I came to be an intern at Open Source Ecology through a whirlwind of events when Marcin Jakubowski came to speak at Berea College.  I have been working at the Berea College Farm for 3 years and the past year on the Crops and Maintenance Management Team.  Working with machinery is something new to me, but I seem to have taken to it pretty well. 

 

I am in the process of starting a non-profit with Hope Broecker and Georgina Bard, the work of which is inspired by my friend Abigail Dietz, a Berea college Tech major who suffered a traumatic brain injury in the fall of 2012.  She was dedicated to improving agriculture and bolstering local economies through low-cost and efficient technological development. One aspect of her work that we are focused on continuing is a project that she began in Uganda working with a man named Dr. Tonny Kidega.  They intended on starting a cooperative tool fabrication center in Gulu, Uganda to help the farmers there design and build machines for their farms and homes to improve the efficiency of their farms and provide work for returning refugees.

 

My goal here at OSE is to educate myself on the process of design and fabrication for the types of machines that will benefit all under-resourced communities.  I want to continue this work that Abi began and to build upon those ideas and relationships that she developed while in Uganda and during her time at Berea College.  In the fall I will be returning to school and working with both the Ag and Tech departments to further this educational experience, so that when I graduate this coming May, I can jump into the work that we are beginning with Partnering with Abi.

Every day I will be updating my log for OSE here: