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Virgin Gorda Youth Leadership Initiative Marianne Larned, Executive Director is the author of educational series, Stone Soup for the World: Life-Changing Stories of Everyday Heroes and in 1997, the founding Director of the Stone Soup Leadership Institute. For the last six years Ms. Larned has lived in the Caribbean to train young and emerging leaders to build a better world with the Vieques Youth Leadership Initiative and the Virgin Gorda Youth Leadership Initiative. While living on these two islands, she experienced first-hand the effects of global warming, she is especially committed to empowering young people to build sustainable communities. Ms. Larned uses the Stone Soup metaphor to help people see that when we work together we can do more than we thought was possible. The book and educational curriculum give young and emerging leaders the tools to create invigorated teams, strong economies and healthy communities. For over 20 years Ms. Larned has assisted corporate, government, civic and community leaders to develop public-private partnerships that improved public education, health care and economic development. As a former teacher, Ms. Larned developed business-school partnerships for the San Diego, San Francisco and California Chambers of Commerce. As a journalist, she wrote The Business of Education series for the San Francisco Business Times. Clients have included major corporations, health care systems, national associations in business, civic and labor, health, universities and education systems. Ms. Larned has been recognized in Outstanding Young Women of America, World Intellectual, 2000 Notable American Women and the World Who's Who of Women. Her undergraduate studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the Rudolph Steiner Center in Scotland prepared her as a teacher. Graduate work at Boston University and California State University gave her the business and organizational development skills to build healthy communities. Visiting Faculty: March and November 2008 Visiting Faculty: November 2008 Youth Summit Faculty: January 2009 Angela Burnett Penn is an Environmental Officer at the Conservation and Fisheries Department of the British Virgin Islands. Presently she is helping to coordinate BVI's involvement in a regional project to address climate change in the Caribbean. Angela graduated with a B.A. in Environmental Studies and Sustainable Development from Brandeis University in 2007. She has worked on water conservation issues with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and on global ocean conservation through The Ocean Project. Lenette Lewis, Coordinator of the Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN) is a science teacher at the Elmore Stoutt High School, BVI. Lenette Lewis is an integrated Science teacher at the Elmore Stoutt High School, Tortola and National Coordinator for the BVI chapter of the Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN). A Marine Biology graduate from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, she was a Marine Science Instructor at the Newfound Harbor Marine Institute and a Marine Education Intern at the Smithsonian Marine Station in Florida. Lenette represented CYEN at regional and international meetings and is formulating the CYEN-BVI chapter. The Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN) is a regional, non-profit, non-governmental organization that has members and affiliates in fifteen Caribbean territories. CYEN produced the Global Environmental Outlook for Youth in the Caribbean, the culmination of five years with more than 150 youth between 15-20 who described different environmental issues in their communities. Emily Fletcher is the Food and Beverage Manager for The Mineshaft Café in Virgin Gorda. She has worked at several other BVI restaurants in Jost Van Dyke and Virgin Gorda. From Puerto Rican descent, she has a commitment to helping young people realize their dreams. Emily has inspired Virgin Gorda Youth Leadership Initiative youth with her words of wisdom and practical advise about the Culinary Arts and its importance to BVI tourism. Emily served as faculty for the 3rd Annual Youth Summit for the Vieques Youth Leadership Initiative working with six youth who aspired to be chefs. Emily graduated from University of Connecticut in English and Sociology. Summit Youth Leader Faculty Lyndon Andrews is a pre-dentistry major at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. In 2010, he will attend dental school specializing in orthodontics. At Baylor, he is a member of the Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity and works with weekly projects in the Waco community. For spring break he traveled to upstate New York to volunteer at a drug rehabilitation program. He graduated valedictorian in business stream from Bregado Flax High School, Virgin Gorda where he was a member of the Steel Pan Band with the Sunshine Program, participated in natural disaster training program and served as an acolyte at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. He studied natural sciences at the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College. Lyndon gives back to the Virgin Gorda community by serving as a speaker for the Virgin Gorda Youth Leadership Initiative. He led the Mural Painting Community Service Project for the Youth Summit for Sustainable Development. Arianna Caplan is the Institute’s Project Coordinator in Marin County, California. She is a graduate student at the University of California Berkeley Masters of Social Welfare and graduated from Dominican University of California. She worked as a Case Manager at Conard House for homeless mentally ill adults and served as the site health and safety representative and SEIU President. She chaired the board of directors for the Community Access Ticket Service. In 2007 she spent a year in Puerto Rico to explore her heritage and improve her Spanish while studying for her GRE’s. Arianna is now the Institute’s Project Coordinator, she had site visits to the Institute’s board members to Barrios Unidos in Santa Cruz and Cesar Chavez in La Paz; represented the Institute at the strategic meetings and developed a partnership with Dominican University of California’s Institute for Leadership Studies and coordinated an event that featured people in the book Stone Soup for the World: Life-Changing Stories of Everyday Heroes. As I listened to Melba Beals, Nane Alejandrez, Cesar Chavez and Avon Mattison, it struck me that these incredible people along with Dr. Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez and Mahtma Gandhi fought so hard so my generation has the opportunities we do today. It was so humbling. I realize how important it is to continue on their legacy. I found myself so inspired and ready to carry on the torch, to gather my peers and do whatever I can to continue the dream of a better world where everyone is equal. It's our turn now! Tania Cruz served as Vieques Youth Leadership Initiative’s Eco-Tourism and Entrepreneurship Project Coordinator. Tania had an eco-tourism training excursion to California and made a national appeal on Youth Radio. She created the eco-tourism section of the VYLI’s 2020 Report on youth vision for the future of Vieques and presented it at VYLI’s Youth Summit on Sustainable Development, to the Puerto Rican Tourism Company and to Caribbean leaders at the 2008 Caribbean Media Exchange on Sustainable Tourism. Tania founded the first Eco-Tourism Club at University of Puerto Rico Cayey and developed tree planting, recycling and beach clean up projects with VYLI youth. In partnership with her brother and a Vieques community leader, Tania championed a four-month community engagement process that resulted in receiving 300 acres of land to 500 families who had no hope of creating a home on the island. (Many had lost their homes to the U.S. Navy 68 years ago.) They worked together to design a map for community ownership to build their green community with homes, park, church, Vieques monuments -- A Green Community: Verde Vieques. In 2007, Tania graduated Magna Cum Laude in Psychology. For the last year, Tania has been living in Hawaii, studying their culture, language, dance, music and traditional customs while preparing for her GRE’s to attend graduate school. Feliza Fenty served as the 2007 Project Coordinator for the Virgin Gorda Youth Leadership Initiative. She is an aspiring TV journalist who wants to inspire people to preserve and protect their Caribbean heritage and the environment. Feliza is a junior Journalism Major at Texas Christian University in Ft. Worth, Texas. She received an Associates Degree in Arts from H. Lavity Stoutt Community College in the BVI. She worked with the BVI Deputy Governor’s Offices Human Resource Department and as an Information Officer for the BVI Tourist Board. Feliza has traveled throughout the Caribbean and the U.S. touring with her steel pan band. She is a leader with her church youth group and a founding member of VGYLI where she has made presentations to leaders at the Caribbean Media Exchange conferences in St. Lucia and San Juan. Adrianna Soverall is the founder and first project coordinator of the Virgin Gorda Youth Leadership Initiative. In 2006-2007, she invited her friends to join together and attend monthly workshops to pursue their dreams for their lives and their island. She represented all the young people of Virgin Gorda at high-level meetings with government and community leaders. She is a second year journalism major at Purdue University in Indiana. During her winter college break, she is working at the BVI Premier’s offices with the Information Officer where she is creating press releases, attending events and conducting communications. Youth Delegates Jesse Boswell is a second year African American Studies major at Bates College in Maine from Martha’s Vineyard. She will pursue her graduate work to become a lawyer. In 2000, Jesse received the Institute’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Award for helping to free child slaves in the Sudan. The Institute’s Award was presented by Hulas King at the Celebration of Heroes Event with Walter Cronkite. When I was nine, I saw the disparities for Sudanese children on TV. I was devastated. There was no reason for them to go hungry with so much food in the world. Right then I decided I had to do something. At first I gave my allowance, but that only was only $10. I knew that wasn't enough. With the help of my mother I opened a bank account, grabbed the telephone book and started with the A’s. When asking for money, I felt the heat of the “No’s” and was relieved by the Yes’s from those ready to give. Over time the funds in the bank account started to grow. Then something happened, even without my phone calls, people walked into the bank and started giving money. That amazed me to see the power of the heart in action. The feelings I had while watching others give and giving myself have stayed with me through high school and college. It’s a constant force in my life. Paula Garcia is a freshman business major concentrating in marketing at Dominican University of California. Born in the Philippines, she immigrated to the U.S. when she was nine years old. In high school she was an Associated Student Body Board Representative, serving as the liaison between her school and the Santa Clara Unified School District’s Board of Education. She was a member of the Jazz Choir, California Scholarship Federation, Filipino-American Student Association, Gay Straight Alliance, her church’s choir and youth group and Sierra Club and school’s recycling program. She co-founded a new club on campus, Fashion for Philanthropy and held school-wide clothing drives for a local community center, Sacred Heart. She coordinated and hosted a fashion show, created original apparel and accessories to sell at a charity fashion show to benefit Junior League. She has volunteered at art/wine festivals and craft fairs, as a camp counselor at her church’s summer Bible camp, cheering squad for the AIDS Walk, participated in a breast cancer walk, school blood drive, and donated and wrapped “Giving Tree” presents for children from low-income families. Paula is concerned about youth: “The dropout rate of high school students has been steadily increasing. More and more youth have lost interest in the educational system, either settling for minimum wage jobs that do not require high school diplomas, seeking futures on the streets, or seeking no future at all. With the American middle class slowly diminishing, escaping one’s social stature has become next to impossible, a situation that not is not encouraging nor enticing to prospective youth. Suely Dosouto, University of Massachusetts Urban Scholars Program is a senior at the Jeremiah E. Burke in Dorchester, MA. Born on the island of Fogo, Cape Verde, she moved to the United States at age nine. She is the Student Government President of her school and involved in Summer Search, Urban Scholars, Admissions Guaranteed, Boston Student Advisory Council, and volunteers as a tutor for elementary school students. Suely is passionate about helping disadvantaged youth, especially those in urban areas. She has witnessed gang violence that has ripped her community apart, yet continues to strive to make an impact on young students. “I want to reach out to kids at a young age, and show them that education is more important then joining a gang.” While in college, Suely plans to find more ways to reach out to school-age children through tutoring and mentoring. |