This year they hail from Guinea, the Philippines, Russia, Indonesia, Croatia, India, South Korea, Nigeria, Serbia, Estonia, Chad and Morocco — welcome the 20th class of the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship.

The Fellowship brings mid-professionals from the entire globe to the United States for non-degree graduate study and work related experience, including six weeks of professional affiliation.

The UW is one of 15 U.S. institutions where fellows are placed and the only one in the Pacific Northwest, faculty director Sanjeev Khagram said. The Evans School of Public Affairs is home to 14 of the 172 fellows in the nation.

For many fellows, coming to the United States is an opportunity to learn about the culture here and take that back to his or her home country.

Arnel Bañas, deputy secretary for Administrative and Financial Services for the Senate of the Philippines, has been to the United States four times. This is his first time visiting Washington state.

Bañas said he believes UW students have much to be thankful for: free transportation, free tap water, free speech and campus-wide access to computers. Oh, and don’t forget the IMA.

Bañas also appreciates the casual relationship between students and faculty, noting that in the Philippines it is more hierarchal.

“Everyone talks about the cold weather, but it doesn’t compare to the warmness between students and professors,” he said.

Bañas heads a department with 300 employees. His primary goal in the program is to learn more about management, which he believes is the key to the success of American organizations.

“I’m interested in learning how they handle personnel and care for employees, … how they run human resources and overall operations,” he said.

While hoping to find the best practices of human resource management for his country, Bañas believes what works here may not work in the Philippines due to cultural differences. As a result, he might need to adapt it, or “Philippinize it,” as he put it.

Like Bañas, Silver Pramann, manager of the European Union Project for the Estonian Ministry of Education, was surprised at the laidback education.

However, cultural diversity came more as a shock.

“The people and lifestyle are different. In Estonia, it’s a mono-cultured society, but here you see all different nations all together,” he said.

Pramman said the Fellowship is about more than gaining knowledge of individual professions; personal growth is just as valuable.

He said he’s using his time here to see how well he adjusts to the U.S. melting pot.

“I can see what kind of person I am,” Pramman said. “It’s very interesting for me to learn about myself during this connection with different people.”

Professional learning, he said, can be done through the Internet and books. He describes the program as a unique opportunity to reflect and learn about himself while living with people of various nations.

“Small things can make big misunderstandings,” he said. “It’s interesting to find out if it’s cultural things or human things making differences between people.”

Danijel Katicin, mayor of the Municipality of Tkon and co-president of the Association of Cities and Municipalities of Croatia, is also noting many cultural distinctions, covering a scale ranging from politics to restaurants. Evidently many places on the Ave would not pass health-inspection in Croatia. It’s not really a bad thing, he added.

Katicin’s goal revolves mainly around politics, such as party-building and federal grant applications for municipal towns.

“My mission is learning to involve the public in public-decision processes,” he said. “The U.S. government is more transparent. The city council meetings are different because our member counselors talk among themselves. The public can be there, but just to listen. Here the counselors are faced to the public. … They have to speak to the public. In my country, it’s unusual for the public to ask questions. I want to improve this American system in my country. I like this system; it’s better for democracy.”

For Violeta Orlovic, a training coordinator of CHF International Serbia, the main contrast to her country is the low U.S. tolerance of smoking, which is still being developed in Serbia. Orlovic’s main focus is environmental issues.

While there are office policies against smoking in Serbia, she said, it is allowed in restaurants. Hence, she noticed the cleaner air here and also took note of the Seattleite coffee-craze.

“I see people running around with coffee in paper and plastic cups,” she said. “You can’t see that in Serbia. We have a tradition of having coffee and chatting while sitting down.”

Orlovic said she values Seattle’s environmental awareness and hopes to take this to Serbia. She wishes to work with conservation service managers, as she believes they are great models of sustainability.

“I hope to improve environmental awareness in Serbia,” she said. “That’s my mission: Learn from experiences and get ideas. We have good regulation [of conservation], but we have to improve application.”

Nabiel A. Karim Hayaze, operation assistant of the International Organization for Migration, said his mission is to improve community infrastructure in Indonesia, a nation frequent of disasters such as the 2004 tsunami.

Hayaze said that Indonesia does not prepare for disasters; instead, action is taken afterward. He wants to improve preparation, modeling that of Block Watch communities.

“After the tsunami, it was hard for the government to reach people because the infrastructure wasn’t ready,” he said. “It took four days, and after that people died. Not because of the tsunami, but because they had no aid.”

Amazed to find problems like homelessness in the United States, Hayaze described the program as a personal growth experience.

“I’m from Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country,” he said. “And we have a bad image of Americans, especially after 9/11. But when I got here, it’s not like that. People are very nice. I don’t know what the mistake is here. It’s not like what we see on the news. It’s challenging to me.”

He said he believes a perfect world could come from global interaction, but few opportunities are given to allow this. An important part of the Fellowship, he said, is training to become a leader. Yet he is asking questions rather than getting answers.

“It’s a journey of discovering yourself,” Hayaze said. “I wish other people had the opportunity to do this.”

Professor Khagram agrees.

“The Humphrey Fellows contribute tremendously to our commitment of global citizenship at the Evans School … and the UW,” Khagram said.

[Reach contributing writer Kim Lee at features@thedaily.washington.edu.]