Birches fellow Jess Kavinsky is working on a project focused on education access for non-native speakers in Estonia.
As people around the world face conflict, displacement, and other forms of injustice, AFSC’s Birches Fellowship offers young peacebuilders an opportunity to make meaningful contributions to communities worldwide. With funding from the Birches Foundation, AFSC welcomed its first cohort of fellows in the fall of 2024.
Today, these fellows are gaining hands-on experience developing practical, community-based approaches to peacebuilding that can create lasting change. They work closely with AFSC staff and alongside local leaders and organizations in Latin America, the Middle East, and Europe.
The fellowship was inspired by the personal experience of David Birch, founder of the Birches Foundation. While in college, David participated in work camps in England, Norway and Poland through Service Civil International, a sister organization to AFSC. These camps brought together people from diverse countries to collaborate on local projects, demonstrating how collective problem-solving could help make armed conflict obsolete.
The camps “introduced me to the power of cooperative work as a tool of international renewal,” David says. “It also led to my choice to become a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War.”
The Birches Fellowship is similarly meant to provide opportunities for college graduates to work on peacebuilding in a world where division and conflict threaten communities globally. “We are hopeful that the Birch fellows will contribute to peaceful solutions to complex international problems and become a continuing force for peace over the ravages of war,” David says.
Here’s what our first cohort of Birches fellows are working on.
Fellow Jess Kavinksy (second from left)
Jess Kavinsky: Working for inclusive education in Estonia
In Estonia, a new national education policy has posed major challenges for immigrant students and teachers. The policy mandates that all classes in the former Soviet republic be taught exclusively in Estonian. All schools—including those that have long operated in Russian or other languages—must transition to Estonian by 2030.
The change has led to imposed significant learning barriers for immigrant children. It has also left about 3,000 teachers who aren’t fluent in Estonian without jobs.
Jess Kavinsky is researching these issues through the Birches Fellowship. Working in partnership with the Tallinn Worship Center, she’s gathering evidence on the policy’s impacts to present to Estonia's parliament. She hopes her efforts will help inform advocacy for a more inclusive approach to ensure access to education for all students.
“The policy has created significant educational gaps, particularly in the fourth grade, where students struggle with the transition to Estonian-only instruction,” Jess says. “This gap is expected to widen as the policy is implemented across more grades.”
To document these impacts, Jess is conducting interviews with affected teachers, families, and school administrators across Estonia. She’s organizing focus groups in Russian-speaking communities, where schools aren’t getting the funding or resources they need to make this transition.
“Building connections within the community is crucial to gather the data the data we need,” Jess says. “I appreciate the dedication of people in Estonia, who often work with limited resources and face significant challenges. It’s been really inspiring and informative.”
In addition to this project, Jess works with AFSC's Civic Space Initiative, addressing the increasing restrictions on civic space around the world. She also supports AFSC's Dialogue and Exchange Program, which brings together global south leaders to learn, share ideas, and collectively solve problems.
Birches fellow Antoine Herrbach
Antoine Herrbach: Bringing refugee voices to the forefront in Jordan
In Jordan, there are an estimated 1.5 million refugees, the majority of whom are from Syria and Iraq. While there are aid organizations that provide support to these groups, other refugee communities face greater challenges accessing services and having their voices heard. That includes people from Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, and Eritrea.
Through the Birches Fellowship, Antoine Herrbach is working to address some of these disparities. Since September, he has provided support to the One Refugee Committee. The initiative, which is organized by Jesuit Refugee Services and AFSC, aims to promote a more inclusive approach to refugee assistance.
“The refugee committee brings together 20 refugees from different nationalities to do advocacy projects led by the refugees themselves,” Antoine says. “We're working on what we call the ‘one refugee approach,’ advocating for institutions and organizations to treat refugees the same regardless of their nationality.”
In his role, Antoine has helped coordinate meetings and obtain funding for the program. Through trainings, he has helped committee members hone their public speaking skills to share their stories more effectively. Recently, Antoine helped the One Refugee Committee produce a documentary video highlighting the contributions that refugees have made to communities in Jordan.
Beyond his work with the committee, Antoine helped to facilitate a high-level convening with Syrian activists at the European Parliament in Brussels in December. He also works closely with AFSC colleagues on issues of climate change through our Middle East advocacy hub.
“The community work has been incredibly impactful,” says Antoine. “It has been an amazing experience.”
Fellow Taegan Dennis (far left) with AFSC staff Josseline Acuna and Douglas Juarez in Guatemala.
Taegan Dennis: Exploring climate change and migration in Guatemala
In Central America and around the world, climate change is bringing more storms, extended droughts, and other disasters. That has forced many people to leave their homes in search of safety and opportunity. International organizations often frame this as “climate displacement.” But this terminology rarely resonates with migrants themselves, who typically don't attribute their decisions solely to climate factors.
To help address this disconnect, Birches fellow Taegan Dennis is helping AFSC develop a research hub in Latin America that explores the relationship between climate change and human mobility. She is documenting how communities actually understand their migration decisions.
“There's been a lot of work on migration, but ‘climate migration’ as a whole, it's a very big term,” Taegan says. “It's not one with a clear definition. There aren't any concrete protection schemes for climate migrants, and it's not a term that seems to be particularly well understood at the community level.”
Through interviews with community leaders in Latin America, Taegan is building an evidence base that reflects grounded realities rather than imposed frameworks. She hopes her work helps bridge the gap between how organizations frame climate migration in their advocacy and how migrants view their own experiences.
“What I hope that this project does more than anything is help find clarity in terms of how we connect programs with advocacy,” Taegan says.