation.

Denied: The same registrant or representative submitted more than one registration on the beneficiary’s behalf for the same fiscal year. All registrations the registrant or representative submitted on behalf of the same beneficiary for the same fiscal year are invalid.
H-1B cap-subject beneficiaries, including those eligible for the advanced degree exemption, must have a “Selected” registration notification in order for a registrant or representative to properly file an H-1B cap-subject petition for FY 2021. Registrants and representatives will not receive non-selection notifications until the conclusion of the fiscal year. Until that time, the status of registrations not selected as part of any initial random selection process and not denied will remain as “Submitted.”
As always, feel free to contact us with any questions, to schedule a consultation, or to initiate an H-1B filing.

Pitch competition of innovative startups

Posted on January 30, 2020 by Line

This Friday, the Young African Professionals Network DC and Georgetown University‘s African Business Conference will host a pitch competition of innovative startups: https://lnkd.in/eUmzM3n

World Bank Job Fair February 3, 2020 World Bank Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

Posted on January 30, 2020 by Line

The World Bank Group aims to scale up its presence in Fragile, Conflict and Violence (FCV) settings, filling over 100 positions by June 30, 2020. On February 3, we will hold our first FCV Job Fair in Washington D.C. RSVP to attend here. https://lnkd.in/gBNxnm5

Obama Foundation Scholars program

Posted on December 19, 2019 by Line

The Obama Foundation Scholars Program seeks to support dynamic, collaborative, rising leaders from around the world in an innovative one-year academic and leadership experience. MORE

Sub-Saharan African Immigrants in the United States

Posted on December 19, 2019 by Line

Slightly more than 2 million immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa lived in the United States in 2018. While this population remains small, representing just 4.5 percent of the country’s 44.7 million immigrants, it is a rapidly growing one. Between 2010 and 2018, the sub-Saharan African population increased by 52 percent, significantly outpacing the 12 percent growth rate for the overall foreign-born population during that same period.

There were very few sub-Saharan Africans in the United States just a few decades ago, with under 150,000 residents in 1980. Since then, immigrants from some of the largest sub-Saharan countries, such as Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Somalia, and South Africa, have settled in the United States. Overall, more than 2 million immigrants have come from the 51 countries that comprise sub-Saharan Africa, making up 84 percent of the 2.4 million immigrants from the entire African continent. The remainder are from the six countries of North Africa: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia. MORE

Angela Okafor, who has a law degree from her home country of Nigeria and passed the New York bar exam, opened an immigration law practice three years ago.

Posted on December 18, 2019 by Line

Last month, Okafor made history in the larger community: The attorney and small-business owner became the first immigrant and black elected as a councilor in the small, overwhelmingly white city. Okafor’s election is part of a growing wave of women of color who are running for political office, and winning.

Washington DC – Job Seekers Clinic

Posted on November 20, 2019 by Line

Are you looking for a job? Do you need help with your cover letter, resume or application?

Come to Job Seekers Clinics at Petworth Library! Library staff will provide one-on-one assistance for job seeking patrons. Patrons will be served on a first-come, first-serve basis. Job Seeker Clinics will occur every 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Where: Petworth Library | 4200 Kansas Ave. NW | Washington, D.C. | 20011

Learn More

PORTRAIT (Togo) – Harvard Kennedy School: A Vision in Togo: Cina Lawson MPP 2001 uses technology to transform financial inclusion and internet access in this West African nation

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Line

2019 Recipient Public Service Award

CINA LAWSON MPP 2001 FIRST MET the president of Togo when he visited New York for the United Nations General Assembly in 2009. She was working in Manhattan, developing data infrastructure services for Orange Business Services’ public- and private-sector clients, and the two discussed the challenges and opportunities facing the telecom sector in West Africa.

When President Faure Gnassingbé was reelected in 2010, he remembered their conversation and asked Lawson to join his government as the minister of posts, digital economy, and technological innovation. Since assuming that position, she has significantly expanded access to both the internet and financial services in Togo.

Pages: 1 2