Dear Lori,
It is with great pleasure that I write to you on behalf of Northern Nevada’s international community and the International Center. You have been selected by your community to receive the Global Citizen Award for your contributions over many years in making Nevada a more global community!
The Global Citizen Award is presented each year to an individual who has worked diligently and without much recognition to bring a vision of a more global society to Northern Nevada and helped to increase awareness of international issues to our community. This award will be presented at the 11th Annual Global Gala on April 2, 2009 at the Peppermill Casino/Tuscany Ballroom along with two other international awards. The other two recipients this year are Dr. Robert Maxson of Sierra Nevada College and Mrs. Dee Gamal-Eldin.
An International Center staff member will contact you next week to go over biographical information we will need for the program booklet. You will receive two complimentary tickets in the mail as well as information about the event. I hope you will be able to receive the award in person!
Lori, congratulations once again on receiving the Global Citizen Award. I can’t think of anyone more deserving of this recognition.
Carina A. Black, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Northern Nevada International Center
The Northern Nevada International Center (NNIC) is located south of the main entrance to the beautiful campus of the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) and is a non-profit organization serving Nevada’s communities.
We are a sponsored project of the University of Nevada, Reno and our main objective is to foster better understanding between people through our public diplomacy programs, our language and culture projects and our foreign policy forums. The Northern Nevada International Center provides a resource for local residents as well as visitors interested in international activities and events.
To get an idea of our most current activities, we have a combined listing of all our news, events, activities, and incoming delegation announcements. For our first-time visitors, we have a brief introductory page where you can learn more about the NNIC and its three main activity areas.
To recap, and among other things: we provide interpretation and translation services; organize programs for international visitors, through the U.S. Department of State and the Open World Program; teach language and culture classes for children and adults; provide cultural competency training; and organize many other enticing public / community events and activities. Feel free to explore our site by using the horizontal menu above, to learn more about the many interesting and diverse activities we develop here at the Northern Nevada International Center!
Are you interested in volunteering at the Northern Nevada International Center? We have a few options for you: please see our Join the NNIC Team page for more information and an application form. And of course, if you have a question that isn’t answered on our website, please feel free to contact us!
A Reno woman who’s been helping get Haitian orphans to their new homes in the U.S. is starting to work on an ambitious project to change Haiti forever.
Story by Ed Pearce, KOLO-TV Channel 8, Reno, Nevada:
These days Lori Carpenter’s thoughts rarely stray from people she knows thousands of miles away in Haiti.
Work continues at her hydrology consulting firm in south Reno, but she works the phone and computer keeping an eye on an orphanage outside Port Au Prince.
Carpenter is on the board of directors of God’s Littlest Angels orphanage and she’s been trying to get some of its children out of the country and trying to get supplies in.
Today’s news is good. Seventy eight children left for new homes in the U-S, making room for a few of the hundreds of thousands of new orphans created by the earthquake.
But Carpenter is also working on an idea that she thinks could change Haiti forever–bringing some Haitian high school students here to finish their education before returning to their homeland.
“We’re hoping that some of these students would come to the U-S, see how we run our society, see how things are done both from a business, cultural and family standpoint and that they would be able to go home and want that for their own culture,”
It’s an ambitious goal. Haiti was born of a slave revolt and has been literally paying the price for the past 2 centuries.
Saddled from the beginning by a crushing national debt imposed by its former French slave masters, cruelly served by a succession of corrupt dictators, it has remained the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
Carpenter sees hope for a different Haiti rising from its ruins, inspired by a new generation of Haitians with stronger, more personal ties to its big neighbor to the north.
“We couldn’t feed these people before the earthquake and we can’t feed them now,” she says. That it took this disaster, as sad as it was, maybe something good can come out of it. Maybe we can help haiti on to a sustainable future.”
And she sees this happening, not through some big government program, but through individual families throughout the U-S opening their homes to individual students, much as they do now through exchange programs
The students would take some of our values home with them, Carpenter says, and ties forged during their stay would remain. “Those American families would also be invested in Haiti’s future.”