Newspaper Articles
Have written numerous articles and op-ed pieces for newspapers, newsletters, and in-house publications on issues from famine, relief, and international development to the status of higher education today including the following:
I wrote this letter to family and friends in 1984 after returning to my home in Nairobi, Kenya after returning from my first trip to Ethiopia as part of MAP International’s famine relief effort. It was subsequently published as a newspaper article in the Mt. Lake Observer-Advocate. The URL for the entire article follows this excerpt:
Halfway to Addis, the captain came on the intercom and told his crew to take the rest of the day off. There was no more food left to deliver. A young crewman who had expected to haul a number of loads all over Ethiopia that day pounded his fist against the side of the aircraft and swore. Turning to me in utter frustration, he snarled: “We have the planes and we want to help! Where is the food?”
https://merrillewert.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Ethiopia.1984.pdf
While visiting a graduate student doing research in the Philippines in July 2000, a friend and I visited the site where a “garbage mountain” slid down and killed nearly 200 people. After returning to Manila, I went to a coffee shop where I spent several hours writing a letter to my family and friends about what I had seen. It also became a newspaper article. The URL follows this excerpt:
I was mesmerized by what I saw. I stood in the hot sun–watching. There was nothing to say. As I stood there in silence, I was haunted by Lamberto’s words, “I know that we all have to die but does it have to be like this?”
https://merrillewert.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Garbage.Quezon-City.pdf
After visiting Ground Zero a few days after 9/11, I returned to my hotel room in midtown Manhattan. Unable to sleep after what I had seen, I wrote a letter to family and friends. It was also later published as a newspaper article in the Mt. Lake Observer-Advocate. The URL for the entire article follows this excerpt:
What tears your heart out is all the missing persons posters plastered on the subway walls, light poles, buildings and the police barricades. The posters carry the same headline: “Has anybody seen ____?” I saw pictures of people in casual clothes and wedding dresses, engaged in normal activities and sitting for studio portraits.
You understand why they call this place, “Ground Zero,” because it really does resemble the scenes from movies that show a city following a fictional nuclear attack. Unfortunately, this isn’t a movie.
https://merrillewert.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Ground-Zero.pdf