Edwin F. Shinn, Ph.D.

Ed has worked in the field of community and village development for 30 years. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology, a Master's degree in group dynamics, and a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy. His expertise includes organizational development, planning and management methods, training design and implementation, technology generation, project monitoring and survey research.

His work as an organizer and trainer has taken him to the villages of India, Kenya, Peru, Guatemala, Wounded Knee, rural California, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Egypt. He developed and managed a mobile school for community development where indigenous people in each area in which it was held were trained to be faculty. In Egypt he helped to develop an Irrigation Advisory Service and trained its personnel to work with farmers in setting up water user organizations to improve irrigated agriculture.

Milan Dinda, Ph.D.

Education:

PhD in Sociology (Population Study): Kalyani University/Indian Statistical Institute Calcutta/ Population Council, USA; MA in Sociology (Specialization in Development & Planning): Kalyani University; BSc (H) in Zoology: Calcutta University; BA in Sociology: Kalyani University;

Short Course on Participatory Practices for Sustainable Village-Based Development: International Institute for Sustainable Development, CSU,USA; Certificate in Sustainable Agriculture and Appropriate technology, women in Development, Mass Media from SIFAT, USA; Training on HIV/AIDS Counseling from CMC, Vellore, Under National AIDS Control Organization initiative, Certificate in Strategic Communication and Advocacy, Gender.

Areas of Expertise:

Monitoring and Evaluation, Community Capacity Building, Social Capital Theory, Participatory Action Research, Survey and Evaluative Research Methods, Development with Indigenous Communities, the Application of Information Communication Technologies in Rural Development, PLA Tools, PRA HID (Human and Institutional Development), RBM-Result Based Management, communication for advocacy, Sustainable village based development, project planning and management, fundraising, networking, proposal writing, Gender and Right based approach, Log Frame Matrix and analysis, networking, advocacy and alliance building.

Miriam Shinn, M.S.

Miriam (Mimi) has worked in the field of community and village development for over 30 years. She received her M.S. in Agricultural Economics. She has worked has worked with and lived as a community facilitator in India, Australia, and Africa. Her specialty is group facilitation, women in development, communication for development, and micro-finance.

Kamala Parekh

Kamala has a Master’s in Economics: University of Allahabad, India. Radio Journalism with a BBC affiliated International Broadcasting Company. Community Development Training: Institute of Cultural Affairs-International, Chicago, USA.

Current Affiliations:

• Coordinates village and community based activities in Maharashtra, India
  
• Teaches English Language to non-English speaking European women in Maharashtra, India
• Trains village women and craftsmen in making and marketing local handicrafts in Zambia and India
  
• Trains Government and private sector multinational organizations and NGOs in the techniques of community development through participative methods
• Coordinates Entrepreneurial Development program for village youth in Maharshtra, India in collaboration with Village Earth: The Consortium for Sustainable Village-Based Development: USA
  
• Conducts Personality Development Courses for College and University students in India
• Conducts Finishing School courses/Women’s Empowerment workshops (‘Stree Shakti’) for rural and urban women in India
• Holds summer camps for children through non-academic activities to develop their overall personality and build confidence
  

• Human Development Project work in the villages of Maharashtra, India and rural communities in Zambia
  
• Conducted and participated in training programs for community workers in Venezuela, Kenya, India and the US

Areas of Expertise:

Designing and facilitating training and development programs towards organizational transformation using the Technology of Participative Management.

Ann Jefferson , Ph.D.
(Photo: Left)

Ann got her PhD in History from University of Massachusetts with a dissertation on an early nineteenth-century peasant rebellion in Guatemala.. Since then she has been splitting her time between teaching history at CSU and the University of Massachusetts, and working on a women's sustainable development project in a Q'echi' Mayan village in Guatemala.

She is currently working on a book about daily life in colonial Latin America and making preparations to open a women's center in Coban, Guatemala.

Current Affiliations:

• Teaches Latin American History at CSU
  
• Working with a women's association in the Mayan village of San Pablo
  Xucaneb', Alta Verapaz, Guatemala since fall of 2002

• Taught Latin American History at University of Massachusetts-Amherst
  
• Taught English at Universidad Mariano Galvez in Guatemala City
  

Areas of Expertise:

Ann's areas of special interest include popular movements in Latin America, historically and in the present; the global economy and resistance to it; U.S. social movements in the twentieth century; Latino migration and immigration to the U.S.; the dangers of fascist influences here in the U.S.

Here specific areas of expertise are Latin American history and popular movements, world history in the modern period, and issues currently affecting Latin American women.

Vinod Parekh

Psychology Major: University of Nagpur, India.
Marketing Management, NTC, Calcutta, India. Radio and Television Broadcasting, BBC, London, Glasgow. Community Development Training-Institute of Cultural Affairs – International, Chicago, USA.

Current Affiliations:

• Director-Human Development Services-A management consultancy, training and development organization based in Nashik, India, which specializes in conducting management alignment, team building, personal and organizational effectiveness enhancement programs for public, private and voluntary sectors
• Chairman-Gramoday Prayog - A private voluntary organization dedicated to empowering village communities towards all sectoral development
• International Projects Director/Coordinator Village Earth: The Consortium for Sustainable Village-Based Development
  
• Visiting Faculty at: Maharashtra Police Academy, India; International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), Colorado State University, USA; JDC, Bytco & Symbiosis Management Institutes (MBA program) of the University of Pune, India

• Branch Manager-National Tobacco Company Ltd., Nagpur, India
  
• Marketing Director-Communication Services, Hyderabad, India
• Consultant / Trainer- Institute of Cultural Affairs-International, Chicago
  
• Director Community and Village Development Projects, Maharashtra-India
• Project Director-Community Development Programme, Lusaka, Zambia
  

Areas of Expertise:

Designing and facilitating training and development programs towards organizational/community transformation using the Technology of Participative Management.

V.V. Ramanan

Education:

BSEE in 1971 from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, India

Current Affiliations:

• President of Bitsoft Systems, Inc, a Colorado-based software consulting company with a development center in Bangalore, India
  
• ILender on committee to oversee a micro credit program in Nashik, India

• Management consultant specializing in market research and business planning; had consulting assignments in the US, Europe and Asia
  
• Quality Manager, Hewlett Packard Co, Loveland, Colorado
• International Sales Manager, Hewlett Packard, Loveland, Colorado
  
• Test Engineering Manager, Hewlett Packard, Loveland, Colorado
• Product Line Manager, Hewlett Packard Asia, Hong Kong
  

Areas of Expertise:

V.V. has over 30 years of working experience in India, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and the US in engineering, sales and marketing management. He has started two businesses: a business consulting practice with a focus on market research and business strategy development and he co-founded a software consulting company with operations in Colorado and Bangalore, India. In addition he sits on a Committee of Lenders to oversee the Village Earth micro-credit program in Nashik, India.

David Bartecchi, M.A.

Dave received his M.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Colorado State University and has worked with IISD since 1998. He is also Director of Program Development at Village Earth a sister organization of IISD. Since 2000 he has been working with grassroots groups on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to recover lands for community-based bison restoration. He has also worked with the Indigenous groups in Peru and Ecuador and trained and consulted on

community-based development projects in in Azerbaijan, Armenia, India as well as with Native American Tribes in California and Oklahoma.

Dave teaches online courses in Approaches to Community Development, Community Mobilization and Organization, Community Capacity Building and Community-based Mapping.

He has been an instrumental part of several research projects with CSU's Department of Anthropology including a 6 year longitudinal study of the informal economy on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota funded by the National Science Foundation, a survey of farmers and ranchers participating in the National Conservation Reserve Program conducted by CSU's Natural Resource Ecology Lab and funded by the USDA, and community-based censuses on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Reservations in South Dakota.

George Stetson, M.A.

Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science: Colorado State University (CSU); M.A. in Political Science: University of the Andes (Mérida, Venezuela); B.A. in Political Science: University of Arizona; Short Course on Participatory Practices for Sustainable Village-Based Development: International Institute for Sustainable Development, CSU.

Previous Positions

• Director of Educational Community Center, Fe y Alegría, Loma de los Maitines squatter village, Mérida, Venezuela, 1997-2001
• Regional and Local Project Manager, participatory development project, Fe y Alegria, Venezuela
• National Housing Council, 1999-2001
• Researcher, University of the Andes (Regional Integration Group), subjects poverty, social policy, democracy

Areas of expertise
Sustainable development, Latin America Politics, Participatory development methodologies in Venezuelan Squatter Villages, Grassroots Ecosystem Management

Christine Wheatley, M.A.

Christine Wheatley has her MA in sociology with an emphasis in international development. Her current work with Village Earth focuses on developing and expanding the Purulia Micro-finance Initiative in West Bengal, India. Christine specializes in survey, evaluation, and ethnographic research methods, community capacity building,

issues of development in indigenous communities, and local governance. She has conducted research on economic/community development in indigenous and impoverished communities in Mexico, Tanzania, and India.

Current Affiliations:

• Program Coordinator, Village Earth.  2006-present
• Research Assistant, Katrina Research Team, Colorado State University.  2006-present.
• Research Assistant, Resources for Disabled Students, Colorado State University.  2006-present

Previous Positions:

• Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of Sociology, Colorado State University.  2004-2006
• Assistant Coordinator, Center for Intercultural Encounters and Dialogues (CEDI), Oaxaca, Mexico,  2005

Areas of Expertise:
Community capacity building; local governance; participatory action research; indigenous community organization and governance; indigenous rights issues, particularly in Mexico; social research methods (evaluation, survey, in-depth interviewing); international development; women and development; development issues in Latin America and North Africa

Kristina Pearson, M.A.

Kristina received her M.A. in International Development from Colorado State University and has worked with IISD since 2004. She is also a Program Coordinator at Village Earth, a sister organization of IISD. Kristina has been working since 2006 with indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon and had spent time working with small island communities in the South Pacific. Kristina is a facilitator in IISD specialized courses, Participatory Practices for Sustainable Development, and various online courses she has developed.