Archive for the 'Peace Corps' Category
By Whitney Isenhower (RPCV Cameroon ’06-’08)
(pictures by Amber Byrne of Live It Out Photography, LLC)
Nearly 100 Washington, D.C.-area residents gathered in the Eighteenth Street Lounge’s warmly lit Gold Room on the evening of April 29 for a fundraiser supporting Education Fights AIDS (EFA) International, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that empowers African youth infected with and affected by HIV and AIDS in Cameroon and Rwanda.
Alim Ousmanou, EFA International’s Cameroon country representative, spoke at the fundraiser—one stop on a visit marking his first time in the U.S. Invited to participate in the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program from April 3-23, Ousmanou remained in the country for two weeks after the program to visit supporters of EFA International’s work carried out in Cameroon.
Alim Ousmanou
“It was wonderful to see how young Americans are helping the community of youth living with HIV and AIDS in Cameroon,” Ousmanou said of the Washington event.
EFA International’s efforts focus on creating associations for individuals infected with and affected by HIV and AIDS in Cameroon and supporting a center for orphans and vulnerable children in Rwanda. The organization began when Ousmanou and Andrew Koleros, then a Peace Corps Volunteer in Maroua, Cameroon, identified dozens of HIV-positive youth in the city who lacked the psychosocial, educational and financial support to live positively with the virus.
Along with Koleros, returned Peace Corps Volunteers Rachel Hoy, Michael Nilon, Erin Nilon and Nicole Sheldon-Desjardins officially incorporated the organization in 2006 to continue this work. Koleros, who currently sits on EFA International’s Board of Directors, said Ousmanou’s visit deepened members’ commitment to the organization, which advocates the Peace Corps’ Third Goal.
“It’s really motivated the board and volunteers,” Koleros said of Ousmanou’s presence at EFA International events in the U.S. “It reminded us of why we all got involved in this organization in the first place.”
For EFA International’s benefactors, Ousmanou’s presence at the fundraiser made the organization’s mission more resonant, clarifying what their involvement means for the youth the nonprofit enables to live positively.
“It was nice to hear somebody from the area where it’s being helped speak,” said Michael Causey, a Washington-based lawyer who attended the fundraiser. “It’s easy for Americans to say, ‘Look at the great work I’m doing.’”
(AJEPS photo taken by Caitlyn Bradburn (PCV Cameroon ’08-present)
EFA International currently supports eight independent groups in the Extreme North province of Cameroon. Income-generating activities to advance members in their communities and peer education programs to raise awareness about HIV transmission and prevention have empowered more than 120 young men and women.
Doumtigai Guibai, member of an EFA International-sponsored association in Mokolo, Cameroon, said her participation in peer education training motivated her to speak openly about HIV.
“People come up to me to congratulate me for my courage to speak about HIV in the community,” Guibai said in EFA International’s 2009 Annual Report. “At school, students call me the ‘mama’ for teaching them about HIV.”
During his visit, Ousmanou also attended fundraising events in Massachusetts and spoke at a Harvard Divinity School panel discussion on development and HIV in Africa. He said he was extremely affected by returned volunteers’ commitment to both EFA International and Cameroon.
“I saw so many people during my time in the U.S.,” Ousmanou said. “Seeing former Cameroon Peace Corps Volunteers was the most significant to me.”
To find out more about EFA’s work, go to http://efainternational.org/
Do you know about the National Peace Corps Association’s Africa Rural Connect (ARC) program? You’ve probably heard of it before, it’s an online collaborative space created to link R/PCVs, development professionals, African farmers, members of the African diaspora, and others in building strong project plans for the development of rural Africa. Theye encourage members of our affiliate groups (like Friends of Cameroon), to take part in this initiative and offer their insight, ideas, and experiences to the many discussions.
Check out the site to learn about our unique idea-sharing platform and Competition for seed-funding.
http://arc.peacecorpsconnect.org/
We recently began recruiting RPCVs from West Africa to teach secondary level Math, Chemistry and Physics in 9 month placements in Guinea, beginning in September 2010.
Secondary Physics Teachers
Secondary Math Teachers
Secondary Chemistry Teachers
Interested RPCVs can submit their applications online by following the links above, or can feel free to contact me directly at the email address or phone number below.
Thank you for your consideration and assistance!
All the best,
Brianna Fischer
Peace Corps Response
Peace Corps
1111 20th St NW
Washington, DC 20526
800-424-8580, extension 2247
bfischer @ peacecorps.gov
I’m currently an invitee and am leaving for Cameroon in June. I thought this site might be nice to find a way to contact some RPCVs from Cameroon and see if anyone had any suggestions for someone about to start their service.
Thanks for the help!
Sean Denny
sean.m.denny @ gmail.com
PCV Brad Wagenaar, town of Clifton, is a 23-year-old Peace Corps volunteer in the African west central country of Cameroon. His task is to promote rural public health. One project involved digging a new well to tap clean ground water as opposed to dirty surface water. His newest project is building a new primary school. Interested River Falls area residents can contribute. Next to Brad is his mother, Diane Mayberry, who visited him with her husband Steve in November. Cameroon villagers stand nearby.
(From River Falls Journal, Wisc., 2/1/10)
by Phil Pfuehler
Most college graduates want a decent-paying job and to move on with their lives.
Not Brad Wagenaar. Not yet. He’s moving on, but not for himself.
The rural River Falls resident graduated from St. Olaf College in Minnesota with a clinical psychology degree.
Through the nonprofit group Bike and Build, he cycled 3,527 miles one summer through Florida, Louisiana, Texas and California, stopping to put up Habitat for Humanity affordable houses and raising money for the homeless.
After that he signed up for a two-year stint in the Peace Corps and got sent to Cameroon, a west-central African country that borders Nigeria.
His assignment: Public health improvements in the hinterlands among 20 villages with a collective population of 90,000 served by a two-bed hospital.
“It’s amazing, really, how much responsibility they assign to these young volunteers,” says Steve Mayberry, Brad’s dad, whose town of Clifton home borders Kinnickinnic State Park.
Brad has worked with Cameroon villagers on AIDS prevention education, early childhood development, proper hygiene, and urged couples to feed their kids a high-protein meal called “soybean mash,” which is grown locally.
There are language, religion and cultural barriers to overcome, says his father, Steve. The women tend to be segregated and less inclined to speak with men.
Brad’s first public health project was raising money and finding a German charity to dig a new well for cleaner drinking water.
His next project is to build a furnished, modern, primary school for some 500 kids ages 6-15 in the village of Ketcheble.
Locals have raised part of the money for the $21,000 school, but Brad is also seeking outside funds.
“He needs about another $5,800 by the end of February,” says Steve. “This will be a school using local labor that’s made of concrete blocks and a metal roof, with desks and chairs, that should last for 50 years.”
Two mud huts with rock walls and dirt floors now serve as schools. Each is smaller than most American living rooms.
One has a stick roof that gives shade but no protection from rain. Inside there’s only a blackboard and plastic chair for the teacher. The other school hut has rocks and planks for sitting.
School attendance is low and the villages find it hard to attract teachers with such primitive facilities.
Steve says that he, his wife and Brad were inspired by book “Three Cups of Tea,” written by humanitarian Greg Mortenson.
Mortenson started Central Asia Institute which cooperates with rural natives in Pakistan and Afghanistan to build schools. His mother, Jerene Mortenson, was principal at Westside Elementary in the 1990s.
It was Westside students in River Falls and their “Pennies for Pakistan” fundraiser that launched Mortenson school-building efforts that are now globally acclaimed and supported.
“What Greg Mortenson is doing gave Brad the idea to build a school,” Steve said. “Education is important because of its lasting value, and Brad is into sustainable projects, those that live on forever.”
The best way to support Brad Wagenaar’s school building project in Cameroon is to get out your credit card and visit this website: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=694-154. There’s a link to donate.
If people would rather mail a check, Steve said to use his town of Clifton address: Steve and Diane Mayberry/W12617 770th Ave./River Falls, WI 54022.
by: JOHN STANCAVAGE
Tulsa World Business Editor
Sunday, August 23, 2009
When Cindy Cain steps up to the mike, temperatures rise.
The Tulsa singer’s stock in trade is the sensual side of jazz, whether wrapping her husky voice around standards such as “Make Love to Me,” “The Man I Love” and “Something Cool,” or leading a spirited call-and-response on the chorus of the jump-blues “Banana Tree.”
Even in that last tune, which Cain wrote, it doesn’t take long to grasp that the object of her desire has an appeal that’s far beyond agriculture.
Those four songs are among the standouts on Cain’s new album, “Rhythm & Romance,” recorded live last spring in the Primo Room at Brookside’s Ciao restaurant. Cain will hold a release party for the CD there Saturday night.
“I guess there can’t be any harm in being perceived as sexy or sultry,” Cain said with a chuckle during an interview. “But, really, the songs on this record are mainly those done by singers whose voices I’m attracted to.”
Cain quickly names Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Carmen McRae as three jazz legends at the top of her list.
Like those vocalists, Cain has an impressive range and power to spare. Another trait the local artist shares with them is she goes full-throttle only when it serves the song. Otherwise, she focuses on such increasingly rare skills as nuance and phrasing.
Cain, who was born in New Mexico but grew up in Pryor, has built an impressive resume. She has a roomful of awards, many earned during years spent performing professionally in Washington, D.C.
The singer decided to return to Tulsa in 2001 after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that involves the central nervous system.
“I didn’t know what trajectory it would take, so I decided to move back home,” she said.
Until now, she hasn’t spoken publicly about the MS. Apart from sapping her energy from time to time, however, the ailment has proved to be manageable. One only has to look at the 50-year-old Cain’s hectic schedule this year to see that’s true.
Along with four months of pre- and post-production on “Rhythm & Romance,” she gigged steadily with a blues band and had one of the lead roles in the SummerStage production “Onstage at the Midnight Social Club,” along with fellow jazz divas Pam Van Dyke Crosby, Rebecca Ungerman and Annie Ellicott.
And, like many musicians, Cain holds down a day job. She handles marketing and public relations for an area telecommunications firm.
Cain’s dual careers are the product of an adventurous streak that started after her graduation from Oklahoma State University in 1983.
She initially spent a few years as a newspaper reporter. Tiring of the crime beat, she volunteered for the Peace Corps and taught English in a government school in Cameroon. That’s when she began to dabble in music, performing in a restaurant for food and drinks.
“I had these cassette tapes that I had stolen from my mother,” Cain remembers. “‘Make Love to Me’ was on one of those tapes. That’s how long I’ve been singing that song.”
In 1989, Cain moved to Washington, D.C., to work as press secretary for U.S. Rep. Dave McCurdy. Her growing love for jazz and blues took her to the area’s many clubs, first to sing for fun and later full-time after McCurdy lost an election.
“From 1995 to 2000, I played about 140 shows a year,” she said. “It was hard work. I had to make about 20 phone calls to get each gig, and I needed 20 gigs a month to make a living.”
During that time, she put together a demo tape, which remains unreleased, and recorded her first album — a rhythm-and-blues-oriented collection called “Love Contest.” That 1998 CD still is for sale on Amazon.com.
After returning to Tulsa, her mother took her to Tulsa Jazz Society events, and Cain quickly found her niche on the local scene.
With a weekly shot keeping her MS in check, Cain hasn’t lost her restless nature. Over the past few years, she has maintained a calendar of steady jazz gigs and also can be heard playing cabaret, blues or country-roots as the mood strikes her.
She even recorded an album of original, Americana-flavored songs in 2006. The disk, “In Your Impala,” didn’t stray far from the Cain template, with the cover depicting the bare-shouldered singer canoodling with an admirer in a drop-top version of the title automobile.
For the next few months, however, Cain plans to focus on jazz. After all, she’s got a new record to promote.
“Eventually, I want to get the songs from ‘Rhythm & Romance’ on iTunes and (online retailer) CD Baby,” she said. “The record will be in some local stores as well.”
Until then, your best chance to grab a copy is at a live performance, such as Cain’s show Saturday at Ciao.
Be sure to get plenty of ice in your drink, however. The room is about to heat up.
