InterAct
functions as a strategic partner to media, NGO’s
and community groups, working in affiliation with individuals
and institutions to carry out its projects.
Evelyn Messinger, President and
Executive Director of InterAct, is a television producer
and non-profit executive who founded InterAct in
1998. She has worked as a news and documentary producer/editor
for PBS, CBS News, the BBC, French television and
others, and is currently the Series Producer of Link
TV’s Global Pulse. Ms. Messinger is a
co-founder and former Executive Director of Internews
Network, an international
media reform NGO, and served as the first Electronic
Media Director for the Soros Foundation. In these
roles, she has supported the establishment of independent
broadcasting in the emerging democracies of Eastern
Europe, the Palestinian Territory, Russia and the
former Soviet Union.
InterAct’s
Citizens Diplomacy Archive Project gathers source materials
from Russia and the US concerning the activities of
Citizen Diplomats during the Cold War period. The Hoover
Institution at Stanford University has created a Citizen
Diplomacy Collection, in cooperation with the CDA project.
On April 21, 2010 a Citizen’s Diplomacy Seminar was
held at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute
in Washington DC (details here).
Anya Kucharev, CDA Project Director, has worked in Russia
and the former Soviet Republics for Esalen Institute’s
Soviet-American Exchange Program, Internews Network, The
Association for Humanistic Psychology, Armand Hammer Productions
and many others. She has been nicknamed a “cross-cultural
Sherpa” for her work as guide and interpreter during
the Soviet-American citizen diplomacy projects in the 1980s.
Bridge
Initiative International is
a Europe-based NGO focused on globalization issues.
InterAct is a co-founder of BII and serves as its
US Representative office.
Patrice Barrat is Executive Director
of BII, which uses media and mediation to address
the difficult issues of globalization. Mr. Barrat
is a well-known French television producer/director
and President of Article Z, the award-winning Paris-based
multi-media production company.
Annick Jeantet, BII Agricultural
Task Force Coordinator, has served as Oxfam International’s
Representative in Paris, and worked for numerous
aid organizations in Bosnia and other war-torn regions.
