National Office Blog

This week, the Ohio State University Chapter held their first discussion group to explore marriages across cultures. The group specifically discussed how cultural variation in marriage practices around the globe affects women's status, inheritance and kinship groups, using Serena Nada's article, "Arranging a Marriage in India", as a reference text. The Chapter's discussion groups give members an opportunity to fraternize with one another outside regular Chapter meetings and thus contribute to building a stronger and more cohesive Chapter team at Ohio State.

If you are also interested in this topic, the text that the group read can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/NourishOSU/arranging-a-marriage-in-india

A brief bio:
After graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1987 with a degree in Russian & Eastern European Studies, I studied abroad three times (Spain & Chile) and started a tour operation business specializing in group tours to the Caribbean. While this company was in its infancy I was able to travel the world, visiting six continents and 75+ countries. In 2005, after 18 years at the helm, I sold this company to Tui Travel, a multinational travel conglomerate based in the UK. Afterwards, I served as the director of Tui Student's Acquisition department, overseeing 13 acquisitions in 3 years and helping to build one of the largest student travel companies in the world. Currently, I am the president of Real Property Development, a commercial real estate business specializing in multi-family and triple-net acquisitions.

Humbled by how incredibly blessed my family and I have been, I am devoting more of my time and talents to helping others achieve their goals. Having learned some of the most important lessons of my life while sleeping in grass huts in Nicaragua and building rooms and schools in Costa Rica, Nourish International’s social/entrepreneurial mission speaks clearly to me. My foreign travel, study and business experiences have taught me invaluable lessons on respecting the cultural differences of our global community and provide a unique perspective into what Nourish can and will achieve in the future.

Nourish is proud to welcome Felicia Alexander of the University of New Mexico to its Chapter Founders Program. Felicia is one of the two students to be accepted to the Program after its first cycle. She is a rising sophomore, majoring in Anthropology and Spanish with a minor in Sociology. She is also part of the UNM Honors Program and works as an intern at Sandia National Laboratories in the department of International Biological Threat Reduction. She is very excited about becoming part of the Nourish team and raising awareness of global poverty issues on her campus. Felicia thinks that the active and diverse community and student body at UNM will be conducive to spreading Nourish's mission as it has been for other organizations at campus.

We look forward to working with Felicia to promote social awareness on her campus.

This summer, the Nourish Chapter at Texas A&M University will be headed to Guatemala for its first summer Project. The Chapter will be partnering with FUNCEDESCRI, a Guatemalan non-profit dedicated to promoting community development and sustainable agriculture within the Mayan farming communities of Campur, Cunén and Nebaj. FUNCEDESCRI empowers farming families to achieve food security by providing workshops on organic farming and nutrition, defraying the cost of agricultural tools and seeds, supporting projects that improve public health, and training community health, nutrition and agricultural promoters. The organization currently serves 2,400 families in 80 communities.
Texas A&M is still looking for additional students to accompany its Chapter members on the project. If you are interested in going on this project, please contact Melissa Saucedo: msaucedo5@neo.tamu.edu. Project Dates are May 30 - July 5, so you will return back home with half a summer left to relax. Basic Spanish skills are a plus.

Members of the UPenn Chapter recently helped run a three-week program worth one-credit hour on local and global poverty at their campus. The title of the class was "Local Communities and Global Development: Where should change begin?" It featured two Penn professors, Stanley Laskowski and Dan Wagner, and social entrepreneur, Josh Tetrick. The program focused on problems that cause poverty, specifically water scarcity and illiteracy. Students in the class also learned about the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals that focus on eliminating the causes of poverty in third world countries. Tetrick was the program's key note speaker, and he talked to students about how to become a part of social change and development initiatives.
This program increased awareness of poverty and development issues among UPenn's student body and also allowed the UPenn Chapter to spread the name of Nourish International and its mission around campus. It was also a great signature event for the Chapter to establish on campus. Hopefully, the Chapter will be able to continue to run it in future years and inspire more leaders for social change.

With the end of the school year approaching, Nourish chapters are working hard on putting together their project teams for summer 2010 projects. Some of these projects are actively recruiting project participants, and would welcome students from other Universities to join their project team.

Below is a partial list of projects still in need of participants. If you are interested in joining one of these projects specifically, please contact the person listed. If you have general questions about these opportunities, please contact chapters@nourishinternational.org.

Community-Led Total Sanitation Project
Host Chapter: UNC-Chapel Hill
Partner Organization: MOCHE, Inc.

• Location: Peru
• Estimated Cost to Student: $1,900 (+airfare)
• Project Dates: June 30 - August 4
• Skills needed: Spanish proficiency is helpful.
• Basic Description: The project will help build and subsidize the construction of private latrines in Ciuidad de Dios and will implement a community-led sanitation, awareness, education, and training program.
• Contact: rbaum@email.unc.edu

Youth Education and Food Sovereignty Project
Host Chapter: UNC-Chapel Hill
Partner Organization: FIPAH

• Location: Honduras
• Estimated Cost to Student: $950 (including airfare)
• Project Dates: last week of May - last week of July (8 weeks)
• Skills needed: Spanish proficiency is required. Project is looking for participants with web design experience, but also needs additional members without this skill.
• Basic Description: Nourish will set up a computer lab in Yorito, Yoro with FIPAH. Students will develop workshops for youth in computer skills, Internet literacy, photography, and reporting. The workshops aim to facilitate the sharing of farmers’ research and engage a younger generation in FIPAH’s agricultural research and promotion of food sovereignty.
• Contact: Anna McCreight, anna.mccreight@gmail.com

Organic Urban Agriculture
Host Chapter(s): UVA, U of Georgia, and U of Michigan
Partner Organization: Triple Salto

• Location: Quito, Ecuador
• Project Cost: $2,000 (best estimate, includes airfare)
• Project Dates: late May to late June (roughly May 26- June 29)
• Skills needed: Spanish (not necessary), engineering background would be beneficial but not necessary, some basic knowledge of botany
• Basic Description of project: The focus of this project is to build a greenhouse that will house organic agriculture using raw materials. In addition, Nourish members will work to restore the local area through community service work such as painting schools, visiting local citizens of the town, and other ways to reach out to the community.
• Contact: Travis Hodges, travishodges@virginia.edu

Paper Making: Empower 100 Ugandan Women with AIDS
Host Chapter: University of Pennsylvania
Partner Organization: Africa Rising and NACWOLA

• Location: Kampala, Uganda
• Project Cost: At the present time, we are assuming between $2700 and $3000
• Project Dates: May 15 to June 6
• Skills needed: Marketing experience or website skills would be helpful, but not necessary
• Basic description of project: We will be assisting in training an initial 10 women in the NACWOLA [National Community of Women Living with AIDS] network in paper-making, as well as setting up the business and teaching basic computer/book-keeping skills. We would also be documenting the process for future marketing materials and potentially helping to set up a marketing web-page for their final paper products. Finally, we will be going out into the community to help illiterate women create Memory Books for their children.
• Contact: Danielle Berfond, danielle.berfond@gmail.com

Providing Drinking Water for 100 Peruvian Families
Host Chapter: Ohio State and Vanderbilt
Partner Organization: MOCHE, Inc.

• Location: Peru
• Project Cost: Approximately $2200
• Project Dates: June 30 - Early August
• Skills needed: Spanish proficiency is helpful, but not required
• Basic description of project: The project will construct a potable water pipeline connecting the more than 500 inhabitants of Cerro Blanco, Peru, who currently have only access to contaminated water, to clean water.
• Contact: Mackenzie Rapp, mackenzierapp@gmail.com

Building Comprehensive Farms in Guatemala
Host Chapter: Texas A&M
Partner Organization: FUNCEDESCRI

• Location: Guatemala
• Project Cost: Approximately $1400
• Project Dates: May 30 - July 5
• Skills needed: Spanish proficiency is helpful, but not required
• Basic description of project: This project serves 2,4000 Mayan farming families in 80 communities, by empowering them to achieve food security through workshops on farming and nutrition, and access to agricultural tools and seeds.
• Contact: Melissa Saucedo: msaucedo5@neo.tamu.edu