By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
A team of seven Institute for International Cooperation and Development (IICD) instructors arrived in Dowagiac in September to train for six months of development work next year in Mozambique and Zambia, Africa.
Team members include a grandmother from Wisconsin, an Ethiopian refugee who spent the last 11 years in the Netherlands, a Portuguese woman interested in social work, particularly HIV/AIDS, an aspiring journalist from St. Louis, a man from Malawi who recently completed college in Missouri and a recent high school graduate from Germany.
They joke that they are like the disparate cast of “Gilligan's Island,” dubbing Wondifraw Ambaye the “Professor.”
IICD-MI is a residential international institute on Dailey Road that organizes programs specializing in issues concerning the developing world.
Programs cost each volunteer $6,000. Development instructor programs last 14 months divided into three parts. They are still in the first phase until March 2006 of training in Michigan.
Six months of African volunteer work follow from March 2006 through September 2006.
The final phase is two months of information activities in Michigan or abroad until November 2006.
The non-profit IICD has no government or religious affiliations. They raise funds they need to realize their objectives, including a “Walk for Africa” fundraiser this Saturday, Oct. 29, in South Bend, Ind.
They distributed 1,200 fliers across Michiana to promote the event, including colleges from IUSB to the University of Notre Dame.
They even gave a presentation in a political science class on one campus.
Besides fundraising, drawing attention to what's going on in Africa is a goal. “We'll have singing and teach people African songs,” Henriksen said. “We'll talk about the challenges that face the continent, so when they go away from the walk they can feel a bit more enlightened.”
Last Sunday the IICD team participated in a walk organized by Notre Dame students to benefit Ugandan children “and 350 people showed up for that walk,” Henriksen said. “Even though there are a lot of things going on,” such as hurricane relief, “people do have different things that they feel are important and support the cause.”
This will be the IICD's first trip abroad since April 2004.
In 15 years, IICD has trained more than 1,000 volunteers, who help build schools, plant trees, spread awareness about HIV/AIDS, assist the elderly and educate children.
Michelle Woppler
Woppler is the grandmother from Sheboygan, Wis. She raised three children and they “are making me a grandma repetitively. I have seven grandchildren - three of which were delivered by myself.”
She supported her family as a single parent working as an LPN.
A previous volunteer was 76, as is another Wisconsin enrollee arriving in December.
Richard Thompson
Thompson also hails from Wisconsin. “I wanted to go to Africa, basically. To me, it was just a trip at first. That's all I knew initially.”
As he learned more about development work by attending a meeting in Milwaukee last March, he wasn't dissuaded, but only grew more interested. He previously did maintenance work.
Jackson Kaphuka
Kaphuka just graduated from Missouri Southern State University with a degree in international relations. His development work will almost be an internship for his planned career with non-profit agencies.
Kaphuka selected Missouri coming from Malawi because it emphasizes its population of international students and study abroad.
Mariana Melo
Melo is from Portugal. “I just graduated in January of this year in social integration. It's an area of social services. My last year of college I got interested in working with HIV/AIDS,” including a research paper.
Portugal has a significant problem with HIV/AIDS, she said.
An estimated 42 million people worldwide are infected. Twenty percent of the children die before age 5. Fifteen percent of Mozambique's population is infected with HIV/AIDS.
Felix Hoefle
Felix is from “the middle” of Germany, “close to Cologne,” where he graduated from high school this year.
Hoefle lived in Madison, Wis., as an exchange student. Africa appealed to him as a way “to do something different than going straight to university,” where he expects to study engineering and economics.
His family is “used to” such absences. His sister lived in Spain for a year.
Shante Davis
Davis, a semester away from her mass communications bachelor's degree at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, wrote for the campus paper, The Current), served as president of the Association of Black Journalists and wants to be a print journalist.
Wondifraw Ambaye
Ambaye left Ethiopia 11 years ago for “Holland.”
He lives in The Hague in the Netherlands in a culture apart from his own.