Past Issues
Current students in UC Peace Corps programs at DAAP
(as of April 2012)
Armenia
Michelle Bova — 2nd year Coverdell Fellow. Served in Armenia ('07-09). Environmental educator, taught, traveled to the country's capital twice a week to work with an environmental nonprofit focused on children, filmed an award-winning documentary. Internship involves organizing classes with an Over-the-Rhine nonprofit.
(Note: In Armenia, she organized a girls basketball team that competed weekly.)
Bulgaria
Jamey Pratt — 2nd year Coverdell Fellow. Served in Bulgaria ('06-08). Taught English, assisted a youth camp, worked with a group of Roma (gypsies). Internship involves neighborhood projects in Covington, including funding options and enhancing a historic preservation database of houses for a potential National Register Historic District.
(Note: He's proud that several of his former English students from Bulgaria now attend universities in English-speaking countries.)
El Salvador
Sara Ernst — 2nd year Coverdell Fellow. Served in El Salvador ('05-07). Taught agro-forestry and environmental education, including deforestation, endangered species, pollution, recycling. Also translated for visiting medical teams, worked with health camps. Internship at Environmental Community Services.
(Note: She once threw out her back hand-washing her underwear in El Salvador.)
Mona Almobayyed working with women in Guatemala.
Guatemala
Mona Almobayyed — Master’s International. Served in Guatemala and added a year of service (’08-11). Community development planner, worked with a government organization dedicated to women's issues, educated youth on HIV/AIDS, assisted with reforestation issues, taught English, helped local residents establish vegetable gardens.
(Note: In Guatemala, she met the man she later married.)
Liberia and Bulgaria
Jeff Kelley — 1st year Coverdell Fellow. Already has master's in public administration. Served in Liberia working with fisheries ('82-84) and Bulgaria working in community development ('05-07). Internship with associate professor Johanna Looye and the two DAAP Peace Corps programs.
(Note: He admits that he had never heard of Liberia before he went there.)
Macedonia
Dan Rankin — Masters International. Currently serving in Macedonia as a community development volunteer. Works for a small municipality in the cultural center. Having just arrived this past fall, he is still learning about his new home. Returns for second year of DAAP classes in 2013.
(Note: He happily reports that he has survived his first winter in Eastern Europe.)
Samoa
Trent Lobdell — 1st year Coverdell Fellow. Served in Samoa ('08-10). Economic development volunteer, helped women develop a community garden and bakers make new kinds of bread. Internship in Over the Rhine helps people deal with financial problems and home foreclosures. Also teaches a class on home ownership.
(Note: In Samoa, he once saw a man bathing in the ocean while holding an umbrella to keep the sun off his skin.)
Senegal
Katherine Haessler — DAAP's first Coverdell Fellow working on a doctorate. Has a Coverdell master's from Western Illinois. Served in Senegal, West Africa, ('03-04). Agriculture volunteer, helped villagers use genetically modified seeds to create community gardens, which improved diets and generated income. Also taught classes.
(Note: She taught a class in mud-stove construction.)
Vanuatu (Southwest Pacific)
Troy Frasier — 2nd year Coverdell Fellow. Served in Vanuatu with wife, Jasmine, and added a year of service ('06-09). Agro-business volunteer, helped farmers to share work to increase income, start a community tree nursery, start a manioc project to mill locally grown roots into flour. Third year: reopened a school and taught on a remote island. Internship with a nonprofit organization that assists with community housing. Interned for a low-income housing development organization.