By Admin1 (admin) on Friday, September 26, 2003 - 8:03 pm: Edit Post |
NORVA took on the project at the suggestion of former Peace Corps director Kevin O'Donnell, who now lives in Cleveland and is a NORVA member.
NORVA took on the project at the suggestion of former Peace Corps director Kevin O'Donnell, who now lives in Cleveland and is a NORVA member.
NORVA (Northeast Ohio Returned Volunteer Association), was one of two RPCV groups given the Loret Miller Ruppe Award for Outstanding Service at this year's National Conference. Under the leadership of Joanne Bailis (mother of PAPCA member Anya Bailis), NORVA created the El Barrio English as a Second Language Program. The project's goal was to develop a successful, self-sustaining program targeted to the growing Hispanic population in Cleveland.
NORVA took on the project at the suggestion of former Peace Corps director Kevin O'Donnell, who now lives in Cleveland and is a NORVA member. Begun in 1992, the project works through El Barrio, a community organization. During the past year, the NORVA-El Barrio partnership provided free ESL for 235 students, combined the English program with a bilingual GED program to form the Adult Basic Literacy Education Program, offered several classes on life/job skills, and planted dozens of trees at a neighborhood recreation center.
Although NORVA intends to maintain its relationship with El Barrio, the program has now fulfilled the original goal of becoming self-sustaining. Kevin O'Donnell reports that the program is currently being turned over to community volunteers.
The second group sharing the Ruppe Award was the Alaska RPCVs. Under the leadership of Cathie Clements and Vera Hart, their project supported the Cameroon Children's Center and cross-cultural exchange with Kribi, Cameroon.
The program, which is on-going, represents a collaborative effort among several community service groups propelled by Alaska RPCVs to establish ties of friendship between Alaska and African students - offering alternatives, preventing delinquency, promoting community service, and helping to fund and build a children's community center in Cameroon. In June 1995 fifteen Alaskan high school students went to Kribi where they lived with local families and worked with townspeople to break ground and lay bricks for the center.
Jeanne Huang-Lee, Alaska RPCV newsletter editor/program manager and new NPCA Vice-Chair, reminded everyone at the Conference awards banquet that "If we can do it here, RPCVs can do it anywhere. Small groups have power, too."