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The Team
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Alice Gugelev Alice has always been passionate about International Development and is excited to finally be applying her skills with The Muskoka Foundation. Her background spans careers in finance and strategy consulting, in for-profit, pro-bono and non-profit companies. Having worked on the trading floor with currency and interest rate flows and on project finance transactions on Wall Street and in Asia, Alice rounded out her development work preparation with Bain & Company Southeast Asia working on corporate strategy specializing in supply chain and logistics, consumer products and commercial banking. Alice spent significant time working in Thailand, India and China and worked and traveled pretty much everywhere else in Asia. In the social sector, Alice started with a short stint at the World Bank in Asia, followed by heading up Bain's pro-bono consulting practice in Singapore culminating most recently in a manager role with The Bridgespan Group in San Francisco working on education. With her experience and degrees from Columbia College in East Asian Studies and Economics, political science from the Stanford Japan Center in Kyoto and an MBA from Harvard Business School in hand, Alice is now FINALLY starting to feel more qualified to make a positive difference! Most of the learning and impact though, Alice anticipates will happen through The Muskoka Foundation's work with on the ground partners and local communities where our approach will be to listen first and learn what really works as we go. You can contact Alice via email to: alice -at- TheMuskokaFoundation.org |
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Jay Shapiro Jay comes to the Muskoka Foundation from a very different perspective. As one of the pioneers of the Internet industry in Asia, Jay had the good fortune to travel extensively throughout Asia, meeting all sorts of different people in different cultures, all unified by two things: 1) the incredible power of the Internet to connect people around the planet; and 2) the impact of entrepreneurship to affect a community of talented individuals and their network of families and friends. Jay grew his own business: "BLUE" from a small Singapore startup of 3 people, to a globally dominant, profitable force in the marketing industry; with offices in London, New York, Tokyo, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai and San Francisco. When BLUE was acquired by the global WPP network in June 2007, it allowed Jay to begin to focus on leveraging his entrepreneurial skills and broad network to help those in developing communities through his work with the non-profit Muskoka Foundation. Most exciting for Jay is the ability to combine his strong belief about the impact of the entrepreneur, with his passion for overland travel and off-road exploration. Jay is a die-hard Toyota fan, having owned (at various times and in various states of disrepair) a HiLux, a Land Cruiser, a Tacoma and a Prius. Though he admits to (wonderful) distractions along the way of two Jeep Wranglers, a Ford F-650 and a red 1984 BMW 6-series that he never should have sold... You can contact Jay via email to: jay -at- TheMuskokaFoundation.org |
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Eric V. Ibarra Eric V. Ibarra is the Global Photography Program manager. Eric is a self-taught, Los Angeles based photographer. He founded Las Fotos Project (www.lasfotosproject.org), a nonprofit organization empowering Latina youth through photography. Eric has facilitated two remarkable photography programs in downtown Los Angeles, California and Guanajuato, Mexico. His plans include eight photography program implementations over the next twelve months, throughout Latino communities in North, Central, and South America. Please contact Eric with any questions regarding our past, current, and future photography programs. You can contact Eric via email to: eric -at-themuskokafoundation.org |
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Brian Croak Brian is our Traveler Relations Manager. Brian comes to the foundation with a hope for a positive impact on the world around him. Brian has traveled extensively through the USA and Canada, and brings that passion for travel and experiencing the world with him. He has a Masters Degree from Chaminade University of Hawaii, and a BA from Colorado State University. His professional background is as an experienced Air Force Reserves Officer, and Clinical Chaplain Counselor for the local State Hospital. He also has over twenty years of experience in off-road and backwoods vehicle travel, has spent a great deal of time exploring the four wheel drive roads of the USA, and guiding others on trips and route planning. Due to his significant time in the American wilderness, and his father's life long love of photography, Brian is also an avid amateur photographer, outdoors man, and back woods camper. Brian is responsible for everything from Recruiting and vetting new travelers, to advising and routing existing travelers. So if you have a love for overland travel, and using what you know to do good as you go, contact Brian today by clicking on the "get involved" tab above! You can contact Brian via email to: brian -at- TheMuskokaFoundation.org |
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Vicki Muylaert Vicki is the Relationship Manager for Africa. Vicki joins Muskoka having recently completed a 48,361km overland journey from London to Cape Town with husband Nick in 14-year-old Land Rover. She visited 33 countries, travelling across the Sahara, West Africa and through Central Africa before returning home on the West Coast of South Africa. You can read about her travels at www.langebaan-sunset.com. No stranger to charity work, Vicki has previously worked with the Reach for a Dream in South Africa and during her travels supported the charity Solar Sister an organisation that promotes female entrepreneurship via the sale of solar powered light products for the developing world. She promoted the work of the charity using a variety of media including photography, radio, podcast, Blogger, U-Tube & Twitter. Vicki has a professional background in Restaurant Management and has worked in the care and pensions industry. She has a keen interest in outdoor activities and enjoys exploring the remoter parts of the planet in a 4x4. Being fluent in Afrikaans enables her to communicate on a deeper level with local people in South Africa and is planning to learn to speak Xhosa to extend her communication skills in a country that has eleven officially recognised languages! “It’s been a dream of mine to be able to work for an organisation like Muskoka and I am looking forward to help extend the reach of the foundation here in Africa.” Please contact Vicki if you would like to be one of our partner organizations or have recommendations regarding who we should partner with in Africa. You can contact Vicki via email to: vicki -at-TheMuskokaFoundation.org | ||||
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Katie Clancy Katie Clancy is the Relationship Manager for Latin America. Katie is a Photographer and Educator that moved to Guanajuato, Gto. Mexico two years ago. In January of 2009 she started an after-school art program, eStudio 473, that serves a local girls' home, also a partner of Muskoka, El Buen Pastor. In this time she has worked with Eric Ibarra, Ileana LaTorre and Efrain Martinez to facilitate photography and Capoeira workshops with the girls. Currently she is continuing to develop eStudio 473 into a program that serves multiply communities in Guanajuato. She excited to use the experience and knowledge gained through her time working within various community art projects uniting local community members with both traveling and local volunteers to serve the Muskoka partners throughout Latin America. Katie graduated with a BA in Communications and Photography from Webster University. She spent several years studying Spanish and Art Education at the beginning of her studies. After graduation she returned to the idea of being an educator and worked for several years at the Soulard School, a private elementary school in the city of St. Louis that considers it's approach to be a qualitative research based curriculum. This student interest lead style of learning and teaching had an enormous impact on the development of her teaching style as well as her own interest in studying and observing cognitive and social emotional development. Katie has fallen madly in love with Mexico although still longs to see as much of Central and South America as possible. Apart from travel aspirations she dreams of yurts, artist collectives and organic farming in any form or combination in her future. Please contact Katie if you would like to be one of our partner organizations or have recommendations regarding who we should partner with in Latin America. You can contact Katie via email to: KatieClancy -at-TheMuskokaFoundation.org | ||||
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Nick Bradshaw Nick is the Photography Programme Manager for South Africa. Nick joins Muskoka having recently completed a 366 day long “honeymoon in a Land Rover” with his wife Vicki. Nick has a passion for photography and loves to shoot in black and white formats with his trusty Canon 5DMKII. “It’s been a life long hobby of mine that I have recently put to good use for the charity Solar Sister. I am excited to be now doing this here in South Africa with Muskoka”. Whether its getting lost in the desert near Algeria or crossing the Congo in a remote part DRC, Nick loves to explore the road less travelled and always aims to capture the people and vistas along the way using his camera. You can read more about his travels and photography at www.langebaan-sunset.com Nick graduated with a PhD in Environmental Chemistry from the University of Wales and has spent 15 years working in the technology industry in business development and project management functions in Europe, USA and Canada. He has worked for global corporations, start-ups and as a consultant and is currently writing a children’s book series to raise awareness in both children and adults about the destruction of the environment and natural resources in Africa. He is also a contributing author to Overland Live and an approved photographer for the Overland Journal. You can contact Nick via email to: nick -at-TheMuskokaFoundation.org |
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Our Alumni!
Ileana LaTorre and Efrain Martinez
Ileana and Efrain were the program coordinators for all of our partnerships in Latin America, from Mexico down to Chile. They have run several successful photography and Capoeira programs with youth throughout Mexico and Central America and the youth are very attached to them!
Ileana and Efrain are also great travelers and have started MotoNomadas-Explorando el Sur, an incredible journey of riding a motorcycle (Morcega) with a sidecar (Morceguinho) across Central and South America (www.motonomadas.com). While Ileana and Efrain achieve one of their biggest dreams, they would like to contribute their part to the less fortunate, by raising awareness and funds to help street kids in Latin America to get education, food and clothing. Ileana was born and raised in Puerto Rico, finished her Bachelor Degree in Environmental Science in 2004, and was motivated to continue and finished a Master Degree in Hydrogeology (2008). Through all these years of study, Ileana always envisioned traveling around the world to truly appreciate some of the major natural settings and most importantly the cultures. Efrain is a Biologist born and raised in Colombia, where he used to participate in different outdoor activities, including mountain biking, rock climbing, camping, and performing POI (fire spinning). After finishing his college studies in 2004, he moved to Charleston, South Carolina with the hard mission of learning English and working as a Biologist in a foreign country. Ileana and Efrain met at the Charleston, SC Capoeira group where they realized their joint passion of exploring the world and traveling the Americas on a motorcycle while “doing good as they go.”
Kaylena Bray
Kaylena was the relationship coordinator for USA and Canada, working in partnership primarily with Native Tribes in the US and First Nations in Canada. She brings an amazing background to our efforts, having worked at Ashoka Changemakers, in corporate social responsibility at NIKE and the Hip Hop Loves Foundation in Brazil. Kaylena also has extensive experience in working on development of new businesses and social entrepreneurship. She graduated from Brown University and spent a study abroad program in Australia.
Most recently, Kaylena has been actively involved in several UN initiatives for indigenous rights, protection of indigenous areas, benefit sharing and global networking of indigenous leaders.
