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A few of the many people who are involved with Sahaya International
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Dr. Adele Moussas, M.D.
I was first drawn to Sahaya by the beautiful hand embroidered cards.
Learning about the women who make them, I became curious about the other programs sponsored by Sahaya and READ. What made me decide to join Sahaya and eventually become a Board member was the direct connection, the direct help I could be to these people on the other side of the globe. Wanting to connect even more with them spurred me to go to India to visit the people benefiting from our sponsorship and see the programs in action.
The villagers won my heart as can only happen when interacting one on one.
I am grateful for my training as a Family Practice physician because this knowledge helped me participate in presenting HIV/AIDS awareness information, which is desperately needed in these villages. If you feel any stirrings of desire to help others, I encourage you to
honor that desire and join us or do work for the good of others in your local community. |
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Elisabeth Sherwin worked for many years as a reporter for The Davis Enterprise (California), and is now executive director at International House Davis. She is a member of the Uman (Ukraine)-Davis Sister City Project. She has traveled widely throughout Europe and has visited China and several Eastern European countries. |
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Karl Krupp is a Community Health Advocate for Greenaction Health & Environmental Justice where he campaigns for poor communities impacted by toxic waste, pollution from electricity generation, and industrial pollution. His volunteer work has taken him to India, where he worked with organizations providing aid to survivors of the Bhopal disaster, and worked on HIV education and research programs in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Krupp is currently enrolled in a Masters in Public Administration program at San Francisco University. |
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Dr. Purnima Madhivanan, M.P.H., is a physician by training from India who received her degree in Epidemiology from UC Berkeley in 2003. She was a Fogarty fellow at Brown University studying HIV epidemiology in women. As a Fogarty scholar, she is currently pursuing a PhD in Epidemiology at the Berkeley School of Public Health. Prior to that she managed a clinic for HIV infected women and children at YRG CARE, Chennai, India. She serves as a consultant with many community based organizations and is fluent in English, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada and Tamil |
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Mary Philip worked for many years as a social workers in Mumbai, India. Upon moving to the USA, she worked for the California Department of Public Health and recently retired. |
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Khonnie Phouanglasy and Rino Dizon
Rino Dizon attended UC Davis and graduated with a degree in Biochemistry. After gradauting in 2001, he worked as a Post-Graduate researcher for UC Davis, working on SIV pathogenesis. Afterwards, heI went to Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine, and graduated in 2008. Currently, he is a family medicine resident physician in California.
Khonthavy Dizon attended UC Davis and graduated in 2002 with a degree in Human development. Then she went to Aurora University school of nursing in Illinois and graduated in 2007 with a Bachelors of Science in Nursing. Currently she works as a Registered Nurse in California.
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Mirriam Rafiq, M.P.H., is a bicultural Pakistani-American, born in Karachi and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She completed a master's degree in public health in International Health and Development from Tulane University, specializing in monitoring and evaluation, health policy, and international health systems management. She is interested in social epidemiology and the cultural, socio-economic, and religious aspects of health and disease. In 2002 she worked in Tamil Nadu, India on a Horizons/Population Council funded operations research study at YRG CARE, a project partner in the Perambalur Education and Prevention Program (PEPP). Since then she has been implementing clinical and behavioral research with underserved communities at the University of California, San Francisco, and since 2006 is working as Program Officer for PATH in Hanoi, Vietnam. Mirriam serves as a member of the board of directors, part of the grant writing team, and is the Monitoring and Evaluation consultant for the PEPP project. |
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Paul Adamson is receiving his MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health in May 2009. After graduation, he will be working at the San Francisco Department of Public Health in the STD Prevention and Control Services. Paul spent the summer of 2008 in Mysore, India coordinating several projects run by the Public Health Research Institute and the Prerana WomenÕs Health Initiative. Working in these communities was a very enlightening experience, and he has been committed to improving the health of underserved populations in India ever since. |
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Lonna Hampton |
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Ramin Yazdani:
I was inspired to become involved with Sahaya International after visiting various cities in India and seeing the poverty level in 2002. I decided to do something to help the poor and help reduce global warming impacts of this highly populated country. My profession as a environmental engineer was put to good use when I joined Sahaya International after reading an article in the local paper about this organization and all of the great work that they do and what a big impact it is making in people’s life. My 2009 and 2010 trips to India were great since I got to see all of these great programs that READ and Sahya International are performing with great results. I also got to visit my sponsored children in India. I am grateful to be part of this organization and be able to give back to our global family & community. |
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Patrick De Grande and Hilde De Cock have been closely involved with Sahaya International from the very beginning. Hilde is a Veterinary Pathologist, while Patrick is a construction engineer. They currently reside in Belgium.
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Paulina Zielinska ( D.V.M., M.P.V.M.) is a veterinarian from Poland who moved to Davis, California to pursue a master's degree in the Preventive Veterinary Medicine and to increase her knowledge of public health issues. She started working on HIV/AIDS prevention and through this work met Koen Van Rompay from Sahaya. Paulina went to India for 3 months in the fall of 2009 to work on a HIV- related project. During her time in India, she was able to visit programs at READ and witness the immense impact that Sahaya made on those programs. She will be working towards her M.P.H. in Global Health at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and is planning to make a contribution to improvement of health situation in India and other developing countries. |
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Kate and Venyei Angshing are in charge of the fundraising for the Lemling Vista School in Nagaland. |
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Koen Van Rompay, D.V.M, Ph.D.
was born and raised in Belgium. His passion for animals led him to become a veterinary doctor at the University of Ghent (Belgium). Thanks to a fellowship from the Belgian-American Educational Foundation (BAEF), he came to Davis, California, in 1989 and has been doing HIV/AIDS research at the University of California. In 1997, he became involved in India, which led to the start of Sahaya International, as described elsewhere (click here). He spends most of his free time on the daily management of Sahaya International. He has received several awards, including the 2006 Alumnus of the Year Award by the University of Antwerp, the International Peace-Maker Award (Teach Peace Foundation), the 2010 Excellence in Research Award (Academic Federation, University of California), the 2010 Community Service Award (University of California, Davis). |
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