ADE and Eastern University in Pennsylvania have established an excellent partnership that links students in Eastern’s master’s program in international development (IDEV for short) with the communities of San Rafael and Vara Blanca in Costa Rica. Much of the reason for this partnership is that Tomás, Frances and Ben (our two newest staff members who came in January) were all students in the program. A group of students from Eastern’s program has come to visit each year for the past three years since the Cinchona earthquake in 2009.
From March 4-12 a group of twenty students and one professor from Eastern’s IDEV program joined ADE in Costa Rica. The group stayed in the ADE Center in San Rafael and each of the visitors also took turns staying for three nights in the homes of families in our community.
