Community News

Belize, Botswana, Jamaica, Liberia, Kenya, Nicaragua, Niger, Senegal, Thailand, Togo

By JoAnna Haugen on Monday, January 28th, 2008

BELIZE

Northwestern University anthropology professor Cynthia Robin (90-92) is an internationally known archaeologist who has been excavating Mayan ruins at the Chan site in Belize. The findings by Robin and her team will shed light on the relationship between ordinary people and the broader Mayan society over time. Robin, who received her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999, is the author of several books, dozens of articles, book chapters and technical reports on Mesoamerican archaeology.

BOTSWANA

Dr. Allison Diamant (83-86) never forgot what it meant to volunteer in order to help those less fortunate. For 15 years Diamant has put in three shifts a month at the Venice Family Clinic in Los Angeles, the largest free clinic in the nation with 2,400 volunteer doctors and 22,000 patients. A faculty member at the UCLA School of Medicine, Diamant is also a researcher for UCLA and the Rand Corp. Her mission is to improve access to and quality of consistent, preventative healthcare among underserved populations.

JAMAICA

The Rev. Dr Cynthia Huling Hummel (76-78) is back on the road. She recently returned from a 17-day mission trip to Ethiopia to help build a kitchen at the Gidada Bible School in Dembi Dollo. Hummel also recently published her second book, Glimpses of God’s Grace: More Stories of Faith, Hope and Love.

LIBERIA

The Rev. Dr. John Norris (65-67) joined the Loomis Basin Congregational United Church of Christ in California on Jan. 20. He is also a quarter-time Associate Conference Minister in the Sacramento Association of the Northern California/Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ. Norris earned his master’s degree in divinity from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley and a doctorate of ministry from San Francisco Theological Seminary. His ministry work has taken him to Hawaii where he served as the executive director of the Hawaii Council of Churches and taught religion at Windward Community College.

KENYA

Craig Tieszen (71-75) will be running at a Republican candidate for the District 34 seat in the South Dakota Senate. He has spent much of his career in public service with the Rapid City Police Department. From 2000 to 2007 he served as the chief of police. Beyond his career, Tieszen’s community work has included service with the Rapid City Club for Boys, the Club for Boys Foundation, the United Way Board of Directors and the Rapid City Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.

NICARAGUA

Donna Tabor (95-97) has been named as one of six honorees to receive the first National Awards for Citizen Diplomacy, sponsored by the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy to promote the role private citizens can play in cross-cultural relations. Tabor has been a full-time volunteer with Building New Hope in Grenada, Nicaragua, for more than a decade. Through her work—particularly with at-risk youth—she has opened two schools, started a culinary workshop run by teens, been one of a group of people who introduced the first lending library in Granada, created a reading program and opened a veterinary clinic to help control the stray dog and feral cat populations. Additionally, Tabor and her organization support a coffee cooperative by shipping organic, shade-grown green beans to Pittsburgh where they are roasted and shipped nationwide.

NIGER

Angela Kieffer (96-98) is still helping those people who were neighbors during her Peace Corps experience through her organization, Seeds of Hope Africa, which was designed to help build a sustainable future and reduce suffering in those places that need it most. The organization is currently helping African women through a goat loan project that is funded through donations from the United States. Through the program, a village woman is selected to receive a goat on loan knowing that the first offspring will be given to another woman while any future offspring will be kept by the woman who originally received that goat loan. Kieffer is currently working with village leaders and local Peace Corps volunteers to implement the program with the initial purchase of 200 goats.

SENEGAL

The Fund for an Open Society, an organization that promotes racially diverse communities in the United States, recently named Caty Royce (82-85) to lead its Minnesota Office. Prior to this appointment, Royce served as executive director of the Community Stabilization Project for 15 years. In this position she helped set the foundation for important work on urban core and first-ring suburban redevelopment projects that ensure equity for all sectors of the metro community, including families with low incomes and communities of color.

THAILAND

Alan Abramowitz (90-92) has taken over as the new chief of the Department of Children and Families (DCF) in Miami. Abramowitz has been called on to help floundering DCF offices throughout Florida in the past and is known for helping local districts turn their operations around. In addition to his work with the DCF, Abramowitz has served in the Judge Advocate General Corps, and has been both a prosecutor and an assistant public defender.

TOGO

When she returned from her Peace Corps service in Togo, Jennifer Schecter (04-06) of Huntington, New Jersey, knew she still had work to do. Now a full-time volunteer with Hope Through Health, an international organization that offers technical and financial assistance to community-directed heath initiatives in West Africa, Schecter is actively involved in setting up medical clinics and helping people receive the proper medical treatments they need.

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