UC Davis Blum Center for Developing Economies

Here I share a photo montage of my experience working abroad in Haiti on a project aimed at increasing literacy in area schools near the Haiti/D.R. border. This experience changed my life.    Lady Carolina Tavarez, Spanish & Latin America Hemispheric Studies, UC Davis

( V ouchers for E nvironmental R esource D evelopment through E ducation). Who are we? We are a group of community development students, operating with support from the Blum Center at UC Davis, who are taking what we have learned in the classroom to Fresno, California.     What is our plan? We seek to collaborate with businesses, higher learning institutions, and non-profit organizations in Fresno to design a program that engages individuals of all ages in local community development projects with a particular focus on education and the environment.   Under this program local organizations will identify projects in which volunteers and student interns agree to provide twenty hours of service in exchange for a $1,000 tuition voucher.   For those attending a participating institution of higher learning the vouchers can be used as a reduction in tuition fees.   For those not contemplating enrolling, these vouchers are negotiable.   They can be gifted or...

We met up at the Seattle-Tacoma airport, early on the morning of June 26 th .   With loaded backpacks strapped to our bodies, we eagerly walked through the terminal, anticipating the experiences that were going to encounter.   While sitting on the plane, we began to discuss the details of the job we were about to undertake. With the support of the Blum Center, we have been hired by Freedom from Hunger as consultants to carry out qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys with clients of the Chiapas based microfinance institution, Al Sol.   Freedom From Hunger is a Davis, California based non-profit organization that provides support to microfinance institutions that implement “Credit with Education” programs and village-banking style loans. Freedom from Hunger has worked with Al Sol since they began operating in Mexico.   In 2009, Freedom from Hunger conducted interviews with women in rural communities in five regions of Chiapas: San Cristóbal de las Casa...