In the summer of 2009, GPE worked with community members in the areas near the two satellite campuses of the Universidad Del Valle de Guatemala (UVG): Altiplano and Proesur. The purpose of this partnership was to develop grassroots outreach and education projects.
FSU student volunteers from GPE facilitated ESL trainings to university faculty and community members in workshop fashion in order to advance English language skills as well as English teaching skills. The GPE volunteers split up in two teams, one that was stationed in Altiplano near the Lake Atitlan and the other in Proesur in Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa. The trainings for the volunteers in Altiplano consisted of Wednesday trainings for the university faculty members and Saturday classes for teachers of the surrounding region. The focus of the trainings was to provide the teachers with innovative tools to use in the classroom as well as ways to further engage the students in their classes. The trainings in Proesur were held in a similar fashion and were accompanied by a conversation club to improve the teachers’ English speaking skills.
The GPE volunteers were also able to participate in the “Congreso para Maestros de Ingles”, which was a conference hosted by the university where teachers from all over the country came to learn more about English teaching. The volunteers each gave a workshop on a different topic in relation to English teaching.
Isabel Callejas, the director of GPE’s Bukomero program in Rwanda, was recently awarded the Boren Scholarship. Isabel, born in Miami and raised in Nicaragua, joined GPE’s team in 2007. She plans to use the scholarship to study Kiswahili in Tanzania. This prestigious scholarship provides unique funding opportunities for U.S. undergraduate and graduate students to add [...]
On assignment from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), Douglass Casson Coutts is a Distinguished Visiting Professor, Department of Nutrition and Food Science, College of Human Sciences at Auburn University. He is developing and teaching Auburn’s first undergraduate course on “World Hunger: Causes, Consequences and Responses,” assisting in designing a Hunger Studies Minor area [...]
The Global Peace Exchange has decided to suspend its Guatemala project due to the devastation caused by the recent Pacaya volcano eruption and passing of tropical storm Agatha through the country. The country is trying to recuperate from these events and it is not a good time for GPE volunteers to engage in a project [...]
Tuesday April 6: 7:30 pm Peace discussion meeting in Dunlap Success
Center, Rwanda Genocide vigil to follow on Landis Green around 8:30
Wednesday April 7: Tee Off For Toilets 10-2 on Union Green: Fundraiser for the new toilet sanitation project in Rwanda with games, an obstacle course, and bake sale.
Thursday April 8: Amnesty concert featuring Dave Tieff, Union Green
from [...]
There are now two separate components to the GPE project in Guatemala, each with its own goals and volunteers. The first of these consists of an exchange program for two FSU graduate students from the College of Education, who will spend a total of six months at the Proesur campus of Universidad Del Valle de [...]