Susanne Bennett, Togo, 2005-2007, susanne@tnrpcv.org

Susanne served in Togo West Africa from 2005-2007 as a Girls’ Education and Empowerment Volunteer. She promoted girls’ education in the village of Datcha through raising awareness among community members and later worked with a women’s law firm and non-literate market stall workers in Lomé, the capital. In Datch and Lomé, she taught Life Skills, a well-designed lesson plan, to female youth roughly ages 10-16, addressing issues such as HIV/AIDS, early pregnancy and confidence. In Lomé, she also organized Take Our Daughters to Work Week, a career camp for female youth throughout the region designed as to inspire the youth to stay in school to by introducing them to successful career women in the capital. After serving in the Peace Corps, she returned to her native Nashville after in the Winter of 2007. Since March of 2008, she has worked at the Tennessee Justice Center, a non-profit law firm that advocates for families facing barriers to health care. Through her work at TJC, she has helped foster families, as well as immigrant families, access health care. She also carries out much of TJC’s outreach efforts and, in addition to her extensive travel in West Africa, she has visited most of Tennessee’s 95 counties and she invites you to ask her to name them all!

Angela (Angie) Harris, Papua New Guinea, 1991-1993, angie@tnrpcv.org

Angie served as a high school English teacher in the US Peace Corps in Papua New Guinea from 1991-1993. From the Pacific, she continued teaching ESL in South Korea. There she designed the ESL program for Sungshin Women’s University in Seoul and directed the program for 3.5 years. From 1998-1999, Angie was an ESL Instructor for the USIS American Language Center (ALC) in Kathmandu, Nepal. She then helped privatize ALC and became the Assistant Director for the center.  Angela has been the ESL/TESL Director at TFLI since 1999. Here she and her team developed the ESL and TESL Department and the Taxi Pro Hospitality and Training Program for Nashville’s taxi drivers.  Angie is a member of ACTFL.  She serves on the Frist Conte Project Advisory Board, the Board of Directors for the TN Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (TNRPCV) and the Nashville International Center for Empowerment (NICE).  She is honored to recently become elected as the Chairperson for the Nashville Task Force on Immigrants and Refugees.

 Dave Keiser, Morocco, 1998-2000 dave@tnrpcv.org

Dave served as a Peace Corps agriculture volunteer in Morocco from 1998-2000.  Dave grew up on a cattle farm in eastern Nebraska where shooting the breeze is taught from birth.  Naturally, he was a great fit for the laid back rural Moroccan culture he was placed in, and fortunately for him, he was in the right place at the right time and was able to supplement a couple of Moroccan Ministry of Agriculture projects.  The first was a tree project that received funding for 4,500 olive and almond saplings that were distributed to 140 farmers.  The second project received funding for bee keeping equipment and training for a local women’s cooperative.  

When he wasn’t out on the arid coastal hills outside Safi, he was in Rabat riding around with Bihi in a tiny truck from souk to souk helping the Peace Corps office during trainings.  During the summer of 1999, he served for 10 weeks as the kitchen coordinator and took care of incoming volunteers and training staff…. He learned how to cook!

He returned to Morocco in 2001 and taught English as a Second Language at the American Language Center (now the Center for Language and Culture) in Marrakech.  He was the board treasurer  from 2003 to 2005 for the High Atlas Foundation that worked with villages in the Moroccan High Atlas Mountains.  He was accepted as a Peace Corps Fellow at Western Illinois University in 2004 and graduated with a Masters degree in economics and community development.  He worked as an economic developer in Northwestern Illinois until 2007 and currently works as an economic development planner for MultiModal Research while helping out Cumberland Region Tomorrow part-time.  He is also on the board of directors for Transit Now Nashville spreading the word about the benefits of public transportation and is a Governor Bredesen appointee to the Volunteer Tennessee Commission overseeing AmeriCorps and Service Learning programs across the State of Tennessee.

Casey Woodling, Madagascar (2007-2009, casey@tnrpcv.org

Casey was a Education Volunteer in Madagascar (2007-2009). He taught English at the high school in his village, taught English to adults in town, and worked on teaching training as well. In addition to working on education, Casey also oversaw a well project at his high school, writing the grant and helping to manage the project. Currently, Casey works as a Food Stamp Outreach Coordinator with Community Food Advocates, a Nashville nonprofit working to end hunger and create a healthy, just and sustainable food system. He is the Membership Coordinator of TNRPCV. 

Emily Woodling, Madagascar, 2007-2009, emily@tnrpcv.org

Emily served in Madagascar from 2007-2009 as a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) volunteer together with her husband Casey.  Emily taught English in a public middle school and also taught beginning and advanced English classes in the community.  She developed a year-long curriculum for teaching adults that was made available to all volunteers. Another project that Emily worked on was forming an English Teachers Association for English teachers at all levels within the community.  This group meet regularly for professional development, to practice English, and to put on English oriented events for the community.  As an offshoot of this project, Emily developed a program for preparing elementary school teachers to teach English because there was a government initiative to bring English to the lower grade levels.  This was also developed into a curriculum with an accompanying workbook: "English, Health, and the Environment through Songs and Games."  Emily also served as the WID-GAD (Women in Development-Gender and Development) representative for her province.  After Peace Corps, Emily began graduate school at Vanderbilt University in Speech-Language Pathology where she is currently a student.  She is the social chair for TNRPCV.