National Office Blog

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

Two months have passed since the earthquake in Haiti, but the Nourish Chapter at Cornell University has not forgotten about the many Haitian citizens in Port au Prince that are still helpless and homeless. This week they held two Hunger Lunches in collaboration with another organization on their campus, Cornell Health International. Half of the proceeds of the Ventures will go towards the relief effort in Haiti, and the other half will be directed towards Cornell's International Project in El Salvador, where they will be working to implement an agricultural project with the Chapter at Brown University. Several other Chapters have also donated the proceeds of a Venture to alleviate the devastating effects of the earthquake, and the National Office applauds their global consciousness and giving spirit.

Members of the University of Texas chapter are busy getting ready for their project.

Under the leadership of International Projects Director Suchi Pahi, the chapter has developed an innovative curriculum which will prepare the team technically, culturally and linguistically for this summer’s trip.

About five chapter members plan to go to Ecuador to work with members of the Kichwa tribe through CIMA, an organization in Mushuk Llacta de Chipaota. They will likely teach marketing classes and hold workshops to help women in the tribe generate a steady income from their production of handicrafts.

To help develop a culture-specific curriculum, the chapter is working with a professor who specializes in development projects.

Although many of those who will go on the project already speak Spanish, the committee is preparing flash cards for the technical terms. And, in two weeks the committee meetings will switch entirely to Spanish.

The chapter found CIMA by contacting Rainforest Partnership, which has an office in Austin.  The Partnership will meet with the project team about six times before the project to give cultural training and help familiarize the students with the area to which they will go.

To help with group cohesion, the team will take a camping trip to an isolated part of Texas.

All of this in order to see a great, sustainable project this summer.

To learn more about the project, visit the chapter Web site (http://www.nourishinternationalaustin.org/international-project/rainforest-partnership) and Global Giving page (http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/rainforestkichwaperu/)

On Sunday, March 7, 2010, the Nourish International Chapter at UC-Davis hosted “Strides for Change—Taking Steps to End Poverty”, a 5K fun run and kids race. Kaitlin Gregg, founder and director of Nourish International at UC-Davis, competes in distance running events for the university and thought that a race was a great way to raise awareness and to raise money for their upcoming project in the Dominican Republic.

The venture was a great success, making headlines in the school paper, The California Aggie! ( http://theaggie.org/article/2010/03/08/runners-race-to-end-global-poverty). About 75 runners participated in the 5K run through the local community park, and at the end, prizes and food were handed out. The $20 adult registration fee included a race T-shirt, and the kids fun run fee was $5. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the race are being put toward this summer’s project. This summer, the Davis chapter will be partnering with Yale University and MUDE, (Mujeres en Desarrollo Dominicana), a nonprofit in the Dominican Republic, to put on a nutrition-education project in the city of Barahona. Thanks to Kaitlin’s great venture idea, they now have more funds to put towards the project! Great job UC-Davis!

The Nourish Chapters at Brown University and Cornell University are collaborating together to go to El Salvador for their International Project this year. These are two out of many Chapters that have decided to team up to go on Projects this year, and we are excited to see and facilitate increasing level of collaboration and communication between all Nourish chapters. The Brown Chapter and the Cornell Chapter decided their geographic proximity would make it easy to partner up and allow both Chapters to combine their funds to make a greater impact.

Beginning in June, 4-6 Members from each Chapter will travel to the Morazan region of El Salvador for five weeks this summer to help elementary-school student build and sustain organic, community gardens. The Project participants will also have the opportunity to teach the children on topics related to gardening and nutrition. Hopefully, the children will take this knowledge home with them and share it with their families and communities, ultimately raising the awareness of health and nutrition areas in Morazan. This Project is being accomplished through FUNDAHMER, a social non-profit focused on the development and empowerment of impoverished communities in El Salvador.

If you would like to contribute to this Project, donate to it and other Nourish Projects at http://www.globalgiving.org/leaderboards/nourish-international-challenge/

Two weeks ago, while the rest of the world was getting ready for the Olympic Games in Vancouver, the Nourish Chapter at Ohio State University was hosted their own exciting version of the Olympics. OSU's Nourish Olympics was a three event event tournament, in which students teamed up into countries and competed in basketball, dodge ball, and mat ball. The team with the highest number of points was crowned the tournament champions and awarded with prizes, and each individual event winner also received a prize. The Ohio State chapter also decided to award an individual who adhered to his or her country’s colors and style with title of “Best Dressed”.
This is a very unique and creative venture in the history of Nourish International, and we look forward to seeing how the OSU Chapter can extend upon this venture's success in future years.

For the full story of how the OSU Chapter planned and implemented this venture, stay tuned for Nourish's first "Best Venture Handbook".

Check out the video!

OSU\'s Olympic Venture

is being held at 5 pm EST on Monday, March 1st. The number is 712/775/7100 pw 933372#. Fundraising Specialists Alison McQuade and Manmeet Metha from Global Giving will be joining.

First, it should be noted that these moves are unrelated… it just happened to be the right time for two members of our team. Now we’ll give them the floor:

James: For me, it came down to a personal decision. I’ve been living in Chapel Hill since I graduated from high school in 2004 and felt like to continue my personal growth, I needed to get out of the town where I went to college. When I’m done, God willing, I’ll be moving into a job that prepares me for my ultimate goal: owning an NBA team.

Jenna: My decision to move on was both personal and professional. I'm a sucker for public health, and have been waiting for the right time to go back to school and get my MPH. I'm also a sucker for a boy from Idaho, and have been waiting for the right time to marry him. As these are both big transitions, it just seemed right for them to coincide, so I'll be getting married this summer and going back to school in the fall.

Timeline:

We’re accepting applications between now and March 10 for both positions. From there, we’ll be narrowing down our list of applicants to those we’d like to interview and making offers, with the goal of having new people in and ready to go by June 1.

Job Descriptions are available on Idealist.org for Executive Director and Chapter Coordinator.