[Jgfamembers] Announcing our 2008-2009 Gardner Fellows

[oleszek at berkeley.edu]

Dear Gardner Alumni,

Please allow me the privilege of telling you about three of
our new Gardner Fellows, all of whom share the spirit and
dedication to public service embodied by our founder.  I am
certain that Dr. Gardner would be very proud of all our new
Fellows from both sides of the Bay.

As it happens, Christina Hisel, Lia Marshall, and Sasha
Pippenger have a great deal in common regarding their
interests and ambitions in public life.  All three hope to
engage the world of "high-impact" philanthropy, albeit from
different angles.  By high-impact philanthropy I mean service
work that bridges theory and praxis to deliver tangible
results to marginalized communities.  Foundations, while
perhaps not the sexiest of public service organizations, seem
to us to offer the best opportunities for gaining practical
experiences in the implementation and delivery of service
programs.  At the top of each of our wish lists sits a
foundation of one kind or another.

In Christina's case, we've been honing in on foundations
active in efforts to alleviate poverty, either domestically,
internationally, or both. Fortunately there is no shortage of
good organizations dedicated to this cause, and the Ford
and Rockefeller Foundations immediately come to mind.
Christina's desire to fight poverty is a natural outgrowth of
her previous public service experiences addressing challenges
related to HIV/AIDS, the status of Liberian refugees in the
United States, the crisis in Darfur, the provision of community
health care, and the alarming increase in the prevalence of
autism among America's youth.  Christina's depth of experiences
in public service made her a natural choice to serve as
Assistant Director of the Cal Corp Public Service Center here
on campus, but perhaps her daily efforts one-on-one with an
autistic teenager over a three-month period is the most telling
aspect of Christina's character.  Needless to say, Christina's
patience and maturity in this effort speaks volumes about her
dedication to others.

As founder and director of the Shuar Health Project, Lia
Marshall managed a twenty-five member team and a budget of
$100,000 over a two-year period to provide safe drinking water
to ten Shuar communities in rural Ecuador.  After surveying the
needs of these communities, Lia and her team undertook the
construction and distribution of 120 safe water containers to
collect uncontaminated rainwater for drinking and sanitation
purposes.  Working with the indigenous leaders and earning the
trust of the Shuar locals was the first challenge.  The next
step was to transport massive amounts of water and concrete
miles and miles into the dense rainforests of Ecuador before
final construction of the tanks could be undertaken by her team
of engineers.  Lia's innovative approach produced dramatic and
positive results that can and hopefully will be replicated by
like-minded NGOs, especially considering the lethal threat posed
by water-borne diseases; bacterial, viral, and parasitic
infections continue to plague these populations.  Given this and
other experiences, Lia is focused on organizations at the
cutting-edge of global health policy and our short-list includes
the World Health Organization, the Gates Foundation, the Clinton
Global Initiative (a component of the Clinton Foundation), the
Center for Disease Control, and Google.org (Google's
philanthropic division).

When the levees gave way and contaminated water drowned the city
of New Orleans, Sasha Pippenger put her life on hold in service
to the struggling residents of that great American city.  As a
volunteer for the American Red Cross with advanced training as
an emergency medical technician, Sasha entered that world of
debris, despair, and death to provide as much as she could for
those caught in the throes of dire circumstance.  In the four
weeks immediately following Katrina Sasha worked around-the-clock
to deliver much-needed food and supplies.  She also provided a
human touch to the relief effort.  In her words, "The residents
of New Orleans desperately needed food and water, but what they
also wanted was the comfort of knowing that somebody out there
actually cared about them."  Having witnessed the connection
between global warming and the magnitude of natural disasters
firsthand, Sasha later served as student delegate of the Canadian
Youth Delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change in Bali, Indonesia during the Fall of 2007 (she
possesses duel citizenship in the US and Canada).  In this
capacity, Sasha prepared and presented policy solutions to world
leaders to untangle the numerous cross-cutting issues involving
human rights, equity, and climate change.  Moving forward, Sasha
will engage the service world as a Gardner Fellow with the Clinton
Global Initiative, the Clinton Hunter Development Initiative, the
Gates Foundation, USAID, the Aspen Institute, or the
International Rescue Committee.

As world-class individuals in your own right, I encourage you to
share any ideas you might have with our newest class of Gardner
Fellows.  They are all truly exceptional.  Even still, they would
certainly benefit from the advices and experiences of an older
generation of public leaders.  Some of you might already have
been contacted:  The first thing I tell new Fellows is to
communicate with former Fellows who might know a thing or two
about a slice of the public service world that you both have in
common.  Needless to say, former Fellows are an amazing resource
to new Fellows and we can't thank you enough for your continued
dedication to public service and the John Gardner Fellowship.

Yours Sincerely,
Mark



Mark Oleszek
Administrator, John Gardner Fellowship
University of California, Berkeley
135 Moses Hall #2370
Berkeley, CA 94720
(510) 643-8533 (tele)
(510) 642-3020 (fax)



> JGFA Members: Below are the areas of interest for 2008 Stanford Gardner
> and Ford Fellows. I imagine Mark will send a similar email with Berkeley
> folks. Please take a few moments to read through their interests and
> send me names of ideal organizations and/or mentors that come to mind.
> They may also contact you individually. Thanks for any ideas you can
> send my way! Megan
>
> Stanford Gardner Fellows
>
> Elizabeth Kersten – Human Biology
> Elizabeth’s area of interest is global health equity. She has worked
> throughout her Stanford career with HIV/AIDS, maternal health, and
> women's health in general and finds all facets of this broad field
> interesting. She is primarily concerned with the development of
> sustainable solutions/health systems that bring comprehensive and
> quality healthcare to resource-poor settings.
>
> Olga Medina – Political Science/CSRE
> Olga’s public service record has focused on the advancement and
> empowerment of underrepresented communities including experience working
> on civil rights, immigration, voting, and language access issues. She is
> interested in expanding immigrant access to and opportunities for
> effective participation in local communities and our nation as a whole.
> She hopes to work for an organization committed to advancing
> comprehensive immigration reform and protecting immigrants’ rights: more
> specifically, an organization that engages in community-based outreach
> and advocacy work on behalf of immigrant communities, especially the
> undocumented population. She would like to work on public policy
> research, engage in public education efforts in immigrant communities,
> and participate in legal cases or projects that affect immigrant
> constituencies and, overall, shape the image and debate surrounding
> immigration.
>
> Debbie Warshawsky – Urban Studies
> Debbie plans to dedicate her life to the fight against urban poverty and
> inequality in the United States - and the promotion of racial, economic,
> and political justice. She is interested in a community-based,
> non-profit placement that works to reduce urban poverty and inequality
> in the United States in minority-majority neighborhoods. She would also
> consider working in an urban mayor's office with a mentor focused on
> these issues. Debbie hopes to gain a better understanding about how to
> engage in effective community organizing, public-private partnerships,
> and community-based efforts to reduce poverty in low-income neighborhoods.
>
>
> Ford Fellows – 11 month placement in a United States Foundation
>
> Alyssa Battistoni – Political Science/American Studies
> Alyssa seeks a foundation placement focused on increasing the
> decision-making power of low-income and disadvantaged communities, both
> within governmental and philanthropic institutions. Her ideal foundation
> would be one focused on strengthening the relationship between citizens
> and government so that government is more responsive and citizens are
> more engaged and active. She is specifically interested in democratic
> participation-civic engagement programs focused on including low-income
> communities in decision-making and increasing their political voice. She
> also wants to work at a foundation focused on building relationships
> with the organizations it funds and supporting long-term work. Most of
> Alyssa’s experience is with domestic issues, but she is also potentially
> interested in foundations doing international work.
>
> Sheila Bijoor – Electrical Engineering/International Relations
> Sheila hopes to work at a philanthropic foundation that uses innovative
> technology solutions for rural development in developing countries --
> particularly telecommunications or energy solutions. An ideal foundation
> would have projects that offer her the chance to 1) engage in/evaluate
> pilot projects in the field; and 2) help set strategic vision for how
> the foundation will focus its efforts to use telecom/energy to empower
> and transform the lives of rural poor people in developing countries.
> Ideally the placement would be an operating foundation or at least a
> foundation “close to the ground.”
>
> Linh Tran – Human Biology
> Linh would like to work at a foundation focused on different approaches
> to preservation of open space (how to preserve it, how it should be
> utilized, etc.). In addition, she is very interested in the "parks and
> people" dilemma. She hopes to gain an understanding of how communities
> interact with and affect open spaces, whether these spaces are protected
> conservation areas or urban parks. She would love to be placed in a
> foundation that funds organizations that mediate natural resource
> conflict resolution and help stakeholders reach a sustainable solution.
> She is interested in two possible directions that will help her develop
> an understanding of environmental philanthropy.
>
> 1) A community or regional foundation heavily involved in open space
> issues as well as other community issues (poverty, literacy, etc.) to
> gain a greater understanding of the value of open space and its place
> within a community.
>
> 2) A foundation that is involved with promoting both sustainable use of
> natural resources and equitable access for women to those resources in
> developing countries.
>
> --
> Megan Swezey Fogarty
> Postgraduate and Alumni Programs Director
> Haas Center for Public Service
> Stanford University
> http://haas.stanford.edu
> 650-725-2870
>
> Thinking about life after Stanford?  Go to...
> http://haas.stanford.edu/index.php/item/1799
>
> Also explore the Haas Center's External Fellowships Database
> (http://haas.stanford.edu/index.php/item/1604) with 200+ public service
> opportunities, searchable by focus area, location, and duration.
>
> Stay informed!  Subscribe to the Haas Center's listserv by sending a blank
> email message to service4all-join at lists.stanford.edu with "subscribe
> service4all" in the body of the message.
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