June 12, 2005: Headlines: COS - Jamaica: Pittsburgh Live: When Andrew Fisher thinks back on his two years in Jamaica as a Peace Corps volunteer, he vividly recalls his work as a classroom administrator, and as an HIV/AIDS educator for community nurses. But it was a grant application he wrote for a new eight-room school wing that makes the University of Pittsburgh medical student grin.
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June 12, 2005: Headlines: COS - Jamaica: Pittsburgh Live: When Andrew Fisher thinks back on his two years in Jamaica as a Peace Corps volunteer, he vividly recalls his work as a classroom administrator, and as an HIV/AIDS educator for community nurses. But it was a grant application he wrote for a new eight-room school wing that makes the University of Pittsburgh medical student grin.
When Andrew Fisher thinks back on his two years in Jamaica as a Peace Corps volunteer, he vividly recalls his work as a classroom administrator, and as an HIV/AIDS educator for community nurses. But it was a grant application he wrote for a new eight-room school wing that makes the University of Pittsburgh medical student grin.
When Andrew Fisher thinks back on his two years in Jamaica as a Peace Corps volunteer, he vividly recalls his work as a classroom administrator, and as an HIV/AIDS educator for community nurses. But it was a grant application he wrote for a new eight-room school wing that makes the University of Pittsburgh medical student grin.
Making a difference
By Mary Pickels
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, June 12, 2005
[Excerpt]
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
When Andrew Fisher thinks back on his two years in Jamaica as a Peace Corps volunteer, he vividly recalls his work as a classroom administrator, and as an HIV/AIDS educator for community nurses. But it was a grant application he wrote for a new eight-room school wing that makes the University of Pittsburgh medical student grin.
"I'm hoping that will be my serious contribution," he said.
It is a Peace Corps mantra that if volunteer projects prove sustainable, that local efforts will be made to maintain them.
Fisher, a self-described "Key Club geek" in high school, spent 2000-2002 working in Kingston, Jamaica.
"It seemed like a natural segue from community service to international community service," he said, adding that the assignment made him more interested in services like program development, job creation and long-term projects.
Fisher, 27, calls the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn., area home. He and fiancee Elly Tretheway, a fellow Peace Corps volunteer he met in Jamaica, are planning a Labor Day weekend wedding in her hometown of Sacramento, Calif. They will spend the next three years in Pittsburgh until Fisher begins his residency.
Fisher found that many Peace Corps volunteers shared his political philosophy.
"Do it," he said, "instead of talk about it."
The experience helped feed a wanderlust he believes many Peace Corps volunteers share. He said he'd like to go overseas again, possibly to work in international health care.
Fisher said he found rural Jamaica, though impoverished, "quite pleasant." He worked in the slums of west Jamaica, in areas where tourists are cautioned against visiting.
Asked about advice he might give future volunteers, Fisher said they should give consideration to their housing. Some volunteers are housed with native families for a while, but often end up living on their own.
Fisher spent one year with a local man who, he said, "was a real source of information." Another year he spent living in the hills with a man who closely followed national politics and educated him on the Caribbean nation.
Such insights, coupled with his own observations on assignment, have increased his own national pride.
"I'm way more patriotic than I used to be," he said. "I'm a fundamental proponent of the States now."
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Story Source: Pittsburgh Live
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