Meeting and eMeeting

One of the things that I love about projects, the physically demanding and call for action to be done type of projects, is that you can see the progress more tangibly as you move forward. That is how I feel at least. My compañero and I have been meeting and e-meeting people this week to try and develop relationships that will be beneficial for the Centro, as well as the specific project we are working on with the mediation resource center. We have set up a few different appointments for the coming week and hope that we can continue to make progress in finding a way for this to all come together and work. While these projects can at times be frustrating for some, for me they allow my brain to run free and think of the crazy things that makes things work. My brain is very entrepreneurial in that it has ideas, crazy ideas at times, that need some direction and development. When put together on a team of people that I trust, these ideas usually turn into a great product and help as we work to refine the ideas and invite more ideas to the process. I’m hoping that this is what will happen this week as we continue to meet and e-meet people that are all wanting to help the Latino community here in Eugene. Vámonos!

Hope...

In the past week of the internship we have been making some progress of making something happen with a mediation center/resource at the Centro Latinoamericano. We went to the library and did a couple hours of research for foundations in Oregon that donate grant resources and money to organizations of culture and human services. We ended with a fairly lengthy list, which we hope will be beneficial for us in the future as we try and get something off the ground for Centro. We will look further in to these and see about submitting grant proposals. Hopefully we can get through to some people of the need that the Latino community has for something so valuable as mediation. Aside from this, while we were working on this we heard from our supervisor that there is a man willing to donate time to help with mediation for people at the Centro... there is hope yet. HAY ESPERANZA!

Internship Winter '13

A fellow Cohorcho (cohort 8) in the CRES program at the University of Oregon and I have been given an amazing opportunity. We have scored a great internship with the Centro Latino Americano here in Eugene. The Centro is a great organization trying to help serve the Latino community here in the Eugene area. They have many resources available for people, such as counseling, youth mentoring and substance abuse resources (just to name a few). We were introduced to the director from another grad student on campus. We met with the director and talked about the possibility of working together to continue on the dream of another student, which is to have a mediation center for the Latino community at Centro. We will be working with them to try and set up a mediation resource center. Needless to say, I am very excited for his opportunity to combine my interest in mediation with my love of the Latin culture.