Charlotte Seniors Take on the Challenge at CVU
by Kaya Yurief,
March 24, 2011, page 16.....

Jana Nakhleh learns literary Arabic.

Grad Challenge Title: Learning Literary Arabic

Every Wednesday, CVU Senior Jana Nakhleh spends an hour with her community consultant learning the Arabic language. “I am half Palestinian and the language really interests me. Unfortunately, I never learned it as a child, so I wanted to learn it now while I can still become fluent,” said Nakhleh. “I am very interested in traveling, and I hope to major in global journalism. Learning Arabic will create more opportunities for me to communicate in foreign countries. Also, half of my family is Palestinian, so I will definitely use the language at family gatherings.”
Using her new knowledge, Nakhleh is going to write a children’s book in both Arabic and English. The book is about an Israeli boy and a Palestinian girl who become friends. She plans for the book to be around 15 to 20 pages long. The book will be illustrated by one of Nakhleh’s friends, Morgan Fritz. “She lives in California, and she went to a six-week-long art program at Carnegie Mellon University last summer. I chose to ask her to illustrate because I really appreciate her artistic style. The drawings will either be in oil, pastel or watercolor,” said Nakhleh.
Her community consultant is a woman named Areej Khadem. She is orginally from Iraq, but currently lives in South Burlington. During her sessions, Nakhleh practices reading and writing in Arabic with the help of a textbook. She also has read a couple of Arabic children’s books with her community consultant to give her examples for her own book. “We usually add in a little bit of speaking too,” said Nakhleh, although speaking is not a main component of her project. “Learning to read, write and speak would become far too complicated... I want to develop a strong basis of knowledge in reading and writing to prepare myself for the speaking portion of the language that I hope to study in college,” explained Nakhleh.
Nakhleh said that the biggest challenge she has faced is the complex Arabic alphabet. “Deciphering the sound of each letter is really difficult. All of them sound the same. There are very subtle changes,” said Nakhleh. Writing the actual form of the letter is also difficult. “The hardest part is the accents for each letter. Accents can completely change the sound,” said Nakhleh.
“I was really worried about it [Arabic] in the beginning,” she said, “but once I got to the point where I could write the whole alphabet, I felt really fulfilled.”
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Matt Zahn interns for gubernatorial campaign.

Grad Challenge Title: Working on a Gubernatorial Campaign

The Dubie-Shumlin race was one of the most contested elections in Vermont, and CVU Senior Matt Zahn was able to experience it firsthand. During the summer and fall, Zahn, a Charlotte resident, was one of seven interns for the Brian Dubie campaign.
“I chose this project because of my interest in government and politics. I took AP Gov last year and I wanted to apply what I learned,” said Zahn.
His jobs included putting up signs, doing various office work and working at events. Canvasing neighborhoods with signs was his main job. “Every day they would give us walk-books with the neighborhoods we were supposed to canvas that day,” said Zahn. “I got to travel all over the state and meet interesting people that I normally wouldn’t have.” He also attended many different events, including fundraisers, kick-offs and parades.
His community consultant was Justin Schaffer, the Field Operations Director for the campaign. Schaffer was in charge of organizing the canvasing and public events for the campaign.
On election night Zahn was at the Capital City Plaza in Montpelier where Dubie held his election-night party. “There was a big buzz going around the ballroom. Jim Douglas was the A-list celebrity everyone was trying to talk with,” said Zahn, “They wanted his opinion on the campaign, how it was run, and what he’d recommend to his successor. As the results came in, everyone was getting a little on edge since it was so close.” Dubie did not concede the election that night, but he did the following morning. “That was a little bit of a surprise since he could have litigated the result,” he said.
Although Zahn enjoyed working for the campaign, he did face some challenges. “It was a more contentious election. Both candidates were attacking each other through ads and posters,” said Zahn. The interns were asked to hold homemade signs that attacked opposing candidates. “It was unsettling. I wasn’t comfortable doing it. Vermont is usually sheltered from all that,” said Zahn.
“I learned a lot from the experience in general, but overall I learned what it meant to run a campaign. “There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that people don’t see, that they may not expect.”

Kaya Yurief from Williston is a senior at CVU. She completed an internship at The Charlotte News last summer and is interested in a career in journalism.