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National Peace Corps Association > News > Community News > Colombia, Honduras, Namibia, Turkey, Venezuela
Colombia, Honduras, Namibia, Turkey, Venezuela
By JoAnna Haugen on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008
COLOMBIA
Maureen Orth (64-66) has been instrumental in the growth and development of the Instituto Educativa Marina Orth, the first bilingual school in Colombia. As a Peace Corps volunteer, Orth helped build the school, which started with two classrooms and 35 children. Today, with donations from Chevron, Motorola Foundation, Intel and Seagate, the school has 350 students ranging from kindergarten through high school.
HONDURAS
Prior to joining Peace Corps, Eric Harrison of Bremerton, Wash., started Water And Sanitation Health (WASH), a nonprofit organization, to support the building of water systems in developing countries. Rotary International and Engineers Without Borders also supported the creation of the systems he built during his time in Honduras. Upon returning to the United States, Harrison began selling fair-trade coffee directly to local outlets without a middleman; he donates 100 percent of the profits back to the Honduran communities to build more clean water systems and to the farmers who grow and sell Harrison the coffee.
NAMIBIA
The United Nations Association of the National Capital Area (UNA-NCA) recently hired Dani Mariasha Abrams as its director for global education. Abrams has been working with UNA-NCA as a program associate with the Global Classrooms Washington, DC, program where she developed model UN curriculum supplements, enhanced professional development workshops for model UN trainers and managed the trainer program. Since January she has been involved with the Cultural Orientation Resource Center at the Center for Applied Linguistics. In her new position, Abrams will oversee the development and implementation of the Global Classrooms Washington, DC, program. She earned her bachelor’s degree in health and physical education from the University of Rhode Island and will complete her master’s degree in international education from The George Washington University in the summer of 2009.
TURKEY
Trinidad Nabarrete has spent 18 of her 40 years in the nursing profession overseas in places as diverse as Saudi Arabia and Augsburg, Germany. In 1992 Nabarrete took a job at Fort Yuma Indian Hospital in Arizona, and in 1998 she joined the Red Cross in Yuma where she is a member of the Red Cross disaster team. Nabarrete has taken part in nine Red Cross disasters, including hurricanes and California wildfires.
VENEZUELA
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) recently appointed William Brands as mission director for Honduras. Brands has been with USAID since 1990 and has served in Uganda, Malawi, the Middle East and Washington, DC. He most recently worked as the deputy mission director of USAID/Dominican Republic. Prior to joining USAID, Brands worked with the international cooperative development organization ACDI/VOCA for ten years. He earned his bachelor’s degree in international relations from Knox College and his master’s degree in international law from Tulane University. In his new position, Brands will lead USAID’s programs that improve the quality of basic education and heath, increase economic growth, promote democracy and good governance, and provide environmental and disaster assistance.
