Community farmer's markets are a great location to educate and engage others on World Food Day (photo courtesy of Oxfam America)

Hunger is the world’s greatest solvable problem.  That was the consensus among members of some of the nation’s leading international humanitarian organizations who came together recently for an initial meeting to start planning for World Food Day.

While hunger is sometimes pushed to the back burner to deal with more immediate, pressing concerns, World Food Day is designed to move global attention from those problems and observe the challenge.

While October 16th may seem far away, it’s never too early to start planning and figuring out what organizations in your community are doing to observe World Food Day.  Interested in adding your thoughts?  A good place to start would be by looking at the many organizations which are signed on in the effort to address the issue of ending world hunger.

Be sure to visit the World Food Day USA website regularly for updates as October 16th approaches.

Every year brings a different theme for World Food Day.  This year’s theme is “Cooperatives:  Key to Ending Hunger.”  Using this theme as a springboard, people can form their own projects and events or work with an established organizations to highlight the day.

(Thanks to NPCA Advocacy Intern Fiona Galvin this submission)

“No matter where you served, Peace Corps Volunteers have certain experiences in common,” said Kevin Quigley, president of the National Peace Corps Association. “This get-together will allow all of us to share those experiences and discuss what we can do next to bring the world back home. It’s also an excellent opportunity for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who are looking for the next step in their career to network with people who appreciate their talents and value their experience.”

Attendees at the event will meet in small groups for break-out sessions on such topics as starting a nonprofit, getting ahead in business and recent changes in international development. In addition, smaller member groups will hold meetings at the event, and board members who were elected by the association’s members will be available to meet with Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. The exhibit hall at the convention center will highlight Peace Corps entrepreneurs
and their businesses, and include job recruiting agencies, member group tables and more.

“The Peace Corps can be a solitary experience,” added Quigley. “But we’ve found over the years that when former Volunteers get together, they almost always“click.” This gathering will help those who served to build relationships and get even more out of their Peace Corps experience.”

Sign up to attend Peace Corps Connect: Minneapolis 2012

Learn more about how you or your organization can sponsor the event

Members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee for State/Foreign Operations are recommending that federal funding for Peace Corps in the fiscal year that begins this October, remain at $375 million.

The bad news is that this level of funding for Fiscal Year 2013 would likely result in a reduction in the number of volunteers and trainees in the field.  Peace Corps currently reports more than 9,000 volunteers and trainees.  However, this volume was supported in part by the $400 million appropriation Peace Corps received Fiscal Year 2010.

On the more positive side, funding for Peace Corps fared rather well, given that the House subcommittee was instructed to prepare a $48 billion funding package that was nearly $5 billion (nine percent) less than current funding.  A number of international funding progreams face sharp reductions under the House Subcommittee proposal.

The next key step in the appropriations project will come when the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for State/Foreign Operations outlines its funding recommendations for Peace Corps and other international affairs programs.  Action from the Senate subcommittee is expected in the next few weeks.

For further reading:

• House State/Foreign Operations Subcommittee Press Release
• House State/Foreign Operations Subcommittee Appropriations Bill (as currently proposed)
• InterAction Press Release on House Recommendations and International Affairs Funding
• NPCA Advocacy Webpage on Peace Corps Funding – Including contact information for Senate and House Appropriators

]]> http://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/2012/05/amid-cuts-house-recommends-level-peace-corps-funding/feed/ 0 http://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/2012/05/ifdc-and-npca-partner-in-east-africa/ http://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/2012/05/ifdc-and-npca-partner-in-east-africa/#comments Fri, 11 May 2012 14:01:48 +0000 Guest Contributor http://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/?p=18432

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The National Peace Corps Association and IFDC are partnering to support the development of agricultural value chains in East Africa through Farmer-to-Farmer (FTF) Niche Projects. IFDC will utilize both on-the-ground and online volunteer networks managed by NPCA to strengthen agricultural value chains, ultimately increasing incomes for smallholder farmers and their families. Here, meet Encore volunteer Doug Meyer, who is putting his skills to use implementing an innovative project in South Sudan.

“IFDC value chain projects utilize public-private partnerships (PPPs) to develop the agribusiness and trade necessary for sustainable food security,” said Dr. Richard Jones, agribusiness program leader for IFDC’s East and Southern Africa Division. “Incorporating NPCA programs with the PPP approach makes the projects particularly innovative.

Using PPPs and its Competitive Agricultural Systems and Enterprises (CASE) solution, IFDC is identifying market opportunities for food crops and then catalyzing the development of agribusiness clusters to bring together the various partners needed to develop viable value chains.

Volunteers are selected from NPCA’s Encore Service Corps International to help support agribusiness clusters. Encore volunteers are typically former Peace Corps volunteers or other experienced professionals who have lived or worked in developing countries. They are communicating their progress on the Africa Rural Connect (ARC) website, another NPCA initiative. Africa Rural Connect (www.AfricaRuralConnect.org) is an innovative online incubator of ideas through which volunteers and others can share information and respond to the needs of African farmers.

IFDC staff members and Encore volunteers are working to develop value chains for commodities that have demonstrated market demand and strengthening agricultural support services and institutions that support farmers working small- and medium-sized farms.

“I only wish it were longer!”

Encore volunteer Doug Meyer is an information technology (IT) specialist assisting IFDC in selecting and setting up a platform for mobile data collection in the new country of South Sudan. “Since a goal of the Seeds for Development program is to support, guide, coach and nurture rural agro-dealers in South Sudan to a point where they can stand on their own, we are doing monthly surveys to monitor their sales turnover, volumes, profitability and related indicators,” Meyer said. The project represents a departure from the traditional paper questionnaire forms. Instead, it relies on smart phones that automatically download surveys from the ‘cloud.’ Likewise, every response is instantly uploaded to the cloud.

“Using this technology, the administering officer has instant access to all the data at collection time,” Meyer said. “The service we have selected provides complete support at a very low cost and low capital input, without the need for IFDC to supply programmers or maintain expensive servers. We hope and expect that this new way of monitoring and evaluation can be expanded across a broad scope of projects.” Meyer is also involved in software selection for IFDC’s Cassava⁺ project.

In regard to serving as an Encore volunteer, Meyer said, “I only wish it were longer! Three months is such a short time when scoping and rolling out complex IT projects. There is so much need here for the common, everyday IT skills that I’ve acquired during my career.”

In 2011, Larry Badger served as an Encore volunteer with IFDC to facilitate new communications projects. With a background in film production, Badger wrote and produced videos demonstrating IFDC’s impact in East Africa. “I love to work with people who use their hands and brains to produce something, whether it’s maize or rice, film or video,” said Badger. “IFDC and East Africa definitely left a mark on me.” Two of Badger’s videos can be found on the IFDC website – “The Land of a Thousand Hills” and “Mozambique and IFDC – Working Together to Improve Agriculture and Lives” (www.ifdc.org/Media_Info/Video_Gallery).

“It’s wonderful to be working with IFDC in East Africa,” said Anne Baker, NPCA vice president and Encore managing director. “Both Larry and Doug highlight the particular strength of the Encore model:  connecting individuals with both the professional expertise and the cross-cultural sensitivity of former Peace Corps volunteers with short-term, capacity-building projects. And by building on NPCA’s Africa Rural Connect platform, we greatly extend the reach of their work.  So, it’s a win-win-win situation.”

Those wishing to serve as an Encore volunteer and also work with IFDC can apply at www.encoreservicecorps.org. To learn about NPCA and its programs, visit www.peacecorpsconnect.org.

This post originally appeared on the IFDC website and will also be in the next issue of the IFDC Report (quarterly publication).

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Nigerian women waiting for care - Photo from WE CARE Solar

When Dr. Laura Stachel, a former obstetrician from Berkeley, California first traveled to Nigeria in 2008, she was astounded by the lack of reliable light, electricity and communication, especially in northern Nigeria’s hospitals and clinics.  From Nigeria, she emailed her husband, expressing her concern and desire to help. When she returned home, the couple began to build a kit using solar energy in order to provide light and electricity to African hospitals.

Stachel and her husband’s goal was to create a portable “solar suitcase” which would be able to provide light to hospitals that face chronic power shortages — a situation many healthcare clinics in developing countries face on a daily basis. Having the lights go off during surgery can mean the difference between life and death. The situation can also be critical if you have to wait for daylight to break in order to begin an urgent operation.

“Stachel admits she was not aware of the scale of the problem globally until she began visiting hospitals in developing countries. She estimates that 300,000 health facilities do not have reliable electricity around the world. “There’s a 100-fold higher risk of dying in childbirth in developing countries than here,” she says.” (PBS)

"Solar Suitcase"

What began as a passion has turned into a full-fledged nonprofit organization- WE CARE Solar (which stands for Women’s Emergency Communication and Reliable Energy).

One of WE CARE Solar’s first supporters was Friends of Nigeria. Although the Peace Corps was only present in Nigeria from 1961-71 and then from 1992-95, Friends of Nigeria (FON)  is extremely supportive of initiatives to benefit their former country.

The group, an affiliate of the National Peace Corps Association, is a community of almost 2,000 RPCVs and staff, as well as former VSO (the U.K.-based Volunteers in Service Overseas), CUSO (Canadian University Service Overseas) and Teachers for West Africa. The group was formed in 1996 and has been extremely active, especially considering there hasn’t been a Peace Corps presence in the country in almost a decade.

Just two months after hearing the initial report about WE CARE Solar, Friends of Nigeria sent the budding organization $3,000, enough money to purchase two suitcases and to touch hundreds of Nigerians’ lives.

Mike Goodkind, President the of Friends of Nigeria group, explains, “We are always looking for small, concrete projects in Nigeria where our relatively small philanthropic budget can make a discernible impact. In this case, we figured that if we could keep two operating rooms functioning that otherwise would be out of service at critical times. Simple, direct, and useful.”

“The most immediate impact is that crucial operations will have power to continue to save lives. But the strategic implications of this project are enormous. Solar power overall has the potential to leapfrog a highly stressed and often undeveloped power grid in much the same way that cell phones have leapfrogged national wired telephone service. In other words, it may be more practical in many countries for the government and other entities to forgo building an expensive traditional, high capital investment power grid (coal, hydroelectric, etc.,) and instead concentrate on localized sources of solar power for all or most uses. This in fact is what happened with cell phones in many African and other developing countries. Cell phones are ubiquitous, while landlines are rare and usually unavailable. The solar suitcase and the underlying concept demonstrates the effectiveness and overall efficiency of solar power, especially in nations such as Nigeria with long periods of sunlight.”

Matpolon Clinic - Photo from WE CARE Solar

WE CARE Solar is in need of Solar Ambassadors — a great role for a future Peace Corps Volunteers or RPCVs (particularly women) who want to go back overseas. Solar Suitcase Ambassadors will take a leadership role in solar suitcase installations and solar training in developing countries.  Learn more about becoming a Solar Ambassador.

One way that RPCVs can continue serving from their desks, during their lunch breaks, or right after dinner, is by participating in the National Peace Corps Association Africa Rural Connect program. Through the Young Farmers Idea Contest, the African Diaspora and volunteers alike are invited to share their ideas on new ways to engage youths in sub-Saharan Africa under the age of 18 through educational projects, community-building initiatives, and social programs, all centered around agriculture and farming.

Qualified contestants will be eligible to win first, second and third place.

• First place winner receives a cash prize of $5,000 and if the winner is based in the U.S. they will also win roundtrip airfare and lodging to the NPCA annual gathering in Minneapolis June 29 -July 1, 2012.

• Second place winner receives a cash prize of $2,500.

• Third place winner receives a cash prize of $1,000.

Molly Mattessich sat down with Voice of America’s Paul Ndiho to talk about the program’s goals and successes so far- check it out!

BOLIVIA

Jennie Stapp, who recently became the library director at the Montana State Library, is the youngest person with the job title in the United States. Prior to this position, she was the digital library director and chief information officer, where she took on the task of digitizing the 55,000 items in the state library’s print collection. She has a bachelor’s degree from Rocky Mountain College and a master’s degree from the University of Arizona.

CHINA

Michael Levy’s memoir, Kosher Chinese: Living, Teaching and Eating with China’s Other Billion, is one of the winners of Barnes & Noble’s annual Discover Great New Writers awards. The book recounts his Peace Corps experience as a basketball-playing, kosher vegetarian. Levy is a teacher in Brooklyn, New York.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

Xpert Financial, Inc., has hired Jim Anderson as its new president and COO. He has more than 25 years of financial experience, specifically in the areas of investment banking, commercial banking and investment management. Most recently, at Silicon Valley Bank, Anderson founded and served as president of SVB Analytics. Other positions at SVB include serving as president of eProsper; founder and president of SVB Securities; and founder, president and chief investment officer of SVB Asset Management. Prior to SVB, Anderson was managing director of technology investment banking for CIBC Oppenheimer and a software engineer for Electronic Data Systems. Anderson received his bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York and his master’s degree from the American Graduate School of International Management.

ECUADOR AND WASHINGTON, DC

Howard Dodson, Jr. is the new director of the Howard University Libraries and its flagship Moorland-Spingarn Research Center. In April 2010, Dodson retired from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City after 25 years of work. In July 2011, he became a consultant to the Howard system. Dodson was a member of the commission that recommended building the National Museum of African American History and Culture and a former consultant to the National Endowment for the Humanities.

EL SALVADOR

Rob MacWhorter has been named as the new supervisor of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. He has been working as the supervisor of the Dixie National Forest in Cedar City, Utah. Prior positions with the Forest Service were in Klamath Falls, Eldorado National Forest, Bend Ranger District in the Deschutes National Forest, Mount Hood National Forest, Ochoco and Fremont National Forests and the agency’s Washington, D.C., office. MacWhorter is a graduate of West Virginia University School of Forestry, and he completed graduate level coursework at the University of Montana.

GHANA

Ken Hackett will be awarded the 2012 Laetare Medal in May 2012, the oldest and most prestigious honor given to American Catholics. Hackett began his career with Catholic Relief Services in 1972 in Sierra Leone. He served in several posts throughout Africa and Asia, including a stint as the regional director for Africa. He was appointed president of the organization in 1993, a position he held for 18 years until his recent retirement in December.

GUATEMALA

The South Carolina Department of Commerce announced that William Ford Graham (99-01) will lead the agency’s Europe Office in Munich, Germany. Graham, who has been with the agency since 2008, has been working as the director of international investment, where he is responsible for the international recruiting strategy and leading the department in large-scale economic development efforts. Prior to his work with the Department of Commerce, Graham worked as general counsel for a real estate development and investment firm and served as a law clerk in the 5^th and 14^th Judicial Circuits of South Carolina. He received his bachelor’s degree from Tulane University and his juris doctor and master’s degrees from the University of South Carolina. Graham is a board member in Indian Waters Council’s Three Rivers Scout District and immediate past president of the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of South Carolina.

INDONESIA

Victor Godfrey was the winner of the 2012 Dan Lennon Award. He is the 23^rd winner of the award. Godfrey is in his 50^th season of coaching track and field, which started when he was serving in the Peace Corps. He has coached at Madison, Minn.; Watertown, S.D.; the University of Wisconsin-Parkside and for the country of Bahrain. Godfrey retired from teaching in 2003, but he has remained the head coach for Watertown.

ROMANIA

Jimmy Ilseng is the newest study abroad and exchange student adviser at Baylor. A graduate of Texas Tech University, Ilseng completed graduate work at Vanderbilt before beginning his job at Baylor.

SIERRA LEONE

Cindy Nofziger has won the 2012 Jefferson Award for her work in Sierra Leone. In 2004, she founded Schools for Salone, a non-profit organization that has built 14 schools, two secondary school libraries and several water wells. The organization has also sent more than 25,000 books to Sierra Leone and published “Salone Stories: Ten Sierra Leonean Tales for Children”. In addition, Schools for Salone will be hosting their fourth annual teacher training workshop for teachers this summer.

TOGO

The Board of Directors of Planned Parenthood of the North Country New York, Inc., has appointed Betsy Brown as the president and CEO. Brown has worked on federally funded planning-service programs in Latin America and the Caribbean, West and East Africa and several countries in the Soviet Union. Most recently, she has been running a consulting practice, volunteering for Planned Parenthood and working as a member of a mobile Wellness Outreach Team.

WASHINGTON, DC

Governor Richard F. Celeste (79-81) has joined the Board of Trustees of CHF International, an international development and humanitarian assistance organization. Celeste served as the director of the Peace Corps from 1979-81 then went on to serve as U.S.  Ambassador to India. He recently retired from his position as the twelfth president of Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Celeste holds a degree from Yale University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University.

WESTERN SAMOA

Rob Shaffer has completed and published his 659-page book, Samoa: A Historical Novel, which spans nearly 3,000 years of the nation’s history. Shaffer has been researching and writing the book for more than 40 years.

South Africa RPCV Barbara Lences (left) helped form an April 27th lobby team of recently returned volunteers with Sarah Singletary, who served in Niger and Cameroon.

For Barbara Lences, her most recent effort as an advocate in support of the Peace Corps began at 4:00 in the morning.  That’s when the Princeton, New Jersey resident got up on April 27^th and got moving in order to catch an Amtrak train to Union Station in Washington, DC.

Arriving in Washington a little before 9:00 AM, Barbara spent the remainder of the day volunteering with the National Peace Corps Association and sharing her Peace Corps experience with staff of eight Senate and House lawmakers who serve on the Appropriations Committee, the key body which makes important decisions on funding for all federal programs, including the Peace Corps.

“As we set up meetings with offices of congressional appropriators, we reached out to our March 1^st Capitol Hill advocates who had recently returned from Peace Corps service so they could provide staff with a fresh perspective,” said NPCA Advocacy Director Jonathan Pearson.  “We even reached out to some of those advocates from out of town, thinking they might know a fellow RPCV in the DC area who might be able to participate.  But when Barbara expressed a willingness to come down and join us, we were thrilled with her participation.”

In sharing her experience (which concluded in late 2011), Barbara said for her post in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, there is still much to be done to overcome decades of neglect and discrimination under apartheid.  Her work as a teacher was rewarding and inspiring.  She noted how the South African children have a hunger for education, and how her work ethic and commitment to regular and after school activities caused her counterparts to follow her lead.  As a 50+ volunteer, she sadly noted that the devastation of AIDS on South African life expectancy made her one of the elders in her community.  And, she touched upon the power of language, noting that two of her Peace Corps colleagues who became particularly fluent in Setswana, were highly regarded “mini-ambassadors” throughout the region.

As is often the case with Peace Corps Volunteers, they spend part of their time breaking down perceptions based on our export of pop culture.  In Barbara’s case, that included explaining to people that no, she did not have a personal relationship with singer Beyonce!

While it is critical for our advocacy efforts to include the perspectives of all RPCVs, the added involvement of recently returned volunteers is a vital contribution to help bring current experiences to the forefront.  Our thanks to Barbara Lences – and many others like her – for adding their voice!

Is your lawmaker on the Appropriations Committee?  Follow this link to find out.  Time is running short but it is not too late to contact them and urge them to support $400 million for the Peace Corps.

Bob Klein meets President John F. Kennedy, August 28, 1961.

Bob Klein passed away on April 4, at the age of 83. Bob was a tireless and passionate supporter of the Peace Corps who late in life made it his mission to preserve an important part of the Peace Corps community’s–and our nation’s–history. He will be missed.

By Phyllis Noble

Bob Klein

RPCVs gathered to remember Bob Klein — member of Ghana 1, (1961-1963,) Country Director of Peace Corps  Ghana 1966-1968, Founder of the Peace Corps Oral History Archival Project, and Author of Being First: An informal history of the early Peace Corps — in Madison, Wisconsin, on Sunday, April 29, 2012.

Over 45 friends and neighbors and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) participated in a celebration of Bob’s life, reading passages from Bob’s book, and then going outside for a ritual libation and a recollection of Bob’s life work.  We remembered his humor and his wit, his unfailing dedication to Peace Corps, and his determination to keep the Peace Corps Volunteer experience alive and accessible through oral history interviews and careful archival work.

Deb Stapleton (Honduras,) Heather Hempel Gomez (Bulgaria,) Helene Pesche (Cameroon,) Ana Zambie (Bolivia,) Don Sauer (Afghanistan,) Meredith Green (Ecuador,) David Nordstrom (UNV Botswana,) Troy Rutter (Honduras,) Phyllis Noble (Nigeria,) Rob Hetzel (Ghana,) Char Thompson (Chile,) Kathleen Quinlan (Guinea & Somalia,) Laura Good (Philippines,) Sara Williams (Peru,) and present but not in photo, Mary Grace Ott (Ecuador.)

A week earlier, in Tucson, Arizona, other RPCVs honored Bob at a book reading at Or Chadash Library.

Dick Maze (Ghana1,) Phil Lopes (Colombia 1,) Pam Lopes (Brazil 14,) Georgia Ehlers (Director of Peace Corps Fellows program at U. of Arizona,) and Phyllis Noble (Nigeria 17)

Bob was a member of Ghana 1, the first group to begin Volunteer service overseas on August 30, 1961. After serving as Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana from 1961 to 1963, Bob Klein joined Peace Corps staff, supporting in-coming volunteers in the field in Ghana, then helping to set up the Peace Corps program in Kenya, and then returning to Ghana as Peace Corps Country Director.  A few years later, Bob returned to Ghana with his wife and two children and served another stint as a Volunteer!

Bob maintained a life-long friendship with some of his former Ghanaian students, who became part of Bob’s extended family. Here he is in 1966, about to begin work as country director in Ghana, with three young Ghanaians who had been his students in 1961. The young man on the left, who to this day refers to Bob as “Uncle,” went on to earn his Ph.D. in the United States and to make a career in the field of education.

Bob interviewing Betsy Schwartz (RPCV Guatemala) in California in 2008.

In retirement, after many years of teaching in New Jersey, Bob began to interview RPCVs, beginning with the members of his own group, Ghana 1.  Together with archivists at the National Archives in the John F. Kennedy Library, Bob set up a protocol for interviews and established the Peace Corps Oral History Archival Project.  Between 1999 and 2012, Bob interviewed almost 300 RPCVs; the audio-tapes are now in the public domain, part of the National Archives housed in the JFK Library.  Many of those RPCVs whom Bob interviewed are now out there, interviewing yet more RPCVs.  The project continues!

Just in time for the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps, Bob Klein published Being First: An informal history of the early Peace Peace Corps.  In 2011, in recognition for his work, Bob was given the Peace Corps Writers’ Advancing the Mission Award, an honor which gave him great delight.

A member of the RPCVs of Wisconsin-Madison sums up the feelings of many when she says,

“Bob had the ability to warmly welcome each new person in his life. When I first met him just a few short years ago, he made me feel like I’d known him forever. He paid attention to what each person brings to this life, recognized and honored it.”

Thank you to Phyllis for this contribution.

Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of South Florida (RPCVSF) is reaping benefits of its new relationship with a local Rotary Club. In 2011, RPCVSF received a $4000 matching grant for its micro-credit loan program (The Colombia Project) and is working on a second grant of $17,600 with no RPCVSF match and has been invited to submit grants for local projects as well.

Shared Values

It makes a lot of sense for RPCVs to collaborate with Rotary. Rotary and Peace Corps (and RPCVs) have compatible goals.  The Rotary website leads with:  “What would it take to change the world?  Rotary’s 1.2 million members believe it starts with a commitment to Service Above Self,” a commitment that Peace Corps Volunteers would readily understand.  Rotarian values stress service, ethics, fairness and respect in personal, business and community life. Their commitment to the “advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service” provides a good complement for Peace Corps projects. While Peace Corps and RPCV projects often struggle at the grassroots level to access the professional and financial resources their communities need in order to prosper, Rotarians sometimes lack connections to the marginalized communities their members would like to serve.  

Rotary funding is available for all types of worthy projects including Literacy and Education, Disaster Relief or Recovery, Children and Youth at Risk, Health, Hunger, Environment, Poverty, Urban Concerns and Water and Sanitation.  While Rotary does not fund salaries, reimburse for completed projects or fund ongoing projects, they will consider grant requests to improve, expand or replicate an existing program.  What they do demand, however, is complete and accurate reporting. The Colombia Project was able to document for them how the $4000 from Rotary plus our $4000 match was invested in 45 specific micro-loans and then showed how the repayments on those loans funded an additional  48 loans within the first 8 months.

Making a Local Connection

In Miami we are fortunate to have an active Rotarian in our RPCV group, David Snyder, who served in Guatemala and has successfully solicited Rotary grants for Guatemala, Bolivia and Colombia.  While the first Colombia Project request was initially dismissed, Dave took the time to address all of Rotary’s concerns. Thanks to Dave’s follow-up, the first grant was enthusiastically supported with an equal match by the  Coconut Grove Rotary Club and I was invited to make a presentation at one of their weekly meetings. Upon completion of that locally-funded grant, we were encouraged to request an International grant which requires an international Rotary partner. Once again, it was a hard sell and we were met with initial skepticism by the Rotary Club in Barranquilla, but by the end of the meeting, they not only signed the grant application but invited us to open a micro-loan site in Barranquilla. Since our visit, they have met with one of our micro-loan partners to discuss projects of mutual interest.

Before applying for Rotary assistance it would be a good idea to read Rotary’s  Guide to Effective Projects . According to the guide, “Effective service projects do more than just offer a quick ‘fix’ to problems. Typically, Rotary’s most effective service projects:

·         Respond to real issues

·          Improve community members’ lives

·          Incorporate the abilities of those who are served

·         Recognize the contributions of all participants as important and necessary

·         Are based on a realistic assessment of available resources

·         Aim for specific goals and objectives with measurable results

·         Build effective networks

·         Empower people and communities”

Rotarian literature stresses the importance of fairness and respect as all actions, thoughts and words are subject to their 4-way test:

1.             Is it the TRUTH?

2.             Is it FAIR to all concerned?

3.             Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?

4.             Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

To locate a Rotary Club near you or in a country in which you would like to implement a project, you can use the Club Locator on the Rotary website. Rotary funding is available throughout the year.

This piece was contributed by Helene Dudley, RPCVSF Board of Directors.