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Community Corner

LOCAL GIRL LOOKING FOR HOMETOWN SUPPORT FOR HER PEACE CORPS PROJECT.

SANTA MARTA, Colombia, South America (June 27, 2014) – Taylor Ramsey, a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer 
from Dunedin, Florida, gave digital cameras to 18 Wiwa children in a remote indigenous village in Colombia to 
help them photograph their community and help save their school. Now, she is looking to her Florida 
community to help support her work as a Peace Corps volunteer.
Ms. Ramsey has been a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia for 2.5 years. Volunteering has always been a 
passion for her and she was the City of Dunedin's Volunteer of the Year in 2002. Ms. Ramsey has spent her life 
since receiving that award fighting for educational equality. After attending the University of Florida, she spent 
two years in Teach for America in the South Bronx. After receiving two Master ́s degrees, she taught in several 
public universities in New York while working on her PhD.
 
As a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer, she has spent two years working with public school teachers in one of the 
most disadvantaged parts of Colombia. She then extended her Peace Corps time to work with the local Wiwa 
indigenous population because this is a population that is fighting to preserve its culture. Most of us don't know 
what it is like to not be able to go to school when it rains. For Colombian Wiwa indigenous children, a little 
rain means no class and when there isn't any class, they can't practice their dying language or learn more about 
their withering culture. There are only 13,000 Wiwa left in Colombia and only 60% of them speak their 
indigenous language Damana because of a lack of indigenous schools to teach the language.
Ms. Ramsey teamed up with a Wiwa nonprofit foundation called Ribunduna Tayrona and another Peace Corps 
volunteer to empower indigenous children to play a key part in protecting their community and their educational 
future. Together they took an arduous trip to a remote Wiwa indigenous village called Wimake, where the 
school is in desperate need of a new roof. They taught 18 kids the basics of photography. The kids were given 
11 digital cameras and a day in their community to take photos to showcase the parts of their lives they thought 
were important for people to see. They knew the proceeds from their photos would go to remodel their school 
and protect their community. The community is ready to re-build the school, the first two weeks of September. 
Now, Ms. Ramsey is looking for help from her home community. She created an Indiegogo campaign to raise 
$18,000 from selling the children ́s photos to be able to fix the roof so the children can go to school, even when 
it rains. The photos and other products will be for sale for two months. She looks forward to receiving support 
from her home community, where here passion for volunteering began. 
Contact:
Ms. Taylor Ramsey
Taylorowenr@gmail.com
(country code 57) 312-451-4259
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/fix-a-roof-and-save-a-culture

On Sun, Jun 29, 2014 at 5:40 PM, taylor ramsey <taylorowenr@gmail.com> wrote:


--
Taylor Owen Ramsey "Genuine love is always radical"-D.C. Peace Corps Colombia PhD candidate, Political Science and Gender Studies
City University of New York
M.A. Political Science, Columbia University, New York
M.S.T. TESOL, Pace University, New York

"Tal vez no ser es ser sin que tú seas"-Pablo Neruda
"La mayor pobreza está en las palabras"-Jorge Garcia Usta


--
Taylor Owen Ramsey "Genuine love is always radical"-D.C. Peace Corps Colombia PhD candidate, Political Science and Gender Studies
City University of New York
M.A. Political Science, Columbia University, New York
M.S.T. TESOL, Pace University, New York

"Tal vez no ser es ser sin que tú seas"-Pablo Neruda
"La mayor pobreza está en las palabras"-Jorge Garcia Usta

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