Welcome to our new Sri Lanka Emerginistas!

Posted by Alia on Wednesday, June 10, 2009

We are excited to welcome two new fabulous Emerginistas to our team in Sri Lanka!

Rachael Pool (Country Director)- Rachael Pool grew up in Mountain View, Arkansas. In 2007 she received a BA in Philosophy from Bates College. While at Bates, Rachael competed internationally with the Brooks Quimby Debate Council, served as a peer health educator, and worked as a Campus Campaign Manager for Teach for America. She spent her junior semester abroad in Madurai, India, where she conducted ethnographic research on women’s health issues in the community. Rachael’s senior thesis was on the capabilities approach to women’s reproductive justice in Tamil Nadu, India.

Most recently, Rachael has worked for Comprehensive Prospect Research, a firm specializing in research support to non-governmental and private-sector corporations. She currently resides in Washington, DC and will be heading to Sri Lanka as our new Country Director in early July.

Jennifer VanWinkle (Programs Director)- Jennifer, who grew up in the Midwest, loves to travel and live abroad. She received a BA in Anthropology and a certificate in Islamic Studies from Arizona State University. She got her first taste of life abroad as an undergraduate when she studied at Thammasat University in Bangkok as an exchange student. While in Thailand, she developed an interest in Southeast Asia and some of the social issues that she encountered. Upon returning to the States she dove into non-profit work, volunteering for ALERT (the Arizona League to End Regional Trafficking) and then working with FAIR Fund, Inc., a non-profit that works in the fields of anti-human trafficking, domestic violence, and sexual assault prevention. As the International Programs Officer for FAIR Fund she managed two programs in Bosnia and Serbia targeted toward at-risk youth and trafficking survivors. The time spent in Serbia gave her a passion for at-risk youth and a desire to help them achieve secure livelihoods. She has studied multiple languages and is most fluent in Serbian (or BCS) and Spanish.

Rachael and Jennifer, we are so excited to have you on the team!

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Get Involved by Joining the Emerge Team!

Posted by Alia on Saturday, May 02, 2009

What if a necklace could mean a lifetime of freedom and hope for a girl in Sri Lanka?
With your help, it can...

Emerge Global is currently recruiting highly motivated, creative, and passionate individuals to fill positions on our team in the US and in Sri Lanka! As a young organization, this is a great opportunity to shape our evolving work.

Emerge Global is currently recruiting highly motivated, creative, and passionate individuals to fill positions on our team in the US and in Sri Lanka! As a young organization, this is a great opportunity to shape our evolving work.

If interested, please send a cover letter, resume and letter of recommendation to Alia Whitney-Johnson (alia@emergeglobal.org)

SRI LANKA POSITIONS:
Sri Lanka Country Director
Sri Lanka Program Development Officer

UNITED STATES POSITIONS:
Development Officer
Sales and Marketing Officer
Design Officer
Public Relations Officer
Web and Information Technology Officer Read more »

Welcome to Our New Emerge Officers

Posted by Alia on Monday, October 06, 2008

As a growing organization with big hopes, we rely not only on the generosity of our many individual donors but also on an inspired and dedicated group of long-term volunteers. It is my pleasure to announce the following officers, who will be volunteering their time to Emerge for the next year:

Assistant Director- Nour Abdul-Razzak
Development Officer- Lauren O'Toole
Operations Officer- Dilini Warnakulasuriyarachchi
Organizational Design Officers- Hattie Chung & Meghan McCullough
Public Relations Manager- Melodie Kao
Clerk- David Foxe

Without all of you, our programs would not be possible!

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2008 Summer Intern

Posted by Alia on Friday, July 11, 2008

By Melodie Kao, MIT 2010

This summer, I am interning full-time with Emerge, sponsored by MIT’s Program for Human Rights and Justice. A rising junior at MIT, I am a rower majoring in Physics and concentrating in Architecture. My passion for all types of design led me to Alia this past February, who asked me to join Emerge’s Bead Committee after noticing that I had made my own earrings. I distinctly remember the night that she talked to me and the rest of the students whom she had recruited. The ten of us were huddled around a table in a small, darkening corner of MIT. And there was Alia, eyes wide and filling the small space with the stories of the girls at Emerge, with the barely restrained energy of her own ideas, with the incredible potential that we could all add to Emerge. As I listened to Alia speak, I knew that we were more than just a group of college girls hoping to help part of the world. I could feel myself becoming a part of something much greater and filled with so much beauty that I could barely breathe: I was becoming part of all of the hope, all of the lives, and all of the strength of Emerge. In that instant, I knew that I would do much more than develop new jewelry designs. So here I am for the summer, working day and night with one of the most inspirational people I know, doing all that I can to help Emerge grow and making a great friend in the process.

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Announcing Our New Emerge Sri Lanka Team

Posted by Alia on Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Four incredible women will pack their bags and head to Sri Lanka in September 2008: Ellen Sojka, Lauren O'Toole, April Wachtel, and Karen Noiva.

Ellen Sojka- Emerge Sri Lanka Director- Ellen has a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and minors in Management and Chemistry from MIT. From her involvement in her sorority, Alpha Chi Omega, as well as MIT's Panhellenic Society, Ellen has developed a passion for empowering women and promoting women's issues. Ellen began working with Emerge in October, 2007, as the Emerge Finance Director. She has deferred Teach For America to move to Sri Lanka as Emerge's Sri Lanka Director, where she will oversee all of Emerge's activities in Sri Lanka, including expansion of the Bead Program and the development of the Emerge Village Project. In her spare time, Ellen loves going to musicals, yoga, and reading fiction.

Lauren O'Toole- Emerge Community Director-Lauren holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Boston University. In her senior thesis, she studied gender stereotypes and the impact of youth groups on the development of confidence and self-efficacy. She is excited about the mission of Emerge and is passionate about using entrepreneurship to empower women and fight poverty. While in Sri Lanka, she will be the advocate for all with whom Emerge works. She will study the impact that Emerge has on the women involved, research other successful community programs, seek out new beneficiaries, and build needed partnerships. Lauren enjoys traveling, foreign cultures and cuisines, recreational skiing, running, soccer, Salsa dancing, psychology, and reading non-fiction.


April Wachtel- Emerge Creative Director- April has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Boston University, where she also focused on communications, writing, languages, and logic. April spent 2004 to 2006 working in fine dining restaurants and finding her intellectual path through a wide range of internships. In 2006, she discovered the Hundred Dollar Laptop project at MIT, and became enamored by the thought that simple design+ strategy+ amazing people can solve world problems. Inspired by the project, she entered the Massachusetts College of Art’s (MassArt) Industrial Design Certificate program. April is thrilled to be working with Emerge, eager to combine her creative and business interests to serve others. As the Emerge Creative Director, April will carry Emerge's mission forward, expanding the Emerge Bead Program and working on Emerge's general programming.

Karen Noiva- Sustainability Coordinator - Karen has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from MIT with a concentration in Sustainable Design. She approaches engineering as a way to balance human needs with environmental concerns as well as the growing disparity between those with access to technology and those who don't. She first became interested in Emerge in 2006 when living with Alia and was touched by the stories of the girls and how such a seemingly small thing as stringing brightly-colored beads on a necklace could be such a positive force of change in their lives. She became involved in December 2007 through her work on the architecture of the Emerge Village Project. This fall, Karen will coordinate the next steps of Emerge Village Project's physical design, investigating local materials, collecting information about the building site and surrounding community, and identifying opportunities for environmentally conscious technologies like solar power and rainwater harvesting.

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