Welcome to the new Director of Hope and Development, Kate Poortenga

August 2010: Kate joins us with six years experience as an educator. For the past four years she has been living and working in Nicaragua, teaching at a local private school. Kate received her bachelor’s in Education from Calvin College in 2003 and is anticipating completion of a master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction in May of 2011. Her passion as an educator has been to guide students in learning through encounters with their world.

Kate has long had a love of reading and eagerly invites her students to join her in this lifelong passion. She encourages this based on the expectation that from reading comes understanding, and understanding brings about change. In working with students and teachers in the rural Villa El Carmen area Kate will be facilitating greater access to education to the underprivileged and unempowered. As she works with Hope and Development Kate hopes to enact change through her relationships and interactions with teachers. At times this may take the form of leading teachers to try new ideas and methods through workshops and continued education opportunities. She recognizes both the need for growth in the communities of Villa El Carmen, and the reality that such change must be built from the inside. As such, she will be working closely with our Nicaraguan facilitators mutually learning from them and developing programs and efforts that will bring about lasting change.

We are excited to have Kate join us, and are eager to move forward with a renewed energy for the many projects and plans we have established. Some of the projects we anticipate in looking ahead to the upcoming year include expansion of our mini-libraries, teacher education programs, cross cultural school connections, and growth of our English program.

Carolyn Keeling
Executive Director