Hello again,
Internet!
It’s been a
while, and I never told you about the end of my internship in Nicaragua, for
which I apologize. Since my last post, I
concluded my internship with FSD, finished grad school, and moved back to my
beloved hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
I’m back,
and resurrecting this blog to tell you about two new exciting developments.
First, after
several months of job searching, at the beginning of November, I began working
with an organization called East Central Ministries. ECM is a faith-based community development
organization located in the International District of Albuquerque. The organization serves a low-income,
predominantly Hispanic/Spanish-speaking population, and focuses on partnering
with the community to develop sustainable and creative solutions to their needs. I love ECM’s approach to ministry, in that
they invite the community members to become agents of change in the process of
neighborhood revitalization, and the community members are the ones who define
their greatest needs and goals. ECM
carries out its mission through a variety of projects, including a low-cost
health clinic, a community food co-op, an urban farm social enterprise, an
affordable housing community, and youth programs.
My role at
ECM primarily focuses on grant writing (beginning with the clinic), and may
extend to include other communications and volunteer coordination tasks. This position is a really good fit for me, my
skills, and my interests, because I get to write, use my Spanish, and work
promoting human rights in the city that I love.
It’s a joy going into work every day, and I’m so excited that this gets
to be my first post-school job.
Thus far in
these two months, I have
- Read through dozens of old documents and grant applications to get my bearings
- Assembled a database of around 80 grant opportunities we can consider applying to
- Written and submitted two proposals
- Interviewed the clinic staff to understand their roles and perspectives
- Written new content for the website based on those interviews to better express the current operations of the clinic
If you’d
like to learn more about ECM, you can visit their website at www.eastcentralministries.org.
The other update
I’d like to share is a trip I am taking with a group from my church, Sandia
Presbyterian. We will be travelling to
Guatemala this January with Living Water International to help dig a well and conduct
hygiene classes in a rural community outside of Antigua.
I’m excited
about this trip because it will be an opportunity to build relationships of
service and compassion across cultures, and to see more of the diversity of the
Body of Christ. I like Living Water’s
model because they have a team permanently stationed in the communities where
they work to ensure the long term sustainability of the well projects, and
because they involve local community members on their team and in the coordination
of their projects.
I’m actually
currently fundraising (until December 18) for this trip, so if you’d like to
donate, you can do so here. Anything you can give would be much
appreciated. Prayers and encouragement
are also much appreciated!
Anyway, I
will be sure to give an update on the Guatemala trip, and I hope to be giving
some updates on my work with ECM in the coming months.
As always,
thanks for reading, and take care!
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