Summer Experince : Thailand: A madman and an enlightened person both smile

Come with Sarvodaya on a excursion to the Thai-Burmese border this summer! A select group of applicants will be chosen to travel to a small-holder farmer demonstration center in Mae Ai, Thailand to learn permacultural techniques and work with the staff to improve the center's facilities. Learn more about this Opportunity.

EARTH Consortium

I wanted to share this awesome summer opportunity with you that I mentioned in class yesterday.  Penn State recently joined Consortium EARTH and can now offer a unique summer experience at EARTH University in tropical Costa Rica!  

 Learn about sustainable agriculture; the trade-offs between carbon, climate and livelihoods; community outreach, leadership and engagement; and about rural tourism as a development strategy.  The philosophy of EARTH University is “learning by doing”, therefore each course involves lots of hands-on activities such as working in a rainforest reserve, visiting local communities and farmers, and touring local businesses.

There are two one-month sessions, and you can earn 6 credits at each session.  The $4,000 price tag includes the cost of tuition, room and board, and all activities.   This is actually a pretty great deal, considering it includes the cost of tuition AND room and board!  (If you stayed on campus and took 6 credits, the credits alone would be $4,200!)

The deadline for application is March 1.  You can find the application, along with more information on the Consortium EARTH website.

Please let me know if you are interested and I can get you additional information and answer any questions.  This is a fantastic opportunity!

Youth Engagement in Economic Opportunities within Rural Areas

Webinar hosted by Making Cents International on "Youth Engagement in Economic Opportunities within Rural Areas". 

DATE: Tuesday, Feb. 4^, 2014, 10-11 AM EST

RSVP & MORE INFO: http://j.mp/1fFs6LF

WEBINAR SPEAKER(S):

Steve Cumming (Program Manager of Youth Learning at the MasterCard Foundation)

Mary McVay, (Founder, Enterprise Development Kiosk)

Simeon Ogonda (Co-Founder, Spring Break Kenya)

ABOUT THE WEBINAR: Today’s unprecedented high youth population presents the challenge of creating constructive career paths for millions of people born into rural poverty, but it also presents the opportunity of leveraging human resources to address a major global challenge: food security. How can we engage young people in agricultural and/or rural development efforts in ways that present a viable future for them and contribute to food security? Many young people want to leave the farm, but where will they go and who will be tomorrow’s farmers? What other rural development work can offer opportunities to young people, and benefit from their contribution? What are young people themselves saying? Join Steve Cumming (Program Manager of Youth Learning at the MasterCard Foundation), Mary McVay, (Founder, Enterprise Development Kiosk), and Simeon Ogonda (Co-Founder, Spring Break Kenya) for this in-depth conversation that will address these and other pressing questions, while providing you with practical guidance to inform your work.

Did you miss the last #AskAg Twitter chat?

The most recent Agrilinks #AskAg Twitter chat focused on international volunteering advancing agricultural development.  The intention was to bring together potential, existing and returned volunteers who have spent time overseas working on agriculture and food security.

The Twitter chat was organized around the following questions:

1. What do volunteers gain from their service?
2. What type of traits/skills make for an effective volunteer?
3. What does an AgDev Volunteer experience look like, and how does this differ from paid work?
4. What sort of challenges do volunteers face, and what resources help them address these challenges?

Participants included representatives from organizations such as Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance (VEGA), ACDI/VOCA, TechnoServe, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Washington and Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF).  If you'd like to see the list of Twitter accounts associated with these organizations and their representatives, check out the complete explanation of the Twitter chat on Agrilinks. 

If you missed the chat you can search #AskAg through your Twitter account to see comments from participants.  Many great resources were shared including links to international agriculture resources and organizations and specific volunteer postings.  Many individuals and organizations active in this field joined in on the chat.  If you're interested in volunteering in international agriculture, this Twitter chat was a great way to identify possible organizations and key individuals.

Agrilinks now hosts #AskAg Twitter chats on a monthly basis.  Watch this YouTube video to learn more about their Twitter chats or click here to sign up for monthly emails announcing upcoming events.

Seminar Opportunity - January 29th - Cultivating Dismodernity: The Meanings of Maize and Agricultural Development in Mexico’s Central Highlands

Wednesday, January 29, 2014
124 Sparks, 1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m

Cultivating Dismodernity: The Meanings of Maize and
Agricultural Development in Mexico’s Central Highlands

Emma Gaalaas Mullaney, Penn State

Agricultural development programs in Mexico have been consistently pushing for the replacement of traditional maize cultivars with “improved”, “modern” scientifically-bred

varieties for over 70 years, and yet the overwhelming majority of Mexican maize area remains planted with farmer-bred varieties to this day. The country’s Central Highland region

is home to some of the world’s foremost centers of maize research, and also to maize-cultivating peasant communities that, though oriented to commercial production, consistently

decline to cultivate commercial seed in favor of diverse varieties that they have maintained for generations. Drawing on ethnographic research and oral histories with local maize

farmers, agricultural extension agents, and research scientists, this talk will explore how conflicting and contextually-inflected interpretations of modernity and tradition have shaped

the agricultural landscape in a region where maize is a primary source of food security, livelihood, cultural identity, and biodiversity.

Emma Gaalaas Mullaney is a dual-degree PhD Candidate in Geography and Women’s Studies. Her dissertation research has been made possible by support from the National

Science Foundation, the Society of Women Geographers, the Institute of International Education Boren Fellowship Program, Specialty Groups of the Association of American Geographers, the Center for Global Studies, and several other departments and institutes at Penn State. Since 2010, Emma has also served as a Youth Delegate to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

This lecture is a part of the Center for Global Studies Brown Bag Graduate Lecture Series which focuses on interdisciplinary graduate research.

Global Issues Colloquium

The Global Issues Spring Semester colloquium hosted by Penn State's School of International Affairs beginning today. The seminars are held every Thursday from 11:15 am to 12:30 pm at the Executive Education Building near the Nittany Lion Inn. 

Please see the flyer for specific speakers and topics for each seminar. It looks like a great opportunity to network with the International Affairs program as well as learn from highly distinguished speakers from both academia and the world of global affairs!