Volunteer :: Volunteer Grant Recipients

Sue Ron-Gonzalez has worked as a special education teacher with the San Francisco Unified School District since 1988. Currently, she is a resource specialist in one of the largest elementary schools in San Francisco. Her passion is to teach students to become lifelong readers and writers. Two years ago, she began her first overseas volunteer experience teaching literacy in Elmina, Ghana. Afterwards, she knew that she had to get back to Ghana someday. Luckily, the following summer she was awarded a grant from Fund For Teachers to start a chapter of an International Book Club in Elmina, Ghana. Each child in the book club authored a book for their library to share with other children around the world on the website bookclub.realelibrary.com. When Sue returned to her school in San Francisco, her students authored books to share with the students in Ghana.

Thanks to Omprakash, Sue will have an amazing opportunity to continue to form global connections between students in the US and Africa through Peace Humanity International in Jukwa, Ghana. This grassroots NGO is dedicated to promoting peace through education, quality health care, women and youth empowerment through skills training and sustainable environment. She will be bringing a set of cameras through a Photopals grant to use with her literacy project. The students will make alphabet books about the community of Jukwa and will write stories and take photos about the best part of themselves. When she returns to her own school, her students will begin the same photo-literacy lessons to share on the Omprakash site.

While in Jukwa, Sue will help Peace Humanity International by supporting their efforts in having a stronger internet presence. She will also provide lesson plans and training to those who work in the library so that they can continue to support literacy instruction for the
children of Jukwa.

When Sue returns to the US, she plans to share Omprakash’s mission with other teachers in her district and with educational and community organizations. She is excited about developing lesson plans to share on the Omprakash site. Mostly, she is passionate about connecting students around the world through literacy and looks forward to achieving this dream on the Omprakash site. Volunteering in Ghana proved to be a life changing event for Sue, and she looks forward to mentoring future volunteers so that they can have life changing experience, too.

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This summer, Molly Ortiz will be traveling to Ho, Ghana, to volunteer with Ghana ACT. Ghana ACT is a nonprofit organization, started in 2009, that organizes volunteers from around the world to work alongside members of the community to educate and empower local underprivileged youth. Through education, health services, and community development, Ghana ACT seeks to foster a mutual appreciation of culture.

As part of Ghana ACT’s education program, Molly will be teaching English, Math, Science, and Computer Skills to students at McColin’s Primary School. She will be volunteering with her friend and cross-country and track teammate, Annelise Madison, who will also be teaching at McColin’s school. Together they intend to start up an afterschool sports program for the students, which they are entitling Athletes ACT. Ghana ACT’s program director, John Barber, is extremely supportive of this endeavor, especially because currently the organized recreational opportunities for the female students of McColin’s school are limited. Their goals for the program will be to expose the students to new sports and the fundamentals of injury prevention and general physical well-being, while also implanting an enthusiasm for goal-setting, sportsmanship, competiveness, and teamwork. Molly is very excited for this opportunity to share her passion for athletics with the students of Ho, and grateful to Ghana ACT for their receptiveness to the program.

Molly grew up in Ketchikan, Alaska, and is currently studying English and Environmental Studies at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. Molly intends to spread the word about Omprakash on her campus in conjunction with International Education office, which provides information to any students interested in service opportunities abroad. She will post video documentation of her experience to Omprakash’s “Documentary” section and the Ghana ACT website. She also intends to post regular updates of her experience to her Omprakash profile over the summer, and will provide a blueprint of the new Athletes ACT afterschool program to the Omprakash “How-To” resource page.

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Having taught elementary school near La Ceiba, Honduras in 2008 and 2009, Kate Olden is excited to be returning to the northern coastal area to work with Honduras Children in the town of El Porvenir. She will spend 4 weeks conducting workshops with teachers of kindergarten and first grade, working with them to identify and solve instructional challenges they face in their classrooms.

Kate has previously worked as a research fellow with Save the Children in Oruro, Bolivia. She now teaches preschool with a bilingual family literacy program in Washington, DC, where she works with dual language learners. Kate received her Masters of Education in International Education from the George Washington University in 2011 and is currently completing a Masters of Teaching in Early Childhood from Trinity University in Washington, DC.

Hailing from southeastern Texas, Kate grew up around a lot of Spanish but did not begin to really work at speaking it until 2006, four years after finishing her undergraduate degree (adult language learners, have hope!). She has since travelled to Peru, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, as well as spending signifcant amounts of time in Honduras, Bolivia, and Cuba.

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Emily Fox is currently a senior at Mt. Ararat High School, which is located in the small town of Topsham, Maine. She will be volunteering in New Delhi, India with Project Why. While she has participated in local volunteer projects through the Rotary, the Civil Rights Team, and other local service groups, this will be her first time abroad.

Project Why aims to give children a chance to gain an education and have access to opportunities that are not otherwise available to them. Emily will spend eight months in the city working with primary school teachers to help teach the children English.

After returning from India, Emily plans to work towards her degree in International Relations so that she can return to India and Project Why. She hopes to provide further aid beyond the classroom.

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This summer, Michael Hromadka will be working with Lumana, a microfinance organization that provides basic financial services to the rural poor in the Volta Region of Ghana. Lumana’s belief is that these services, including business education classes, microcredit lending and savings account creation, can provide the financial security that will improve the communities of rural Africans. As a Lumana fellow, he will be working as an analyst and underwriter for Lumana’s small business lending operation. This operation, called Lumana Connect, seeks to lend money to medium-sized businesses in industries that are vital to the local economy. For example, Lumana Connect’s first loan will be originated in late March to a company that cans tomatoes produced by local farmers, many of whom acquired their seed money through Lumana’s co-operative loan program. Lumana Connect seeks to create a sustainable cycle of economic growth by empowering the businesses that provide services to the people, who in turn use these services to improve their quality of life. Beside researching and underwriting small business loans, Michael will work with graduate students from the University of Toronto and the University of Seattle in a support role for Lumana’s staff.

A variety of past experiences helped lead Michael to Lumana. After graduating from the University of Colorado at Boulder, he interned in Dallas, Texas at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a non-profit organization that relocates United Nations refugees to the United States. There he helped refugees find gainful employment and also taught the IRC’s English as a Second Language (ESL) Class. After the internship ended, Michael took his passion for teaching and working with others to Buenos Aires. In Argentina, he taught English at a small private school located in Villa Urquiza. After the conclusion of his year in South America, he returned to Dallas where he currently works as an analyst at a real estate finance company. 

Michael is honored to be working with both Omprakash and Lumana. He intends to document the majority of his work in Ghana and upload these resources to the Omprakash website, effectively creating a how-to microfinance manual for volunteers that follow him. In addition to this, he will blog on Omprakash’s website actively and reach out to the career services and study-abroad offices at his graduate school in order to spread the word about Omprakash.

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Taryn graduated from Virginia Tech in 2012 with a Bachelor of Science in Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise, with a concentration in Exercise and Health Promotion, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish. At Virginia Tech, she was president of the Foundation of International Medical Relief of Children, co-captain of the club field hockey team and group fitness instructor. In 2010, she participated in an alternative spring break trip to Costa Rica where she worked in a medical clinic. In 2011, she studied abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina and had the opportunity to backpack throughout Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia. While traveling abroad, she attempted to sell peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches in the street and taught local Bolivians how to make S’mores.

Taryn will be volunteering with Voluntario Global in Buenos Aires, Argentina for 4 weeks by teaching English in an elementary school.. After volunteering in Argentina, she will head to Honduras to work in two medical clinics for one year. She aspires to help address malnutrition in Latin America and is excited to have the opportunity to travel more and experience new cultures. Given that two of her favorite hobbies are writing and making short movies, Taryn plans on making a documentary and sharing stories and videos with other volunteers and organizations around the world.

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Amara will be volunteering with Abriendo Mentes in Playa Portrero, Costa Rica during the summer of 2012. She will be working with the volunteer teachers and staff to develop an English curriculum for the school’s English classes. She will also be working with the community to bring the classes of Abriendo Mentes to nearby areas so that more people can be involved in the program. She will be attending the Cross-Cultural Education Workshop hosted by Abriendo Mentes in July as well.

Currently, Amara is a doctoral student in Literacy, Culture, and Language Education with a minor in Elementary Education at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. She received a B.A. in Hispanic Studies and Psychology from Washington College and a M.A. in Education from the University of Delaware. She participated in study abroad and exchange programs in Venezuela, Paraguay, and Peru and is very excited to live in Costa Rica for the summer. Her research interested include exploring what children are learning (both culturally and linguistically) in second language programs in elementary schools in the U.S.

As a graduate student, Amara teaches in the Cultural Immersion Projects, which is a program that sends pre-service teachers overseas to complete part of their student teaching. These students take a year-long preparation course on cross-cultural awareness and culturally relevant teaching methods. Amara is excited to share the Omprakash mission with her students because many of them seek longer-term service learning opportunities after they teach abroad. She plans to make presentations about her experience with Abriendo Mentes and ways to become involved with Omprakash to her students as well as other to other departments and volunteer groups around campus. She also plans to work with the School of Education at Indiana University to advertise the opportunities Omprakash provides to students and teachers in the community.

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Madeleine Gieysztor's first summer job as a student was at a day camp. It was there that she discovered how much she loves working with children. After three summers at the day camp, she went to volunteer with Omprakash Partner Seeds of Hope in Peru. What started as a one month stay turned into two months. Then she found herself coming back the following year.

With Seeds of Hope, one of Madeleine's projects was starting a swimming program for the children. The initiative was a success! The children learned a healthy activity, gained self-confidence and took advantage of an affordable resource in their community.

In May, Madeleine will return to Seeds of Hope. In addition to taking on more responsibilities as International Coordinator, she plans on continuing and improving the swimming program she had initiated the previous year. Madeleine will also connect with potential Partner organizations around Huaraz and do community outreach in Peru as well as in her native Montreal, Canada.

Madeleine has a BS from McGill University. She has experience working as Co-Director with the International Humanity Foundation's center in Kenya. She has also served as a Community Support Officer on an agricultural cooperative supported by the Canadian Cooperative Association.

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Joyce has been interested in engaging herself in local volunteer work for several years, and is ready to take her skills abroad.She was born in Seoul, South Korea, raised in San Jose, California, and is now living in Lexington, Kentucky as a sophomore at the University of Kentucky. Joyce has worked with Habitat for Humanity to help fundraise and provide fair housing for low- income families in her local community. She is also involved with a local non- profit immigration law clinic, tutoring recent refugees to prepare them for citizenship. 

Joyce is embarking on her first international volunteer trip this summer in Arequipa, Peru to work with Put Them First, an organization that aims to provide education and promote health for children living in impoverished areas of the world. While in Arequipa, she will be teaching at Chiguata Primary School, and will be matched as a mentor with a high-needs student. Additionally, she will work one day a week at the Community Library that PTF has established, maintaining the library, teaching literacy courses, and leading children’s reading programs. Joyce is ecstatic to be given this opportunity to work with Put Them First and hopes that this will be her first trip of many.

Upon completion of her volunteer trip this summer, Joyce will be heading to Valparaiso, Chile to study abroad for the semester. While in Valparaiso, she plans to visit several non-profit organizations and the surrounding area to spread the word about becoming an Omprakash Partner. When she returns to Kentucky, Joyce intends to use her own testimony and video documentation of her experience to speak to service-oriented student organizations on campus at her university and at high schools to inspire other students to seek volunteer opportunities through Omprakash. 

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Kaitlyn grew up in Clintonville, a rural area in Wisconsin. She obtained her bachelor’s in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in 2010. Kaitlyn is currently living in Chicago, IL and is attending her final semester of graduate school at the Adler School of Professional Psychology to obtain her master’s in Counseling Psychology. She has a variety of experiences working with young people, particularly at-risk populations in settings such as residential treatment, summer camp, mentoring programs, and the development of college and vocational prep curriculum.

One of Kaitlyn’s greatest inspirations is music. She began playing the piano at age 5 and has since learned several other instruments including the guitar, harmonica, and most recently the Calabash, specifically the Thelevi. Kaitlyn will be traveling to Kissemah Village, just outside of Accra, Ghana to volunteer with Mawuvio’s Outreach Programme. Her primary purpose will be to establish an after school music program for the children attending this free school. She will also spend time giving individual music lessons and helping teach core subjects during the school day. Kaitlyn wishes to share her love and passion for music with the children of Mawuvio’s Outreach Programme while also learning more from the children about the musical traditions and culture in Ghana.

Kaitlyn has been aiding Renee Farwell of Mawuvio’s Outreach Programme in raising funds by helping her sell African jewelry from Achimota Market, Ghana. She is also planning on spreading the word about Omprakash and its partners through presentations and student contact at her university as well as community outreach in her hometown.

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Michael Perugini was born and raised in Wolcott, Connecticut. He graduated in 2011 from The Taft School, a boarding school not far from his home. In the fall of 2012, he will attend Yale University, where he intends to study Economics and Computer Science. His interests include literature, global politics, and ping-pong.

After dedicating himself almost exclusively to academics for four years, Michael is ready to put down the books, step out of the library, and do something completely different. A vocal advocate of social justice, he is incredibly excited to begin work with the Amy Biehl Foundation, whose mission is, fundamentally, to create a society of equality and unity, in which everyone has proper rights and dignity.

While in Cape Town, Michael will serve as a full time intern. His responsibilities will include recruitment, fund-raising, and teaching English and mathematics. He is most looking forward to working with children and meeting new people in an unfamiliar and diverse place.

Upon returning home, Michael plans to spread the word about Omprakash by talking to local students, writing for various publications, and using online social media. He also intends to create a presence for Omprakash at Yale, both by communicating with students directly and by introducing Omprakash to the Yale Career Services office, which connects students with internships and volunteer opportunities.

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Born and raised in California, Alyssa graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2009 with a degree in Global and International Studies. During her time at university she caught the travel bug while studying abroad in Paris, and was also able to gain non-profit experience junior year while interning in Washington, DC at the Meridian International Center, and senior year in Santa Barbara interning at SEE International. Upon graduation she spent two summers running medical and educational clinics with a group of alumni in Ecuador, where she discovered her passion for working with children, the great outdoors, and community development through public health. She spent last year teaching English in an elementary school in Madrid, Spain.

Alyssa is thrilled to be going back to Latin America. She will be volunteering in Guatemala through Quetzaltrekkers, where she will lead hikes in order to fundraise for their children’s shelter and school. A large part of her time will also be spent with the children, to provide after-school tutoring or to organize various games and activities. Alyssa is excited to spread the word about Omprakash by utilizing social media, giving presentations to her alma mater and to new potential partners in Guatemala, and through outreach next year while obtaining her Masters in Public Health.

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