Alumni Updates

Alumnus '06-'08, USA

Mike Ksenyak

Juneau, Alaska

Mike was a Corps Member and a Crew Leader from 2006-2008, and then hired on as the Recruiter and Program Coordinator until 2010. Hethen moved to Panama for a year, during which time he co-wrote and translated a $1.8 million grant for the Panama Verde Association, taught English at an after-school center and traveled extensively. After returning to his hometown in Cleveland, he led an invasive plant strike team in the Cleveland Metroparks and worked as a freelance copy editor. Most recently, Mike moved to Juneau where he is currently the Human Resource Manager with SAGA, a service learning organization working to improve lives, lands, and communities in Alaska.

Alumnus '10 ZAMBIA

Ernest Chisanga

Chisamba, Zambia

"I am okay and all is well down here in Zambia.I am excited with EarthCorps progress and how I miss the moments.I have a new job as an HIV/AIDS and Nutrition Program Officer focusing on organic foods and awareness in community and schools. The Washington University research is still in line after preliminary assessments were done with a representative from there...I am glad to mention that EarthCorps connections are part of Chipembi Agricultural College International reputation it has attracted and the college will soon become a training center for America's PeaceCorps volunteers coming to Zambia beginning January 2012. Right now we are busy refurbishing hostels and putting final touches to our institution to be ready for the PeaceCorps program.

I am still teaching part time and the Environmental Youth Program has grown to a remarkable level due to the experience and expertise I gained with EarthCorps. I am proud today to say that Earthcorps has made me a stronger person and adventurous in my quest to serve my community better than before. To all the EarthCorps Staff, members and my wonderful homestay family, Jeff and Marla, I pass my profound gratitude with honor and warm greetings."

Alumna '09, USA

Hollis Emery

Juneau, Alaska

Hollis was a Corpsmember and Crew Leader at EarthCorps in 2009. She is currently the Southeast Regional Manager at SAGA in Juneau, Alaska. Here is her reflection on the journey from here to there.

SAGA

"Before I showed up at EarthCorps, I was working for a law firm in San Francisco. I was thinking about environmental law and realized I wanted some on-the-ground practical experience as a foundation for that kind of work. I looked around for opportunities outside and jumped on the chance to work with EarthCorps. And I'm so happy I was accepted!

After an awesome season at EarthCorps with great crew leaders and an awesome crew, I realized I was in love with conservation work and wanted to continue in that field. I checked out a few different Corps programs and ended up as a Crew Leader for Conservation Corps Minnesota, based out of Moose Lake. Because of all I learned at EarthCorps (and because I had a chance to lead a crew for a few months while I was there) I felt really prepared to lead my own crew. I had an amazing crew and we got to work on a wide variety of projects. We all went through basic wildland firefighting training and spent about a week last spring on a fire outside of Grand Rapids, MN. We worked on a lot of trails around the area-some motorized and some hiking/horse trails, did quite a bit of invasive removal (buckthorn!) and got to camp in some beautiful areas along the North Shore of Lake Superior. One really memorable project involved restoration work for the Nature Conservancy. The project site was most easily accessible by canoe so every morning we'd load up chainsaws, brushers and other tools and paddle to the site through patches of wild rice. Beautiful! At the project site we'd cut some trees to open up the canopy and plant cedars and spruce. We all ran chainsaws quite a bit, too, which was great training and experience. As the season in Minnesota was drawing to a close I started looking around for other opportunities.

I applied for a Regional Manager position with SAGA, a conservation organization in Alaska and when I got the position the allure of Alaska was too strong to pass up! So now here I am in Juneau, managing 3 youth corps crews and 3 adult corps crews. Our Crew Members will arrive June 1 but the Team Leaders have been here since mid-March. I've had the opportunity to design and facilitate trainings and now I'm making adjustments to the project schedule and coordinating logistics. Because Southeast Alaska is made up of a lot of islands, our crews get to hop on ferries and sometimes float planes to get from one project to another. They'll be doing a lot of trail work for the Forest Service and Park Service, some invasive removal and sight-line improvement projects for the Alaska Department of Transportation. I'm looking forward to an awesome season and still find myself asking, "hmm...what would Randi and Erin (EC Program Managers) do?""

Alumna '09 Russia

Svetlana Shokhonova

Irkutsk, Russia

After coming back from EarthCorps I was selected to lead the crew leaders courses for summer camps at the Great Baikal Trail Association (GBT). I am coordinating spring practical GBT seminar where future crew leaders demonstrated us how ready they were for summer season. Without EarthCorps I wouldn't have been able to achieve all of this. Through my EarthCorps experience I now understood more deeply how important youth service is.

ALUMNUS '09 PANAMA

Juan Perez

Panama City, Panama

Juan spent 12 months at EarthCorps before returning to Panama to take a job with the U.S. Peace Corps. He is now the Programming and Training Specialist for Environmental Health programs. Juan says his international leadership experience from EarthCorps now helps him mentor U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers serving in Panama.

ALUMNUS '09 KENYA

Michael Singoro

Yonkers, NY

Michael Singoro is expanding on his 2009 ECI corpsmember experience as an Extern with Groundwork Hudson Valley in New York. You can read Michael’s new bio here: http://www.groundworkhv.org/people/stories/michael-singoro/. Please join us in wishing Michael well as he continues to learn new skills in environmental restoration, community building and leadership for the greater benefit of his home community in Kenya.

ALUMNUS '08 NAMIBIA

Ignatius "Iggy" Davids

Otjiwarong, Namibia

I will be responsible in helping with the education curriculums for environmental education in schools and communities. Our teams mission will be to educate our communities about the survival and importance of our cheetahs and all big cats.

Because we have a very high number of communal farmers around Otjiwarong and ironically its where the high number of cheetah population in concentrated. So there is always this cheetah and farmer conflict. So we have come up with a very efficient module on working closely with the farming communities. Our main aim is to help farmers see how predators can be of vital importance to their livestock and farmlands, I know one would wonder how? But what the farmers don’t know is that the high number of big cats in their area, will always put their livestock on high alert, which basically means that the herds will try to stay as closely as possible and in return this will help with the loosening up of the soil and this helps with the herds being responsible for planting their own grass for the next year.

I will be staying at the Cheetah Conservation Fund research and education center 70 kilometers out of Otjiwarongo. We have opportunities for international volunteers to come and do research, take care of the rehabilitated cats or help with education activities. For more information check out: www.cheetah.org.

ALUMNUS '08 LIBERIA

David Mulbah Jr.

Monrovia, Liberia

My EC knowledge has been very useful to me and Liberia. At present my organization is working on a herbarium. If we are successful it will be the only existing herbarium in Liberian. We have able to identified and collect of 1,300 plant specimen from about 80 different families with technical support of two Ivorian botanist. My plant ID skill begin with EC. Although I did not do well in the final plant ID test at EC, I always felt it was a good beginning. now I am graduating for plant ID to plant taxonomy. We are also involve with conservation native medicinal plant species, threaten and rare plant species. My short stay at EC was never a mistake.

ALUMNA '08 USA

Beth O'Neil

Artsvaberd, Armenia

Beth spent two years at EarthCorps with the later year focused on outreach and environmental education. She has since joined the U.S. Peace Corps and is using her environmental education skills to develop new programs in Armenia:

"My role as a volunteer is to work at the school and teach environmental education There's about 100 students and 15 teachers. I am setting up after school clubs. My goal is to do an English club, an environmental action club and a girls yoga/walking club."

ALUMNA '08 CHINA

XiXi Song

Beijing, China

XiXi first came to EarthCorps in 2007 as a corpsmember. She later extended her stay through EarthCorps Outreach Intern program where she learned to design and implement environmental education curriculum. XiXi has since returned home to China to put her new skills into practice:

"I am still busy in developing my program that is a new try for my organization. So far, this program is running well and still need to be stable. It is a children’s nature education program that encourages children in city to learn, to love, and to experience the beauty of nature by various educational activities using games, drama, painting and many other participative modules. It provides important chances for nowadays city children to keep touch with nature."

Alumna '06 & '07 United States

Lylianna Allala

Michigan

Lili recently joined frequent EarthCorps partner Friends of the Hylebos as Restoration Coordinator following a stint with The Nature Conservancy's Michigan chapter as a Wetland and Upland Restoration Assistant where she performed prescribed burns on ecosystems such as fen and its uplands like prairie and oak savannah. These fens, prairies and savannahs are well represented in Michigan but also increasingly rare in the Great Lakes region. TNC performs prescribed burns as a conservation tool to encourage fire dependant native plant growth and suppress invasive plant growth. At least one-third of native Michigan plant species are known to occur within Michigan’s fire-dependent ecosystems, with about 25% of these plant species potentially at risk of becoming extinct. Lili also served with the US Forest Service immediately after graduating from EarthCorps

ALUMNUS '07 COLOMBIA

Pedro Felipe Linares

Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

Ecology Project International

After finishing his EarthCorps training in 2007, Pedro started a new position as an Instructor with Ecology Project International. His programs focus on promoting conservation and environmental education by partnering students with service. Pedro is currently focusing his efforts on the El Chato Reserve in the Galapagos Islands. Invasive plants are threatening the habitat of many of the native flora and fauna there including the giant tortoise. Pedro is using his EarthCorps experience to organize students from the local community and the United States to protect these critical habitats by removing invasive plants.

ALUMNUS '07 MADAGASCAR

Lucien Herimanana

Tokyo, Japan

Since returning home to Madagascar Lucien has continued to pursue his passions in community building and organic agriculture. Recently Lucien was accepted into the "Technology of Organic Agriculture for Environmental Conservation" program in Tokyo, Japan. This is a year long program where Lucien is looking to sharpen his skills towards creating more sustainable agricultural practices in his home community.

ALUMNA '07 DOMINICA

Rowann Remie

Rowann continues to volunteer with the Dominica Youth Environment Organization. Recently the organization was awarded a grant from GEF (Global Environment Facility) to work alongside the Dominican forestry division to rehabilitate one of its unused buildings within the forest reserve as an educational/research/camp facility. They are also teaming up with the local Youth Development Division to undertake trail building and restoration work in a North-Eastern community as part of a community tourism program.

Alumna '07 Ecuador

Angelica Saeteros

Quito, Ecuador

In early 2008 Angelica began working with the US Peace Corps office in Ecuador. She works closely with Peace Corps Volunteers as the Program Assistant for Health, Environment and Conservation.She recently wrote to say: "I want to say thanks to EarthCorps for the opportunity to train as a corpsmember. It was one of the major reasons that I was chosen to work with the Peace Corps."

Alumna '06 USA

Dana Beaudry

Seattle, Washington

The Burke Museum

Dana is dedicated to teaching young people about the natural world. Dana educates young people as an educator with the University of Washington’s Burke Museum and as an adult advisory to the outdoor education program at Seattle’s Garfield High School.

Alumnus '06 Ghana

Fred Ayifli

Stockholm, Sweden

RESPECT

Fred attended the EarthCorps training with a goal to gain more skills in environmental restoration, cross-cultural communication and to improve his overall leadership abilities. He later returned to Ghana to implement this training with RESPECT refugee services and FOBET. Fred has recently enrolled in a graduate program in the Netherlands to further polish these skills in the realm of International Development.

Alumna '06 Mongolia

Sarantsetseg Borchuluun

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

After completing the ECI Corpsmember and Crew Leader training programs Saraa returned home to Mongolia. She is now using her EarthCorps experience as a Watershed Manager.

"Since the EarthCorps training, I have been working on an integrated water resources management project in Mongolia and got highly involved in watershed and river basin management. I have also been working at the Ministry of Nature and Environment. Isn`t it amazing? EarthCorps really helped me to find where my real interests are for further field work!"

Alumna '06 USA

Shaina Gates

Seattle, WA

Shaina is a consultant at Cascadia Consulting Group, where she is part of the education and outreach team. She assists with King County's Master Recycler Composter training and coordinates the efforts of the more than 200 volunteers who have completed the training. She also provides support to Seattle's Green Gardening program, which provides education to nurseries and landscapers, the Resource Venture program, a program that provides assistance to local businesses striving to be more sustainable, and others.

She just joined the UW Project on the Environment Alumni Advisory Board – pretty impressive: http://depts.washington.edu/poeweb/alumni/index.html#White

Alumnus '06 United States

Chris Honeycutt

The Gambia

Chris is on his third year as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia. He has been tasked with working alongside local community members to develop environmental projects. Hi most recent goal is to protect James Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site from further erosion.

“I totally get to use my education and training from Earth Corps. We have had two volunteer events and the villagers have loved the work. Many of them have lived their entire lives in the area and have never set foot on the island - only hearing stories of the place from oral traditions. And the word is spreading, as we provide work for locals (in quarrying rock) and through interest in volunteering. We are getting a great site history and volunteers from local schools, Peace Corps, communities, are all coming to lend a hand.”

Alumna '06 China

Kui Li

Texas A&M University, USA

Green SOS

Kui Li is currently a MS student of Forestry at Texas A&M University. Her research focuses on invasive species known as the Giant Cane (Arundo donax).

Before graduate school Kui Li developed new projects focused on environmental education and water sanitation for the earthquake disaster area in Sichuan, China. The initial projects involved 100 volunteers and 30,000 local villagers. She also wrote a text book on environmental education for the middle school students of Chongqing, China.

ALUMNA '06 FIJI

Mereoni Mataika

Suva, Fiji

Partners in Community Development Fiji

In May 2009 Shangri-La’s Fijian Resort & Spa appointed, Mereoni, as its Marine Programme Manager. She is now spearheading the development of a marine conservation centre at Yanuca, home to Shangri-La’s Fijian Resort and Spa. Mereoni previously worked as project officer at Partners in Community Development Fiji (PCDF), a Fiji-based non government organisation that has worked closely with the Resort on marine conservation for ten years.

Mereoni is also active in youth leadership opportunities. She envisions a future were Fijian youth are knowledgeable and active in protecting their local natural resources.

Alumna '06 Indonesia

Karmila Parakkasi

Jogja, Indonesia

After completing EarthCorps training I returned to Indonesia and continued my voluntary work with Kutilang Indonesia. But since March 2007 some friends and I worked together and established a new environmental organization, named Centre for Leadership and Conservation Learning (CLLC). Our first project is a study to optimize the utilization of potential core commodities (non timber forest product, eco-tourism and water) in three national parks. Our objective is to improve the social economic level of the people who live around national parks.

Alumna '06 Paraguay

Julia Pineda

Asuncion, Paraguay

Julia and PRONATURA are acting locally, and thinking globally for a better tomorrow. Julia is starting a new campaign to educate the teachers of kindergarten and primary school about the importance of environmental service. Four separate community service projects are being planned with four area schools to further engage community support.

Alumna '06 Nepal

Roshani Rai

Khatmandu, Nepal

Roshani Rai continues to build global community through local environmental service by participating in the 2007 Japan Workcamp. The Workcamp was sponsored by EarthCorps international partner NICE and coordinated by Japan alumnus Tatsuya Tsukamoto (1999). She is also a recipient of an EU scholarship and recently arrived in Finland for a M.S. Forestry program.

Alumnus '06 Philippines

Bjorn Santos

Laguna, Philippines

De La Salle University – Canlubang

Bjorn returned to the Philippines with a mission to increase his role as the Environmental Officer for De La Salle University – Canlubang. Since July Bjorn has led a national tree planting campaign. With his efforts they have already planted 8,000 seedlings on the mountains of his native Cavite.

Alumnus '06 Tajikistan

Kobil Shokirov

Dushanbe, Tajikistan

Kobil is working with the Swiss Cooperation Agency for Development in Central Asia. Their main focus is sustainability in Central Asian countries and the mountainous parts of Tajikistan. Kobil is interning with them this summer helping to run their environmental program around the region.

ALUMNA '05 UNITED STATES

Nisa Karimi

Seattle, WA

Nisa Karimi joined Friends of the Cedar River Watershed as the Friends' new Stewardship Coordinator. Nisa brings a wealth of experience and a passion for ecological restoration to her work. Her career has taken her from her home state of Wisconsin to San Ignacio, Peru and Olympia, Washington where she earned a degree in Ecology from the Evergreen State College. The Friends is very pleased that she has now chosen to join them in Seattle. Nisa is fluent in Spanish, is a wild-crafting (foraging for wild edible plants) enthusiast and an avid cook.

Alumna '05 USA

Shannon Luoma

Seattle, Washington

Northwest Environmental Education Council

Shannon works with NEEC to foster an ecologically sustainable world through education and training. Shannon connects teenagers with environmental service-learning opportunities through partnerships with schools, nonprofits, and businesses.

Alumna '04 Ecuador

Marcela Alvarado

Quito, Ecuador

AVSF

Marce and AVSF are helping the indigenous communities of Ecuador manage and define their native lands through GIS mapping. As a geographer Marce is teaching communities how to read maps so they can plan large projects to protect the natural resources with in like water, forests and high land vegetation.

Alumnus '04 Kenya

Leonard Gacheru

Malindi, Kenya

World Corps Kenya

Leonard manages a World Corps – Canada World Youth program that brings young adults from Kenya, Tanzania and Canada together to volunteer in Ontario, Canada and on the Kenyan coast.

"It's a long time since I communicated and a lot of exciting things have happened. It's so good to hear great successes of my Earthcorps, I feel so proud and am grateful for the opportunity to participate in the EC programs. It really gave me valuable exposure and skills that I am applying in my job."

Alumna '04 United States

Teri Milstein

Panama

HELLO PEACE CORPS/EARTHCORPS FRIENDS!

I've known Juan Perez via email for almost two years now, but I just finally got the chance to meet him in person in his native Panama. We have run parallel pathways, through both EarthCorps International in Seattle, Washington, and Peace Corps Panama. Juan even lived with the same host family as my friend Alberto (Honduras) lived in when he was on my crew in EarthCorps. Juan told me that he and Alberto were the only two Latinos ever to live with the Tettas. They often hosted volunteers from other countries. I love the smallness of our world and the meaningful connections we are able to make with people with whom we share it.

~Teri~

Peace Corps Panama 2007-2009

Earth Corps International 2004

******************************

Teri is wrapping up her service as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama. During her two years she developed a tourism group to teach agribusiness and environmental conservation. Teri and her new dog Sugar will be coming back to the states in late 2009.

EarthCorps Staff Alumna '04 USA

Kelli O'Leary

Boulder, CO / Homer, AK

Kelli turned her experience of community at EarthCorps into a quest to seek out how museums can be better connected and more relevant to their communities. She focuses on community outreach in the Masters program in Museum Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She also works at the Museum of Natural History and the Museo de las Americas in Denver.

This summer, Kelli is in Homer, AK - wearing snowpants, watching out for puffins and bears, and interning at the Pratt Museum, which well respected for incorporating local communities into its mission of educating visitors about the natural and cultural history of the area. The Pratt is also involved with EarthCorps partner Great Baikal Trail Association of Siberia.

Alumna '04 Jamaica

Tamoy Singh

Kingston, Jamaica

Student Environment Network

In April 2007 Tamoy's organization hosted the Caribbean Endemic Bird Festival where she showcased the birds of the Caribbean and educated the young and young at heart about why it is important to preserve them. Activities focused on endemic wildlife and how they are impacted by climate change.

Alumna '03 Mexico

María Espinosa

Yucatán, México

National Commision for Aquaculture and Fisheries

In the coastal town of Merida, Mexcio fishing is an important livelihood. Maria and the National Commision for Aquaculture and Fisheries are hosting trainings for local fisherman on the importance of abiding by set regulations.

Alumnus '03 Guatemala

Mario Flores

Antigua, Guatemala

Global Visionaries

When the dry season starts in Guatemala, the forest fire season starts as well. Although a natural process; problems occur when the ecology of a place has been altered by human activity. Mario is leading volunteers to create fire barriers around previously reforested areas and educating the public on the importance of maintaining these natural areas.

Alumnus '03 USA

Gus Jesperson

Seattle, Washington

University of Washington

Gus is a PhD candidate at the University of Washington’s College of Forest Resources where he is studying alpine ecology. In addition to his work in the Cascade Mountains, Gus facilitates a partnership with China’s Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve. Throughout his studies, Gus has created opportunities for collaboration between academia and NGOs. In addition to bringing a Chinese delegation to EarthCorps, Gus created a backcountry science camp that involved EarthCorps youth on an alpine soil study in the North Cascades National Park.

Alumna '03 Kenya

Michael Oloo

Kisumu, Kenya

Uhai Lake Forum
Kisumu, Kenya hosted the eighth annual commemorative “Lake Victoria Day Forum” on April 12th-14th 2007. An advocacy forum for addressing issues affecting the livelihood of the people in the Lake Victoria basin. Michael took part by leading activities focused on championing basic rights of the people in the use of their natural resources (land, lakes, forest and water).

Alumna '03 Honduras

Suzana Paz

Mexico City, Mexico

Suzana Paz, EarthCorps alumna (Honduras, 2004) was recently promoted in her post at the UN. She is now the Personal Chief of the UN Central America & Caribbean division for youth programs. Even better she is now located in Mexico and has plans to link up with EarthCorps alumni Yukari Yamamoto (Japan, 2002-4) and Chema Fernández (Mexico, 2003-5) who are both currently working in Mexico.

Alumna '01 USA

Kate Villareal

Seattle, WA

Kate’s experiences with youth of color in South Seattle as an Earthcorps intern broadened her understanding of the link between social and environmental inequities. While restoring forests in Rainier Valley and Beacon Hill, it became clear that the communities bearing the brunt of environmental hazards such as underground gas pipelines and air pollution were disproportionately lower income and people of color. Through Earthcorps she connected with the Community Coalition for Environmental Justice where she’s worked as a community organizer since 2003.

ALUMNUS '00 PHILIPPINES

Erwin Galido

Manila, Philippines

I recently started working at ChildFund. I am the grant coordinator for their eco-scouts project. The over goal of the project is to reduce the risk and vulnerability of the children, families and communities to the threat brought about by environmental degradation. The area that I'm working was devastated by flash floods, also similar to Manila last 2004.

One of the components of the project is rehabilitation and I have a big task in trying to find a way on how to restore or rehabilitate a major river that has been critically damaged by the typhoon and reforest a portion of a major watershed that has been clear cut by loggers here.

I will be organizing also children for the eco-scouts program and we will do a lot of advocacy work in schools and communities.
Since this is the first time that ChildFund embarked on an environmental focused project they gave me a lot of freedom to do things that would be significant based on my experiences. I will be able to use again the skills that I learned from EarthCorps.

Alumna '99 Brazil

Ana Lopez

Curitiba, Brazil

Society for Wildlife Research and Environmental Education

Since graduating from EarthCorps in 1999, Ana has served on the staff of Brazil’s SPVS. Ana is undertaking a major carbon sequestration project managed by SPVS. SPVS launched a 40-year carbon sequestration project in 1999 with the aims to conserve 80,000 acres of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest.

Alumnus '99 USA

Colin MacDonald

Seattle, Washington

Restoration Logistics

Where EarthCorps and other nonprofits fill a vital role in environmental restoration, private firms tend to focus more on landscaping. EarthCorps alumni Colin MacDonald and Steven Humphreys launched Restoration Logistics, a private consulting firm, to focus on environmental restoration. Colin, Steve, and their team have crews working on restoration projects throughout the year.

Alumna '98 USA

Jenifer McIntyre

Seattle, WA

Canadian Jen McIntyre was a Corps member when EarthCorps was known as the King County World Conservation Corps. She then immersed herself in the world of environmental work with jobs at Washington Conservation Corps, US Forest Service (as an SCA intern), an environmental consulting firm in Seattle and a research lab. She focused on bioaccumulation of contaminants in Lake Washington fishes. The fish consumption advisory signs posted on the lake result from her work.

Jen is an EPA STAR fellow at the University of Washington, working on a PhD at the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. Her focus is on the neurotoxic effects of copper on olfaction and olfactory-mediated behaviors in salmon. Jen's most memorable EarthCorps experience was learning Nepalese songs with her friend Kanchi Maya while trail building in the mountains.

Alumna '98 USA

Joanna Nelson

Seattle, Washington

Cascade Land Conservancy

Joanna serves as Cascade Land Conservancy’s Green Seattle Partnership Project Manager. Born and raised in Seattle, Joanna plays a central role on ensuring the future health of Seattle’s 4,000 acres of urban forest. Joanna is helping organize urban forest restoration projects with EarthCorps and more than a dozen other community organizations on Earth Day and throughout the month of April.

ALUMNUS '97 INDIA

Srinivasan C

Vellore, India

It was inspiring to learn how Srinivasan applied the skills, perspective, and inspiration gained at EarthCorps to his work as President of Exnora- Green Cross Vellore (Exnora). According to Srinivasan, “my real success in India is because of the field work I did with EarthCorps in Seattle.”

The driving goal for all of Srinivasan’s work is to “bring about socio-economic changes through employment generation based on environmental conservation.” Programs seek to utilize three abundant resources- sunlight, people power, and garbage. “EarthCorps helped me to understand that the goal is not to isolate people from nature, but to help both coexist sustainably.”

Alumna '97 USA

Jason Niebler

Seattle, Washington

Nature's Last Stand

After several years in Monteverde, Costa Rica Jason returned to Seattle where he co-owns Nature’s Last Stand, an organic farm. His goal is to develop a working biodynamic farm as well as an education and agro-research center. Throughout April, Jason is focused on soil preparation, spring seed stock germination, greenhouse construction and hiring summer interns.

EarthCorps Founder

Dwight Wilson

San Francisco, California

OneRoof

Dwight moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to form OneRoof, a social franchise that provides essential goods and services in rural communities of the developing world. Starting with 100 stores in India and Mexico in 2006, that sell information and communications services, each store over time will broaden its offerings—based on local needs—to include appropriate technologies, clean water, sanitation systems, essential medicines and health care, clean energy systems, and access to markets and microfinance. Each store will also act as an informal community development center, offering free or low-cost workshops that address important social needs around health and nutrition, agriculture, job creation.

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