Jody Staehelin is an American-Swiss pediatrician, living and working in Switzerland, who has been involved with health-related projects in developing countries for over ten years. During the past four years she has been developing and supervising a project to finance school tuition for orphans and vulnerable children in northern Zambia. She has also privately financed small local businesses proposed by women’s groups and individuals, as well as secured NGO financing of a hammer mill, which is owned and operated by a community school for orphans and vulnerable children in the region. She is married to an innovative Swiss doctor and the mother of two wonderful, impish teenage sons.

Chief Financial Officer

   Julie Rossallini, graduate of Wheaton College, is a corporate software executive living in Connecticut, currently on child-rearing leave of absence. Although she used to scramble up high mountains in the Himalayas (in 2003 she made it to the highest bivouac at 8,000 meters), she now gets her exercise by running after her toddler Delia. We appreciate her business knowledge, which has been invaluable in guiding us through legal, economic and electronic hurdles.

Director of Project Development

   MariElena Granger trained at the Autism Center for America for five years and currently runs an alternative healing center in New York City. Previously she was a bilingual elementary public school teacher in a multicultural inner city district. She grew up in Mexico City. After September 11th, MariElena volunteered for the Red Cross as an interpreter and facilitator for Spanish and French speaking families. For the International Red Cross in India, she helped launch a rehabilitation facility for law enforcement personnel who were addicted to drugs and alcohol. She has raised the funds necessary and returned to Kashikishi to begin a vocational training project. She was the wife of the late playwright Percy Granger, and is the mother of two fabulous sons.

spacer

 Director of Media and Public Relations

   Suzanne Joyal is an arts educator living near San Francisco. A graduate of Wellesley College, Suzanne has spent most of her adult life working to improve the creative opportunities of all children, regardless of economic background. In this era when arts education has been effectively erased from California children's education, Suzanne is working with Youth in Arts, creating a new integrated arts curriculum for public school children. Suzanne is the mother of two boys: a most precocious 10-year old and a very, very sweet 8-year old.