After nearly missing her flight while lugging 20 pounds of pliers for Emerge program participants, April Wachtel, our new full-time volunteer, has safely arrived in Sri Lanka!
April is one of the most creative, articulate, and well-spoken people I have met. She has a BA in Psychology from Boston University, where she also focused on communications, writing, languages, and logic. In 2006, she discovered the Hundred Dollar Laptop project at MIT, and became enamored by the thought that simple design+ strategy+ amazing people could solve world problems. Inspired by the project, she entered the Massachusetts College of Art’s (MassArt) Industrial Design Certificate program. While studing at MassArt, she cross-registered at MIT for a wheelchair design class, where she met me and learned about Emerge Global.
I remember the sunny day when we sat on Killian court, sunglasses shielding our eyes, and I told her about Sri Lanka, the girls I had met, and my aspirations for our programs. The next thing I knew, April signed on to become a long-term volunteer for Emerge, hoping to combine her creative and business interests for a year in Sri Lanka.
As our Sri Lanka Program Development Officer, April will supervise Emerge Global’s program design, execution, and growth in Sri Lanka. She will work to monitor, evaluate, and develop existing programs, organize logistics of program expansion, and engage affected communities in project planning. As part of our program design, we hope to build the local capacity to implement, manage, and assess all current and future Emerge Global programs in Sri Lanka. Having just returned from a trip to South Africa to design a educational attachment for wheelchairs where her work continues to be developed, I know April will be an asset to Emerge in reaching this goal.
I’m thrilled to have April as part of the team, not only for her competence, but for her enthusiasm and creativity which is absolutely contagious!
Welcome to Sri Lanka, April! EmergeLove,
Alia