As President and Founder of the JBQ Charitable Foundation (JBQ), I am thrilled to steer the Foundation in pursuit of educational innovation in the United States and Peru.  During our first year of establishment (2013-14), JBQ successfully collaborated with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) in sponsoring a Faculty-led Study Abroad Program to Peru for pre-service education students. JBQ also facilitated two individual volunteer teaching experiences at schools in Lima during the Fall of 2014.  In the summer of 2016 our first Honoree, Talmeshia Parker, and I were invited to informally to observe schools in two regions of Peru in order to facilitate future educational exchanges. These achievements have strengthened my resolve to identify and create similar learning opportunities in Peru in the future for qualified educators.

 

As a mother, grandmother, educator and now an educational researcher, I have always advocated the importance of an education that extends beyond the traditional classroom setting.  I like to think that through JBQ's sponsorship of professional development programs or overseas work experience opportunities in Peru, we help provide unique opportunities to qualifying pre-service educators, for interaction with experts with a Peruvian - and more broadly a Latin American - view of global environmental conditions, politics, and educational development, as well as helping them compare education and research in Peru with that of the USA. 

 

JBQ has been designated a 501 (c) (3) Foundation which means going forward we will be developing creative fund raising activities so that we may have greater outreach, sponsor more educational exchanges and more educational exchanges and development programs overseas, as well as increase our collaboration with other institutions on issues of mutual interest.

 

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Aerin W. Benavides, PhD

 

 

October 2016