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COO Transitions Off Staff

By on May 24, 2013 in 2013, Nourish Office, Office Updates

Allie Treske, Nourish International’s Chief Operating Officer, is transitioning off of staff this May to join the Pengo Loans team as their COO. Nourish International is grateful to Allie for her service to the organization over the past four years. Allie started as a member of our expansion campaign, the Chapter Founders team. She then transitioned to lead programs for a year as Chapter Coordinator and then stepped up as our COO at a pivotal time. During her time at Nourish, the organization consistently hit higher programmatic goals, increasing the size of the network, number of programs and scope of our impact around the world.

Allie contributes that “the accomplishments I am most proud of from my time at Nourish are the scaling of the Chapter Network from 24 to 45 Chapters and the launch of so many new programs, from our Venture Fund to the Virtual Institute to our  Alumni Engagement programs. I’m proud that Nourish continues to innovate and try new initiatives, and I’m honored to have had the opportunity to lead many of these changes.”

Kelly Phoenix, Executive Director, believes that “Nourish is a stronger and better organization because of Allie’s time here. We are poised for continued success and scaling in large part because of Allie’s dedication to high quality work and desire to maximize our impact at every possible opportunity. We wish her the best of luck with her new adventures!”

Allie now “graduates” into Nourish’s Alumni programs and promises that “I’m not going anywhere! Nourish is and will always be like a family to me. See you all at the Summer Institute!”

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Fired Up, Ready to Go

By on May 23, 2013 in 2013, India, Summer Projects, UT Austin

Hey Everybody!

I’m a bundle of excitement and nerves right now. I am thrilled to be going back to Odisha to empower a group of incredible people and see some very dear friends again. This year has been crazy though. As International Projects director I have been in charge of the logistics of this journey. I am also serving as project leader, and will thus have an extra responsibility when we are on the ground. Despite the extra pressure, I think it’s going to be a great trip. Many meetings later and I think we are prepared for whatever India throws at us. Plus, we have the added bonus of a native Telugu speaker on our project team (shout out to Dhanya!). My main goal for this trip is to be as humble and flexible as possible. I have also learned the importance of carrying with me a healthy dose of cynicism for the project. I mean this in terms of being able to constantly question whether or not our project or our presence will indeed have a positive impact or possibly an unintended negative one. With this attitude, this amazing team of passionate students, and the partnership with some of the most dedicated people I know working in the Indian NGO VIEWS, I am confident that our project will have a major impact on the livelihood of the people of the Gopalpur area. Here’s hoping we get there in one piece!

Sincerely and with many more posts to come,
Lauren

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2 weeks in! Samara Beach, Costa Rica

By on May 23, 2013 in 2013, Costa Rica, Duke, Summer Projects, Vanderbilt

Although these past two weeks have felt like longer, it is safe to say all of us are having a great time here in Costa Rica! I think it feels like we have been here for longer than we have because of the novelty of our environment and the amount we have learned and accomplished in such a short amount of time.

The first week and half was dedicated to learning about the culture and exploring the surrounding area. Andrea and Johanna, the directors of CREAR (the nonprofit we are volunteering with), set up some wonderful activities for us. Our orientation week included two beautiful hikes, a cooking class, a dance class, activities with the local kids, and various culture orientated discussions. It amazing how comfortable we all feel here in Samara after only two weeks. Everyone is so friendly and welcoming, which has definitely made the adjustment period easier for us all.

This week we began our main project. We are hoping that $2,000 dollars, some donated materials, and about  65 hours of labor per person can transform a completely dilapidated building that serves as the towns health clinic into a facility that people feel safe and comfortable. In the first three days we have sanded down the chipping paint and plaster on the inside and outside of the building, knocked down a crumbling wall, cleaned out a neglected supply building, and weeded the unsightly overgrowth surrounding the building. Though we are the preparatory stages our progress is very exciting!

CREAR is a great organization and we believe renovating the clinic is a worthwhile and important task for the town of Samara.  Things are going well and we are all excited to see what the next six weeks has in store for us!

 

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The countdown begins!

By on May 22, 2013 in 2013, Juniata, Peru, Pitt, Summer Projects

7 days!

This time last year, a Nourish chapter at Pitt was little more than the dream of a few students. Now, in one week, we will be in Peru for our very first chapter project. We could not be more excited! After a year of fundraising and planning, it is hard to believe we are finally able to translate our preparation to action.

For the project, our chapter and the Nourish chapter at Juniata college will be teaming up with MOCHE Inc. to build latrines and promote sanitation in the Moche Valley of Peru. I want to go into some detail of what this means because some of you reading this might roll your eyes at the euphemistic language. That’s what my mom did. When I first told her about my trip, she raised an eyebrow. “Latrines? Rachel, you want to spend your summer building toilets?!?” This initial reaction turned out to be the norm for me explaining my summer plans to people. Unfortunately, it makes sense—no one wants to talk about poop. However, what we’ve learned in preparing for this trip is that potty talk isn’t pretty, but it’s necessary. Not only do 1.1 billion people globally not have access to improved water supply sources, but also 2.4 billion people do not have access to any type of sanitation facility. Because of this, 2 million people die every year due to diarrheal diseases. Lack of sanitation is one of the biggest problems facing developing nations, including Peru.  The more we’ve learned about the seriousness of the issue, the more we’ve been able to understand what kind of impact we could potentially make. So yes mom, we are building toilets! But that doesn’t mean our work will go to waste…no pun intended :)

As part of our preparation, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about what we hope to accomplish—in Nourish-speak, our outputs and outcomes.

Our outputs (tangible goals) are to:

  1. build at least 4 latrines
  2. facilitate at least 1 successful health fair
  3. distribute health (first aid) kits to the community
  4. distribute at least 100 packets of information to the community

Our outcomes (intangible goals) are to:

  1. create better waste management in the community
  2. increase knowledge about better sanitation practices
  3. increase knowledge of first aid in the community
  4. increase knowledge and access to available sanitation resources

We hope we will be able to achieve these goals and more as we begin this learning experience.

There is not too much more to say before we go, but really, we can’t wait! Our project leaders Emma, Ally, and Sam will be leaving in a couple days to prepare before the entire group goes down so look out for updates from them sometime soon!

–Rachel

P.S. if anyone is interested in learning a little more about the issue of sanitation, be sure to check out World Toilet Day’s page http://worldtoiletday.org/learn_detail.php?id=3 or watch this great TED talk from Rose George http://www.ted.com/talks/rose_george_let_s_talk_crap_seriously.html!

 

 

 

 

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Success, Sosua, and Sunburn

By on May 22, 2013 in 2013, Dominican Republic, Summer Projects, UF

We have been here only for two and a half  weeks and we already have done so much! This week we not only started but finished our classes on Microsoft Word. Initially we were concerned about how long it would take for the students to learn these skills considering some were not even familiar with keys on the keyboard. To our surprise, most caught on to the basics like formatting font relatively quickly. To finish off the class we had our students work on their final project which consisted of creating a professional resume.Awilda making her resume It was truly exciting to see students implement the very skills that you taught them in their own projects.
This past weekend was full of accomplishments for everyone. A Mother’s Wish has a preschool for 3 and 4 year old’s and their graduation was this past Saturday. To commemorate their achievement I embarked on a project of my own designing a mural for the graduates of this year and those to come. This mural of a “unity tree”,while it’s still a work in progress, was revealed at the graduation. The students got to put up leaves with their names on them to symbolically represent the growth of the Lynn Barta Academy community.Unity Tree In other news, the group from the bakery was given the opportunity to cater this event and supplied the graduates and their families with a cup of natural fruit juice and an assortment of pastries. They sold out and even had orders put in for banana bread and cookies.Sabrozzi's first sale Seeing as mother’s day is coming up here in the Dominican Republic we thought it would be a great idea for the bakery to make a special mother’s day sale in the community.
After the graduation, our Nourish team decided to take a bit of a break through a weekend excursion. We traveled to the beautiful beach of Sosua via guagua (a small and crowded kind of bus) and immersed ourselves in sun and waves. It was a nice way to relax and de-stress so we can return and continue working the way we do. The beautiful beach of Sosua
Until next post!
Jackie

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Getting Ready For the Trip!

By on May 22, 2013 in 2013, BU, Dominican Republic, Summer Projects

The BU students on the Nourish Team are excited about leaving next Tuesday. We are all starting to get our suitcases together as well as purchasing some last minute supplies for the trip. After all of our preparation, we are looking forward to the departure day and cannot wait to finally get to see where we will be living for the next six weeks.

 

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