FQ News

Fondo Quisqueya and His Excellency Flavio Dario Espinal, Ambassador of the Dominican Republic, and Mrs. Minerva del Risco de Espinal, host a special fundraising event to benefit the non-traditional vocational training, professional development, and career development scholarship programs of the Fondo Quisqueya Foundation.

For more information see invitation (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader).

To register or donate, print and mail in the RSVP form.

To see images of some of the items available for purchase at the Silent Auction, click here.

Dr. Massey's Biographical Sketch
After receiving a BA degree from the University of Florida in Political Science/Latin American Regional Studies, Romeo Massey served as a Peace Corps Volunteer (10/62-09/64) in Pereira, Colombia, where he taught English and worked in urban community development. After two years of establishing Job Corps centers in the US, he returned to the Peace Corps (03/67-03/70) as an Associate Peace Corps Director in the Brazilian states of Bahia and Sergipe where he supervised 85-120 volunteers in urban/rural community development, health education, primary school teacher training, and adult literacy.

Upon return to the US, Romeo attended Florida State University (FSU) where he received an MS in Adult Education/Literacy and a PhD in Adult Education/Instructional Systems Design and Development. Since 1973, he has worked in various leadership positions in contract-supported R&D centers at FSU and has been a center director for the past 13 years. His international work includes consultant work in El Salvador, and Honduras for USAID; Uganda for CARE; and Belize where he worked with CARE for eight years planning and evaluating the revision of the nation's rural primary school system. He also worked as a Peace Corps Training Director and Acting PC Program/Training Officer in Brazil.

His wife Carole is a returned PCV (Bolivia) who has a BS in Psychology, MS in Counseling and PhD in Higher Education Administration. Carole has over 20 years experience as a program evaluator and did international evaluation work in Guatemala for USAID. Romeo and Carole have an adult son, Christopher, who lives in Florida.

Dear Friends,

My tenure as CD in the DR will end in mid July around the two year anniversary of my arrival on gorgeous Hispaniola. I feel both sadness--that I won't see my first group COS in November--and excitement about the future.

I have been asked to become the Country Director in Bolivia. I am grateful for the Director's expression of confidence in me. Bolivia is a post with great potential but with a hurtful Peace Corps past and a history of tumultuous political activity which continues today. It is a country where I lived and worked for nearly three years. My experience working with USAID, the American Embassy and with the public and private sectors in all of its geographic areas will be most useful in this assignment and was weighed when the Director asked me to take this assignment.

I leave the DR with fond memories. I will miss the staff and the volunteers who have served with all their hearts, with honesty and integrity; I am honored to have served in such a wonderful place. The people connected with Peace Corps in the DR exemplify the best spirit of America. I have learned from you. You have made my work here joyful and I am proud of you. Please continue la lucha for peace and understanding.

Hopefully, our paths will cross again.

Se cuidan. Take care of yourself, take care of each other and take care of this place.

All my best wishes.

Siempre,
Javier

Javier L. Garza
Country Director
Peace Corps--Dominican Republic

FQ and Friends of the Dominican Republic are holding joint meetings at the Hotel Melía Santo Domingo, February 17-19, 2005. To see FQ's Agenda, click here.

On December 15, 2004, via emails, the FQ Board authorized education-related hurricane relief to rebuild two primary schools serving several communities in Nagua. The Escuela Basica de Los Fogones serves 22 students in Grades 1-3 from the communities of Los Fogones, La Jagua y Alto while the Escuela Basica El Picado de Luis serves 43 students in Grades 1-6 in separate morning and afternoon sessions from the communities of El Picado de Luis, Los Fogones, and Los Colmenes.

The Board authorized the amount of US$3,735 to replace 2 lost roofs, replace wooden walls with block in one school, and to make needed educational improvements in both schools through the purchase of desks, building bookshelves and storage cabinets, and repairing latrines. The proposal was presented by PCVs Joe Blotnick and Jill Higgins. For a description of the project, click here.

At its October 23, 2004, meeting, the FQ Board authorized education-related hurricane relief in two communities: (1) Las Lagunas de Nisibón, La Altagracia and (2) Arroyo Grande, El Seibo.

For the Las Lagunas De Nisibón Hurricane Relief School Repair Project, the Board authorized the amount of US$3,878 for replacement of six roofs, 17 broken windows, 50 water-logged desks and 16 light fixtures related to the repair of the Escuela San Bosco, the principal primary school in Las Lagunas de Nisibón, and for the Liceo San Vincente de Paul, "the only high school in the 85 km stretch between Higuey and Miches. The proposal was presented by PCV Mary R. Clark. For Mary's description of the project, click here.

For the Arroyo Grande Hurricane Relief School Repair Project, the Board authorized the amount of US$2,020 for replacement of the roof on the larger of the two buildings at Escuela de Arroyo Grande. The building contains three classrooms, the administrative office, and a kitchen. The school is located approximately 20 kilometers from El Seibo. The proposal was presented by PCV Jennifer Courtney. For Jennifer's description of the project, click here.

See where people are coming from to look at our site:




Where are visitors to this page?

(Auto-update daily since DD-MMM-YY)

On Monday, October 25, 2004, FQ launched this new web site with the creative ideas of Development Seed, a nonprofit organization that provides low cost technical services to build and improve the web presence of progressive organizations working around the world in development (URL: http://www.developmentseed.net).

FQ Board members Janet Kerley and Bill Threlkeld worked with Development Seed to lay out FQ's web site goals and objectives, design features, and provide content.

The site is still a work in progress. Content still needs to be added or expanded. But your feedback is welcome. You can direct comments to fondoquisqueyausa@yahoo.com or use the Contact Us feature on the site.

Here are the site's overall objectives and some of its features.

Long-term Goals:

· Spatial orientation (map) focused on grantees (past, present, future)
· Strengthening the institution (by encouraging support with financial or in-kind contributions/volunteers)
· Archive for organizational documents, publications, searchable database (transparency goal)

Short-term Goals:

· Web space to highlight immediate needs, current and special events, description of some of FQ's recipients, etc.
· Provide basic information (i.e., who we are – history and vision, etc.; what we do; how to apply for a grant or scholarship; mailing list; how to donate; links to FDR and groups with related interests)

Audiences (lots of overlaps, need in Spanish and English):

· DR Republic Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (DR-RPCVs) and ex-Peace Corps staff
· Dominican community – US and DR
· Donors (provide information and encourage continuous support)
· Newsletter recipients (to supplement information received via paper newsletter)
· Researchers/surfers interested in DR development issues

The site, as it stands today, accomplishes some of the short-term goals and some of the long-term goals, and reaches some of the audiences we have targeted, but much work remains. We, together with Development Seed, will be working steadily over the next several months to meet all of our goals and to tweak the web site based on your input.

The best way to learn about the site is, simply, to explore it. However, here are the major features:

* A map of the DR, by province, where information on our grantees can be obtained.
* An searchable grantee database that can be queried on specific criteria: province, grant purpose, dollar range, etc.
* Quicklinks to the latest news and the most current grantees.
* A Newsletter signup and archive.
* PDFs of our organizing documents.
* A Donate Now button for acceptance of electronic donations.
* A news aggregator that automatically post on the site links to news articles that carry a mention (or feature) the DR.
* A news aggregator from the National Hurricane Center web site, that features hurricane updates for the Atlantic.

Once we have the web site to our satisfaction in English, we will begin developing a Spanish-language version.