Through wars, natural disasters and public health crises, the need to continue educating children is at once critical and complicated. Brian Price ’10 MA ’13 is leading and managing projects that address this global issue, leaning on experience he first gained as a Yale student.
During his spring break in 2010, Brian Price — then a senior at Yale College — traveled to Haiti to volunteer with an NGO, Hospice St. Joseph, that was part of the relief efforts following the devastating earthquake that occurred there months prior. He toured the capital city of Port Au Prince and other outlying communities decimated by the disaster, helping clear debris and distribute food and water. He spoke with locals and felt their sadness and their resolve; he also witnessed the numerous challenges associated with coordinating global humanitarian aid.
The experience was tremendously profound for Price — so much so that Haiti became the focus of his senior thesis and he traveled back to the country to continue in the relief efforts upon graduating from Yale.
“I knew then, between my [Yale] coursework and these experiences [in Haiti], that the international development and humanitarian response field was where I wanted to focus my career,” says Price.
That path led Price back to Yale, where he completed his M.A. in global affairs in 2013. He is now the senior director of U.S. government project management, education and child protection, for Save the Children US, an international NGO that aims to improve the lives of children by providing education opportunities through crises related to war, public health, and natural disasters.
In his role, Price oversees U.S. government-funded projects in the Middle East, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, from project design to implementation to sustainability. The work often requires being on the ground, meeting with key stakeholders to understand local contexts and to best serve the needs of the people at different scales.
“The way you engage with people matters,” Price says. “The way you carry yourself matters. People can tell if you have a willingness to listen and understand — and those elements matter.
“And it’s not just dropping in a country for one day, talking to people, then leaving. It’s being there for a longer period of time and then continuing forward, continuing dialogue and relationships afterwards. That, to me, is the correct pathway.”
Price’s portfolio focuses primarily on child protection and education as “a pathway for success” for the developing communities he works with — a strategy that feels deeply personal to him.
Price grew up in northwest Ohio to parents who never graduated college, but put a premium on education for their children. He went on to study political science at Yale College, combining coursework in African studies and international relations. In addition to the Haiti trip, Price broadened his worldview by spending a semester abroad in Kenya and traveling to South Sudan for a research project as a Jackson student.
Before coming to Yale, Price said he had few opportunities to travel internationally. “Yale provided me those opportunities — as well as more of a global context, giving me the ability to access and learn about the world around me.”
His work with Save the Children now allows him to help kids around the world access better learning opportunities.
“In the U.S., we do have our primary and secondary institutions and opportunities for higher education in a lot of communities. But that infrastructure and the opportunities it affords, in many countries, does not exist,” says Price. “That’s where organizations like Save the Children — and the funders and partners that we work with — are devoting efforts to creating that infrastructure to make quality education more accessible.”
In the past decade, the organization has provided more than 270 million children in more than 120 countries access to quality education, leading initiatives that range from early childhood care and development to school health and nutrition to safety from violence and exploitation.
Price helps to secure and allocate government dollars — often from USAID — for these initiatives. He most recently oversaw the startup of a project in Ethiopia aimed at providing education opportunities to pre-primary and primary students during a time of intense civil conflict in the country.
“The region has been lagging behind in terms of economic and health indicators,” he says. “For me, I want to ensure that I’m doing the most that I can to support and uplift communities that continue to be impacted by extreme poverty, inequality, political instability, and violence and make sure that the results match what is needed for those communities and what is expected.”
Over the course of his career, Price has found that the success of a project is often tied directly to community input. He and his teams work closely with local communities to design programs that reflect their needs and desired outcomes.
Keeping a project on track also requires good team management—something that’s important in any organization, but particularly for people who are working in unstable and conflict-prone regions of the world. A key to success is identifying potential challenges and formulating mitigation strategies and contingency plans to respond, Price explains.
Of course, some challenges cannot be prepared for; Price cites the current war in Ukraine as an example. An effective response requires preparation and flexibility, but also a distinct humanity that Price says is at the heart of the work Save the Children does.
“I like to think that true and successful humanitarian work not only requires the capacity to do it, but it requires a human element — that people are well-experienced but also mentally and emotionally engaged in this work and wanting to do whatever it takes to make sure that those who are most at-risk and vulnerable are able to receive and access the services that they need,” he says.
“As the world continues to move forward and challenges arise, whether it be wars or natural disasters or pandemics, it’s important that the organizations that are then carrying forward with these operations and activities have the right mindset and the dedication to doing whatever is necessary to support those most affected.”