The Dartmouth chapter of the International Humanitarian Foundation recently began a new project in Ecuador, forming a partnership with the Ali Shungu Foundation based in the small Ecuadorian village Otavalo.
Ali Shungu, a grassroots non-profit organization founded by Frank and Margaret Kiefer, conducts development projects that are led by community members in the five communities closest to Otavalo. Ali Shungu is currently supporting a local clinic being built entirely by the community.
Ryan McAnnally-Linz '06 has been involved with the IHF since his sophomore Fall term. In an e-mail from Bolivia, he said IHF is "primarily about hooking up the resources (intellectual and financial) that are present on college campuses with communities that are striving to enact change."
Dartmouth IHF president Erin Leavitt '08 also characterized the role of the group as one of partnership between college volunteers and grassroots organizations.
Leavitt recently returned from a week-long trip to Ecuador where she got to know the community through Ali Shungu. The purpose of the trip was for Leavitt to discuss the plight of Otavalo with IHF volunteers, such as McAnnally-Linz, community members and Ali Shungu leaders.
"The idea was to get a feel for what community members want to do, and what they want to work on with support from people in the states," Leavitt said.
McAnnally-Linz traveled to Ecuador with his wife, Heidi, over the summer of 2006. While there, he met an Ecuadorian woman named Ester who was running an after-school program. Ester approached McAnnally-Linz after seeing him teach students at her school and asked him if he would be able to help in her community.
Once McAnnally-Linz arrived in her village, the tiny San Juan Inguinchu, he learned more about Ester. She had studied at the University of Otavalo through a scholarship, but left her abusive alcoholic husband, with whom she had two children. She returned to her mountain village home, where she was continuing her studies. At the same time, she cared for her three young children, one from a previous relationship, and worked two teaching jobs to pay for expenses not covered by the small scholarship.
After McAnnally-Linz helped to save Ester's baby by bringing him to a private hospital and making sure Ester had enough money to have her child treated, Ester asked the couple to be her children's godparents. (Naming godparents is a requirement for baptism, a rite she wanted her children to experience because she believed it would protect their health, McAnally-Linz said.) For McAnnally-Linz, this experience helped underscore the importance of the Dartmouth IHF in developing a partnership with a charity in Ecuador to help impoverished communities.
Leavitt said that she joined the IHF after learning more about it at an activities fair as a freshman. She wanted to find an organization that produced concrete results, but one that focused on the world outside of campus.
"I liked the idea of being able to effect change," Leavitt said.
For Hillary Wolcott '09, it was also the non-Dartmouth focus of IHF's volunteer program that attracted her to the organization.
"I was interested in the fact that it does international work," Wolcott said.
Previous partnerships of the IHF were in India and Costa Rica. Recently, the group recruited Thayer School of Engineering students to build a clean air cook-stove in order to prevent indoor air pollution from the smoke that can have serious health implications.
The IHF was founded in 2003 by Amish Parashar '03 and David Morse '03, and there are now chapters at several different colleges. The Dartmouth chapter meets in Collis 219 at 8:00 P.M. on Thursday nights.
