INTER-AMERICAN FOUNDATION

NEWS RELEASE

Ballston Metro Center 901 North Stuart Street, 10th Floor Arlington, Virginia  22203 USA

Office of External Affairs: Paula Durbin

Telephone: 703-306-4357

Facsimile: 703-306-4365

www.iaf.gov

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Release No.: 050609-01

Date: May. 6, 2009

Pages: THREE

Fifteen Awarded Grassroots Development Fellowships

ARLINGTON, Va. — Fifteen Ph.D. candidates from universities in the United States will conduct dissertation research in Latin America supported by Grassroots Development Fellowships from the Inter-American Foundation (IAF) during the coming year. The Fellows were selected on the strength of their academic record, their proposals and their potential contribution to grassroots development. All U.S. citizens except as noted, they will research the following topics:

·        Lissette Aliaga-Linares, Peruvian citizen, University of TexasAustin, underground economies in Lima and Bogota;

·        Jaime Amparo Alves, Brazilian citizen, University of TexasAustin, state-sanctioned violence in a Brazilian shantytown;

·        Brian Joseph Burke, University of Arizona, barter systems in Medellin, Colombia;

·        Ryan Chelese Alaniz, University of Minnesota, development in post-disaster communities in Honduras;

·        Amanda Merritt Fulmer, University of Washington, the rights of indigenous Guatemalans;

·        Margarita Huayhua Curse, Peruvian citizen, University of Michigan, ethnic hierarchy in the southern Andes;

·        Jennifer Ann Devine, University of CaliforniaBerkeley, cultural tourism in post-war Guatemala;

·        Christopher Laurence Gibson, Brown University, municipal health councils in Brazil;

·        Jessica Alexis Jolicoeur Rich, University of CaliforniaBerkeley, responses to HIV/AIDS in Brazil;

·        Amy Michelle Lerner, University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara, household maize production in Central Mexico;

·        David Ricardo García, Guatemalan citizen, University of Florida, frontier land rights in Guatemala;

·        Gustavo Alberto García López, Indiana University, community forestry in Durango and Guerrero, Mexico;

·        Amy Rebecca Firestone, University of Illinois, revitalization of the Quechua language;

·        Diana Carolina Ojeda, Colombian citizen, Clark University, tourism-based development and state violence in Colombia;

·        Alan Shane Dillingham, University of Maryland, bilingual education in Mexico’s Mixteca Alta region.

This is the third cycle of Fellows since the reactivation of the Fellowship Program in 2007. Before its suspension in 1999, IAF had supported nearly 1,000 Fellows from the United States and 28 other countries in the Americas.

This fall the IAF will accept applications for its 2010-2011 awards from students in the social sciences, physical sciences, technical fields and the professions as they relate to grassroots development issues. IAF fellowships provide international transportation to the field research site, a monthly stipend for a maximum period of 12 months and a research allowance. Fellows must have advanced to Ph.D. candidacy by the date they begin their IAF-sponsored research. For complete information, visit www.iie.org/iaf.

The IAF was created in 1969 by the United States Congress to fund the self-help initiatives of the organized poor in Latin America and the Caribbean and the groups that support them. To date, it has awarded more than 4,700 grants for grassroots development, worth more than $630 million. Together the IAF and its grantees have improved conditions for hundreds of thousands of poor families in communities throughout the hemisphere. For more on the IAF, log on to www.iaf.gov.

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For more details, call 703-306-4357 or e-mail pdurbin@iaf.gov.