As the countdown for the start of a new school year enters its final few days, the group’s excitement is growing rapidly. In a May post that feels only days old, I wrote that WDA was looking forward to the upcoming year. Well now it’s almost here, and those words feel like a drastic understatement. Of course, not too much has changed in terms of new project development, though the organization has not remained stagnate over the summer months. We’ve all been doing background reading on our upcoming project, the loosely titled Trans-Border Initiative, in addition to finishing up the Sadhana Clean Water Project and working on a myriad of smaller internal projects. One WDAer, Melissa, spent most of her summer in Peru polishing her Spanish and working with an NGO on a literacy project, among other things. Look for more information and commentary on her experiences coming soon.

But I should pause and fill in the newcomers with a brief description of this year’s project. In the Trans-Border Initiative, WDA will be conducting research among the migrant Latino populations of Eastern Washington in an investigation pointed at an eventual project that works to fight economic stagnation in migrant’s home communities in Mexico. Work will begin in earnest as soon as everyone gets back on campus and settled in.

Besides the new project, there is much currently going on with WDA. Look for us at the Student Activities fair on the Cordiner Side Lawn at Whitman on Monday, September 1st from 12-3pm. We would love to have some new faces to start off the year. Also, as I mentioned before in the last May post, for the first year ever WDA will be working with a Board of Advisers to plan for the future, get advice on the project and finances, and to have central, organized access to a wealth of knowledge and experience. The board is made up of volunteer faculty members and we are excited to announce this productive addition to the organization.

Also, WDA is looking to revamp its website in the near future, and is on the hunt for a student web designer who would like to join the organization and work with us on designing and launching a new site. Of course, we would love someone who wanted to work on the project as well, but I wouldn’t call it an obligation at this point. Please email me at johnloranger@whitmandirectaction.org if you’re interested or have someone to recommend we contact.

That’s basically it for now. Look for much more in the near future!
Peace and Love,
John

Tags: Trans-Border Initiative

This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 10:27 pm and is filed under Community, Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.