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National Peace Corps Association > News > Community News > Botswana, Ecuador, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nepal, Niger, Swaziland
Botswana, Ecuador, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nepal, Niger, Swaziland
By JoAnna Haugen on Monday, July 14th, 2008
BOTSWANA
Ninebark Press has been awarded a 2008 Independent Publisher Book Award for Deep Travel: Contemporary American Poets Abroad. Edited by Sandra Meek (89-91), the anthology contains work by a number of Peace Corps volunteers, including Derick Burleson (Rwanda 91-93), John Isles (Estonia 92-94), Susan Rich (Niger 84-86) and Margaret Szumowki (Zaire 73-74, Ethiopia 74-75). Founded in 2006, Ninebark Press is a not-for-profit literary press dedicated to publishing innovative and compelling work by both new and established writers.
ECUADOR
Jeffrey Rathelf recently became the director of community service and service learning at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. He has been working at the School for International Training for the past seven years directing and managing the Latin American and Caribbean undergraduate study abroad programs. Rathelf’s educational background includes a bachelor’s of art degree in history, a bachelor’s of science degree in horticulture, and master’s degrees in international affairs and cultural studies in education.
KENYA
Proper Walk through the Great Rift Valley, now in its fourth year, helps to support the Makindu Children’s Program in Kenya. Michael Farley (77-79) founded the walk in 2002 to raise money for the program in his former Peace Corps village. It takes place every other year and helps more than 300 children as well as community water and farming projects. The group has raised $180,000 from the previous three walks, and this year the participants hope to raise $100,000.
KENYA
George Rosen (68-70), a freelance writer and author of Black Money, is one of 39 visual artists in Massachusetts to receive a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. He has been selected as a fellow in the fiction/creative nonfiction category.
MALAWI
With a full resume spanning from careers as a community health counselor to a professor at a school of medicine and numerous memberships, awards, honors and published papers to her name, Ella Phillips Lacey (95-97) has just added the honor of being named a Franklin H. Williams award winner to her long list of achievements. Since serving as a Peace Corps volunteer, she has volunteered as a polio consultant with UNICEF and WHO, helping to eradicate polio in various African countries and northern India. Lacey has also raised funds for Malawi Children’s Village and recently accepted an assignment as a World Water Corps volunteer to assist Malawi villages in improving access to sustainable fresh water.
NAMIBIA
Marie Pearson Shockley (02-04) of the Atlanta region has always been active in community service. A winner of the Franklin H. Williams Award, Shockley has helped pave the way for many 50+ volunteers with her help in reviewing and revising the Training and Older Volunteers brochure provided by the Peace Corps and assisting in the 50+ Peace Corps initiative. She is active in a number of organizations including NAACP, Federally Employed Women, Image de Atlanta, Habitat for Humanity, Hosea Feed the Hungry and the Carter Center. In addition to her work with Peace Corps, Shockley volunteered with Global Volunteers in 2007 in Ecuador. Since then she has been active in coordinating book donations that are sent to Peace Corps volunteers and an orphanage in Ecuador.
NEPAL
Rob Buckley is the founder of the nonprofit organization Himalayan Healers, a program that trains people in massage who are normally discriminated against in society. After training, these healers are employed to work in one of eight spa/boutiques in Nepal where they a good wage in a good trade. Buckley is currently working on opening a branch in Grand Junction, Colo. He is in the process of raising the $20,000 needed to open the stateside spa.
NIGER
Winner of the Franklin H. Williams Award, Tina Chan Sweenie (97-99) is on the board of directors of the Milwaukee Peace Corps Association. She works part-time at the Badger Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired as a volunteer coordinator and is pursuing a certificate in childhood and adolescent studies from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Sweenie is involved in many community service activities, including organizing an international shoe drive with Soles4Souls and assisting in a ceramics class for special needs children.
SWAZILAND
SDForum, Silicon Valley’s leading source of information and education in the technology community, awarded Reed Hastings (83-86), the founder of Netflix, a Visionary Award for his contribution to changing the underlying rules of and improving technology. Hastings is on Microsoft’s Board of Directors and serves on the boards of many nonprofit organizations as well. An active educational philanthropist, he received his bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College and his master’s degree from Stanford University.
