Meet the 2013 Kopila Fellows
Monday, November 04, 2013
I want to use the next few posts to introduce you all to our amazing Kopila Fellows. It's only been two weeks and I can already tell we're going to have an incredibly solid team. A key to our fellowship program is collaboration. We spend a lot of time together: team-parenting, working on projects together and sharing the load. The last couple weeks we've all be getting to know one another, having meetings, learning the ropes, and setting intentions for the year. We're waiting for the few remaining fellows to get here to do a little more orientation but so far everyone has jumped right in.
We have a few positions we've never had before which has made things fun and interesting, especially with all the new projects going on. We brought on our first Mental Health Fellow and our counseling and mental health center is now open 6 days a week instead of just one. Becky is working intensively with all of our staff, students, fellows and teaching team. I cannot even begin to tell you what a blessing it's been to have a real life licensed THERAPIST at our fingertips. I feel truly lucky and incredibly supported:
- Women's Center Fellow, Magdalena
- Mental Health Fellow, Becky
- Home Fellow, Caroline
Our sustainability fellowship applicants were all so amazing and the construction project we're about to take on with the new High School is so extensive, we decided to take on more than one, each of them with a unique set of skills, experiences, and talents; construction, solar, gardening and horticulture, composting toilets, carpentry. Our new school is going to be off-the-hook and we are so excited to be digging in and getting our hands dirty.
Our Home Fellow, Caroline is dealing with a scabies outbreak on her first week on the job. Really funny in a not- so-funny kind of way but more on that soon. She is awesome As my uncle said yesterday morning, "she is in line for Sainthood."
I'm thankful to Kelly and Nena for staying on and extending their fellowships from last year longer to help me through the summer and through the Kopila Fellow's departure/arrival transitions. It definitely helped with the pain of having to say goodbye to everyone from last year all at once and has helped to keep us all on track with the progress we made as a team last year. We were a tight crew!
Enjoy getting to know our Fellows! You will see their work unfold in the months ahead and I'm sure I'll be having them guest blogging as well.
P.S. In other exciting news, I just talked to Ganga's doctor at HRDC about her feet. The good news is, they will be able to do an operation that should make life much easier for her. She will however need to stay in the hospital for two months. Any friends of Kopila kids who want to send letters, pictures or words of encouragement to Ganga, please mail to:
Kopila Valley School
Bhairabsthan-4 Birendgranagar Surkhet, Nepal!
We will make sure that they get to Ganga!!