National Office Blog

Nourish Grad Continues to Make an Impact--Student Spotlight on Manasa Yeturu

Nourish International is proud to announce that Manasa Yeturu, recent graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles and Nourish Chapter Director has been offered a position as Teach for India Program Director in Pune, India.

Teach for India, modeled after Wendy Kopp's Teach for America, seeks to place India's most outstanding college graduates and young professionals in two-year teaching positions in low income schools around India. As this is the first year the program is being launched, this is an exciting opportunity for Manasa and a great achievement for Nourish International and our donors. Manasa serves as a true example of how your Nourish donation helps students move on to create social change worldwide.

"Founding a Nourish Chapter at UCLA, has given me a real life skill set which I believe will be the most valuable asset as I transition into working for another start-up: Teach for India," says Manasa.

Teach for India was established in 2007 to end educational inequity throughout India. TFI provides training and support to their teachers as they expand the educational opportunities of underprivileged students and schools. Manasa has been specially selected to oversee the first group of Teach for India (TFI) Fellows in Pune, India, and will be moving there in just a few weeks. She is excited to expand the Teach for American model across the world through TFI, and says that she couldn't have done so without Nourish's help.

"Nourish helped me cross the line between development education into development work in college itself, and I know without this experience I would not be where I am today!" says Manasa.

For more information about Teach for India, check out their website at http://teachforindia.org.

Manasa Yeturu graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in May 2009 with a degree in International Development Studies and a minor in Political Science.

On April 17^th, we hosted Brew Local Act Global, a charity beer tasting event featuring North Carolina's local breweries and Nourish's home-grown effort to end global poverty. Held in the heart of downtown Raleigh at Mosaic Wine Lounge, the event was a great success! We could not have asked for better weather. Brew Local Act Global brought together over 70 Nourish supporters and beer appreciators, raising a total of $1,865 to support Nourish Chapters and their work.

Nourish International Hosts Brew Local Act Global

LoneRider Brewing Company, Natty Greene's Brewing Co., Aviator Brewery and the Mash House Brewery provided some of their finest brews. 518 West brought over a selection of delicious pizzas, dip and breads for all to enjoy.

We would like to thank our host committee, sponsors and volunteers for making this event possible!

SPONSORS

Aviator Brewery, Ham's Brewhouse, The Mash House Restaurant & Brewery, LoneRider Brewing Company,  Natty Greene's Brewing Co., 518 West, Mosaic Wine Lounge

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Sindhura Citinenti, Ryan Allis, Buck Goldstein, Virginia Carson, Jud Bowman, Thomas Thekkekandam, Joshua Lee, Joel Thomas,  Mark Laabs, Neil Bagchi

SPECIAL THANKS

Braden Rawls, Julie Jenkins, Sebastian Wolfrum, Greg Overbeck, Sumit Vohra, T.L. Adkisson, Mark Doble, Ian VanGundy

Last Saturday marked the first deadline for Nourish’s 2009 Chapter Founders selection process.  In the months of January and February alone, we received 32 applications from students across the United States.  Applicants represented a wide range of universities, including Brown, Cornell, Georgetown, NYU, UPenn, Vanderbilt, Chicago, and many others.  In the coming weeks, these students will participate in a series of interviews before the newest group of Chapter Founders are selected to begin Nourish chapters.

Since the beginning of the selection process in January of this year, 264 interested students have begun Chapter Founder applications—a number that is expected to grow as the second and final deadline of April 19th approaches.  Ten to twelve students will ultimately be chosen to receive 500 dollars in startup capital, the opportunity to attend Nourish’s annual Summer Institute in Chapel Hill this August, and professional training and support throughout the year as they return to their campuses and begin their chapters during the 2009-2010 academic year.

If you or anyone you know are interested in applying, you can go here to tell a friend, and you can also visit our Chapter Founders page to start an application today!

The votes are in, and we have our winners!

Big thanks to everyone who submitted pictures.  It's been great looking through all of your pictures and seeing what an incredible time you all had over the summer.

1st Place - Grand Prize

"Planting tomatoes and cabbages in the garden nursery"
Haru Yamamoto, Duke University
Naama Village School
Mityana, Uganda

Hey everyone!

We’re hosting a photo contest on the Nourish Network to find the best pictures from our international projects this past summer.  We’re going to pick which photos we think best represent our work in Brazil, Mexico, Honduras, Uganda and Peru this past summer.  The deadline for entry is this coming Friday, October 3rd at 5pm.  

But Logan, what will I win!?

I’m glad you asked.  Quit talking and listen:

1st place:  $50 & a Nourish Nalgene
2nd place:  $25 & a Nourish Nalgene
3rd place:  $25 & a Nourish Nalgene
4th-10th place:  Nourish Nalgenes

This is awesome Logan!  How do I enter!?

It’s easy!  Here’s how:

1.  Go to the Nourish Network
2.  Register if you haven’t already
3.  Upload your favorite pictures by clicking the “photos” tab
4.  Send Bryon Zandt (bryon@nourishinternational.org) a message with the names of your favorite 3 pictures

We’ll announce the winner next week, and post them on here for your viewing pleasure.  Good luck!

Until next time,

Logan

In the spirit of the last post, it's not just speakers who are pitching in to make the Summer Institute happen.  Many businesses and organizations in the local community have chipped in to help make the Institute a success.

Note from the office: Sponsorship opportunities are still available.  If you're interested, please send an email to info@nourishinternational.org.

Host Sponsor: UNC Center for Global Initiatives

Banquet Sponsor: Mona Verde Productions

See the full list of sponsors after the jump.

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The Summer Institute is really coming together!  Here's an updated list of people that have agreed to speak and businesses that have partnered with us to help make this event happen.

Keynote Speaker: Christopher Gergen, founding partner of New Mountain Ventures, LLC, instructor of Duke's Enterprising Leadership Initiative (Hart Leadership Program), and co-author of "Life Entrepreneurs: Mavericks in the Art of Leading and Living."

Social Entrepreneurship Theory and Concepts: Dr. Jim Johnson, the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of entrepreneurship and director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise.

Community Partner Perspective: Dr. Christopher Kigongo, a Ugandan physician working as a clinical trial manager at Duke University. He was also the founder of the Millennium School, one of this year's summer projects.

Management and Growth: Ryan Allis, founder and CEO of iContact, and author of the book , Zero to One Million, describing how to go from a blank slate to 1 million dollars in sales. Ryan is also a dedicated board member of Nourish International.

Succeeding Against the Odds: Sindhura Citineni, founder of Nourish International, recipient of UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Outstanding Young Alumni of the Year Award and a dental student at the UNC Chapel Hill School of Dentistry.

The UNC Center for Global Initiatives has agreed to co-sponsor our 2008 Summer Institute, hosting it at the FedEx Global Education Center on the campus of UNC at Chapel Hill.

The Institute will focus on engaging Nourish students in the topics of international development and social entrepreneurship so that they are equipped to select community partners and raise project funds in the coming year.

We're incredibly excited to have the Center for Global Initiatives on board, both as a host sponsor and a partner in the planning process.

Good news -- we've hired a Chapter Coordinator (more on the new member of our team is still to come!), however, our breakneck expansion requires that we continue hiring!

Now we're accepting resumes for a Development Director.  If you're interested, check it out on Idealist or read the description below.

To apply, send a resume/cover letter to james@nourishinternational.org.

Summary

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Bright and early this morning, the National Office welcomed two new members to it's team: our summer interns, Purnima Venkat and Carlyn Cowen. As full-time members of our staff this summer, they'll be focusing on updating our website, planning the summer institute, building our future project database and maybe even a little blogging, if we're lucky.

Check out their bios - we couldn't be more excited to have them as a part of our team!

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