Student and Alumni Profiles
Class One Profiles
Shannon Bell – United States: In the heart of coal country, Cabin Creek, West Virginia, Shannon helped direct a state-run public health center and initiated a Photo Voice project to empower women to address chronic social health concerns via photo journalism and story telling. These commitments led to further studies, so she is now completing her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Oregon.
Kelly Brown – Heiltsuk Nation, Canada: Working across many Nations fishing communities in British Columbia, Kelly transformed management of a tribal salmon cannery and used the increased income to improve land-marine resources. His constructive activism places him at the vortex of Heiltsuk traditional values and Canadian governance.
Nawang Singh Gurung – Tibet, China: Nawang continues to teach and expand the Pendeba (“worker who benefits the village”) model of community development in Tibet’s Qomolangma National Nature Preserve and Four Great Rivers area. He is also the director of SHARE & CARE, a Nepal-wide NGO headquartered in Kathmandu.
Traci Hickson – United States: As Director of Development and Communications of Future Generations, Traci is building on the questions she explored during her Master’s regarding the Future Generations own institutional understanding of social capital and practice of community empowerment.
Bruce Mukwatu – Zambia: Working in more than sixty districts, Bruce founded the Zambia Academy of Community Change, thus partnering with scores of churches, local NGOs, and government agencies to address durable community provision for community-based health, agriculture, HIV/AIDS, and orphaned children.
James Patterson – United States: During and following his participation in the Master’s program, James has been pastor of a Nazarene church and founder/ director of a 16-congregation partnership of West Virginia African-American churches. The Master’s program equipped James to empower communities and further local ownership of government-mandated public health programs for minorities.
Pratima Singh – India: Pratima continues to educate and train among young tribal women in India’s northeast. Working through CHIRAG, a long-established NGO, she instructs communities in skills of monitoring and evaluation of women’s empowerment.
Class Two Profiles
Yamini Bala – United States: Of South-India origin but raised in Illinois, Yamini bridges her spiritual community and Detroit neighborhoods through “Education in Human Values,” modeling that self- and social-transformation go hand-in-hand. By engaging personal exploration and change, students can transform society.
Melene Kabadege – Rwanda: A nurse, midwife and genocide survivor, Melene now directs World Relief’s child survival program in Rwanda. She mobilizes community members to develop and test strategies for reducing neonatal deaths. A quiet and unassuming woman, Melene is a peacebuilding presence among Hutu, Tutsi, Twa, and Burundi villagers who once fought each other.
Margaret Kaggwa – Uganda: A neonatal public health nurse in the Community Health Department of the Mulago Hospital, Margaret researches the impact of feeding patterns on HIV/AIDS positive babies. Her Master’s work provided methods for monitoring, evaluating, enhancing, and taking to scale best practices in feeding and drug regimes for this vulnerable population of Ugandans.
Tage Kanno – India: Kanno researches the effect of new training methods and knowledge among tribes that lie vulnerable to government and corporate usurpation of natural resources and native cultural identity. He is a medical doctor and supervisor of Future Generations health and conservation projects in Arunachal Pradesh, one of the several tribal states of India’s northeast.
Jarka Lamacova – Czech Republic: Jarka developed global education programs for high schoolers in the Olomouc region of the Czech Republic. “People in Need” and “Summer School of Development Assistance” introduce a broader world to Czech youth, even as they learn to engage Roma and Vietnamese neighbors within their country.
Ellen Lampert – United States: Artist, entrepreneur, linguist, and community organizer, Ellen serves the Santa Fe Council on International Relations by developing global and inter-cultural contacts for New Mexico. She is a social activist committed to border/immigrant justice and durable economic models for New Mexican farmers.
Nguyen Tien Ngo – Vietnam: A faculty member of An Giang University in the Mekong Delta, Ngo is implementing and testing the effectiveness of new community development materials and inter-cultural teaching methods for Vietnamese university classrooms. These materials and pedagogy will next be introduced to Vietnam’s secondary schools.
Sivan Oun – Cambodia: Sivan trains scores of community-based Care Group health workers and serves as liaison with the district officials, NGOs, and medical college. She is leading a large maternal and child health project that is showing impressive results in improving child survival rates.
Dang Ngoc Quang – Vietnam: Founder/director of one of Vietnam’s first NGOs—Rural Development Services Centre—Quang trains young doctors and social workers from Hanoi for holistic service and analysis of social capital, gender, conservation, and ethnic minority concerns in twelve project communes across Vietnam’s north.
Mavis Windsor – Heiltsuk Nation, Canada: A social worker and member of the Heiltsuk Women’s Council, Mavis sponsors and studies the effect of “wild salmon family camps” that reconnect tribal members to the land, resources, values, and family unity of the Heiltsuk Nation. This nurtures reintegration of people once separated from their homeland by Canadian schooling, and now threatened by dwindling salmon stocks.
Tshering Yangzom – Bhutan: A leader in the Tarayana Foundation of the Queen of Bhutan, Tshering walks among villagers and government planners at a key juncture in Bhutan’s political life. As her Himalayan state evolves into a Constitutional Monarchy, Tshering’s foundation is including the needs of the marginalized communities of Bhutan into the national action agenda.
Class Three Profiles
Said Habib Arwal – Afghanistan: Arwal is Kabul’s first coordinator of National Community Based Health Care (CBHC) under Afghanistan’s Ministry of Public Health. Given his country’s state of war and weak infrastructure, he is distributing information on malaria, nutrition, family planning and hygiene by training forty NGOs on best uses of his Afghan Family Health Book.
Tilele Bayissa – Ethiopia: During Tilele’s Master’s work, her focus has shifted from Ethiopian inter-tribal peacebuilding, to a two-year position in Washington, D.C. as a housing activist among Ethiopian refugees, and now back to an Ethiopian home base for her research and training among contentious tribes. (Tilele began with Class Two and will finish her M.A. with Class Three.)
Kristin Baskin – United States: Kristin’s work is in a debilitated section of South Philadelphia. Via urban gardening initiatives that transform vacant lots, Kristin bridges the lives of university youth and neighborhoods of racial/economic division. Her Master’s studies have shown her integrated community models in India that creatively address racial, economic, social, and health challenges.
Joy Bongyereire – Uganda: As a project coordinator for Africa 2000 Network- Uganda, Joy promotes sustainable, ecologically viable, and financially rewarding farms in Kisoro. Her Ugandan programs have included advocacy, networking, and training, and now extend to women’s groups in Kenya and Tanzania.
Jose Cabrejos – Peru: “Pepe” pioneered and tested concepts of SEED (Self Evaluation for Effective Decision-making) and SCALE (Systems for Communities to Adapt, Learn and Expand) in Andean villages wracked by civil war. As a physician, he is now researching patient, health worker, and community satisfaction with CLAS to discern further steps for improvement. (Pepe began his M.A. studies with Class One and will finish with Class Three.)
Tsering Digi – Tibet, China: From her base in the language faculty of the University of Lhasa, Tsering Digi has launched Hope Corner, an outreach and empowerment program for Tibetan youth. Hope Corner provides artistic, cultural, linguistic, and applied learning opportunities for an indigenous population whose identity and ways are challenged. The Master’s class has an opportunity to visit Tsering Digi’s university and Hope Corner during its fourth term of study.
Abdo Abo Elella – Egypt: Abdo’s long-standing endeavor in Cairo is to help extremely marginalized slum neighborhoods secure a potable water supply. His Master’s studies show him effective models for outside NGO, community, and government partnerships that can address the politics, economics, and inter-cultural barriers to justice. (Abdo began his M.A. studies with Class Two and will finish with Class Three.)
Dan Hinojosa – Bolivia: In Bolivia, the poorest of South American countries, provision of health care is vital. Through the Methodist Health Service in La Paz, Dan addresses parasitic, nutritional, and basic health care for youth. Learning from Future Generations models in India and Peru, he seeks to implement an integrated health service to train community-based health care workers.
