Two GPS students are traveling from North America to Europe to raise awareness about the alliance’s advocacy for gender equality and the environment
This year, the two students at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) are embarking on a globe-trotting mission to educate people about the benefits of NATO.
For its 75th anniversary, NATO has tasked diplomats-in-training to help regain the public’s trust and prove that it is not just a relic of the past. To do so, the alliance has commissioned projects that will remind citizens of its member-states that its role isn’t just as a force of military might, but also as an agent of peace.
A duo of GPS students was up to the challenge.
Sethy Tsoungui, a Master of International Affairs (MIA) ’25 candidate, and Yavuz Basaran, a Master of Public Policy (MPP) ’25 candidate, proposed a multimedia initiative that will educate everyday people about some of NATO’s lesser-known initiatives, including its work to promote women’s rights and to protect the environment. The alliance accepted their proposal and awarded a $16,000 grant to fund their efforts.
‘From east to west,’ across two continents
Basaran and Tsoungui will interview people in San Diego, Brussels, London and Istanbul for their project, which is titled “From East to West: A Cultural Dialogue Celebrating 75 Years of NATO’s Shared Values and Peace.” They plan to ask people from all walks of life — from random people on the street to diplomatic experts — about their thoughts on the pact, in an effort to promote the image of NATO’s value-based initiatives.
These locations carry deep symbolic power for NATO: San Diego is at the very western edge of the contiguous U.S.; on the other hand, Istanbul is located in the alliance’s easternmost member country, Turkey, and has historically been seen as the bridge between Europe and Asia. It also happens that, between the two of them, Basaran and Tsoungui have lived in all four of these places.
“These locations are symbolic of both of our backgrounds, and they are also the eastern and western borders of NATO,” Basaran said.
“We want to foster cross-cultural dialogue by highlighting the unique voice of each member state we visit,” Tsoungui added.
In each location they visit, Tsoungui and Basaran will hold presentations in which they will give a rundown of these non-military initiatives. Afterward, they’ll follow up by interviewing their subjects again, as well as conducting surveys to see how people’s opinions have changed.
Basaran and Tsoungui said that before embarking on the project, they themselves didn’t know much about NATO’s non-military work. But now that the two students have had their perspective altered, they’re hoping the same will happen to the people they speak with in San Diego and abroad — such as by highlighting the work the alliance is doing to promote gender equality.
“Women are affected differently by violence,” Basaran said. “But instead of having this awareness on the back burner — something that we think about only after a place has been bombed or after a war has occurred — the Women, Peace and Security Initiative aims to bring the issue to the front.”
The interviews that they conduct will be filmed, and the project will culminate in a short documentary film, which will be submitted to NATO at the end of 2024 and subsequently will be screened at GPS.
Supported by staff along the way
Tsoungui and Basaran have a shared interest in NATO and international security, so after seeing the call for submissions shared on GPS’s LinkedIn page, they jumped at the opportunity.
But an idea as ambitious as this came with a formidable amount of logistical planning. To pull off this feat — thousands of miles of travel, scores of hours of interviews with experts and ordinary people, even more time editing the footage — Tsoungui and Basaran said that the guidance of staff members at GPS has been invaluable.
“The Career and Professional Development team was always there for us as a resource,” Tsoungui said. “They helped us navigate how to fund the project. They’ve also helped us develop the communication skills we’ve needed to get to this stage and to continue with our work.”
More broadly, the collaborators said that the skills that they have learned at GPS have allowed them to speak knowledgeably with high-ranking diplomats — and their time at GPS has also given them the confidence to strike up those conversations in the first place.
“Being able to find experts, reach out to them, conduct interviews — those are skills that we definitely developed at GPS,” Basaran said.
