We are pleased to announce that effective October 2011, Luisa Paredes, a former AMIGOS Volunteer (Brazil 2006) & Project Supervisor (Paraguarí, Paraguay 2010), will assume a position entitled Dominican Republic Program Director. In this role, Luisa will serve as a remote staff member of the International Office in the Dominican Republic for the duration of one year and also will act as the DR Project Director during the 2012 summer program. The priority tasks for this position include strengthening relationships with local Plan International offices, recruiting & training national and international AMIGOS Volunteers from the DR, improving training materials for international and national Latin American youth participants, and seeking out additional strategic partnerships for AMIGOS and Plan in the DR. Furthermore, this position will fulfill one of AMIGOS’ 2011 Operational Plan goals of having a year-round staff person in Latin America.

Luisa is a talented and motivated young woman who recently graduated from Macalester College with a B.A. in Biology. She is uniquely poised to take on this position, as she is originally from the Dominican Republic, and, thus knows the country well and still has family there.  Luisa will reside in Santo Domingo while she is the Dominican Republic Program Director. We are thrilled that Luisa will be assuming this new role and look forward to formally welcoming her to the IO Staff team during her orientation in Houston in October.