Citizen Diplomacy Awards made by Sister Cities
Chattanooga Sister Cities announces the recipients of five Citizen Diplomacy Awards. The awards honor the service and commitment of individuals who have contributed to Chattanooga by reaching out to people of other nations.
The local “citizen diplomats” were recognized at the Sister Cities International Conference held March 29-31, 2007, at University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Mae Ferguson, president of the board of directors of Sister Cities International, was present to hand out the awards.
“Citizen Diplomacy refers to people-to-people efforts,” said Eleanor Cooper, president of the Chattanooga Sister Cities association, “rather than professional diplomacy of governments. These awards recognize individuals who have made a significant difference in international relations locally.”
Citizen Diplomacy is a term used since President Eisenhower founded Sister Cities International in 1956. Sister Cities International encourages local efforts and individual initiatives to bridge international connections person to person and city to city.
“We asked different organizations to identify individuals who exhibited extraordinary commitment and dedication, “ explained Ms. Cooper. “They found outstanding examples and we wanted to recognize them for reaching beyond our city to people around the world.”
The five recipients of the Citizen Diplomacy Awards in Chattanooga are:
1. Dr Mitchell Mutter, Children’s Nutrition Program of Haiti
Dr. Mitchell Mutter, a local cardiologist, was recognized as a Citizen Diplomat for creating a grass-roots aid program called the Children’s Nutrition Program of Haiti.
According to Rick Torok, an attorney and board member of the Children’s Nutrition Program of Haiti, it all began for Dr. Mutter when he went to Haiti on a week-long mission trip in 1988. He soon found that the medical needs of this impoverished country were beyond any single person’s ability. He began calling on the skills of other practitioners and his week long stays grew longer every year.
One day in 1995 while working in a chaotic emergency situation, Dr. Mutter received word that a three-year-old malnourished child had died. He had been monitoring this child for weeks, hoping to find a way to reverse the effects of severe malnutrition. Dr. Mutter wept when he heard, and in that moment a new determination was born.
After returning home, he brooded for months asking himself, “What can we do?” One individual’s efforts seemed so little in the face of so much need.
Dr. Mutter realized the problems start long before a child enters the hospital. He needed to reach the children and families before they became sick and too weak to recover.
With only $213 from the sale of Haitian artwork and a handful of volunteers, he started the Children’s Nutrition Program of Haiti.
Through this organization, today volunteers in 65 villages teach mothers to use local resources to feed their children and keep them healthy. More that 1100 children and 750 caregivers have participated.
The Children Nutrition Program of Haiti has an office in Chattanooga located at St. Andrews center and a program manager in Haiti. Volunteers go every year. And Dr. Mutter and his wife, Carol, and three sons continue to reach out to the children and families of Haiti.
Larry Palmer, former ambassador to Honduras and President of the InterAmerica Foundation, presented the Citizen Diplomacy award to Dr. Mutter. The InterAmerica Foundation makes grants and loans to development projects in Central and South America.
Contact: Children’s Nutrition Program of Haiti, Inc.
1918 Union Avenue
Chattanooga TN 37404-0720
Judy Elb, 495-1122 jelb@cnphaiti.org
2. Sonia Sasse, La Paz de Dios
Sonia Sasse, a transplant to Chattanooga herself from Costa Rico, has become the voice for Chattanooga’s Hispanic immigrants in the Chattanooga community, according to Ed Canler, a member of the board of La Paz de Dios.
As a founding member and the first director of La Paz, Mrs. Sasse helped new residents find resources such as English classes, medical care, food, and housing. She has served as advocate, translator, interpreter, and relief agent.
Mrs. Sasse has worked closely with many agencies in the city including the police department, the Hamilton County Health Department, the Office of MultiCultural Affairs and religious organizations.
“Sonia Sasse is recognized as a Citizen Diplomat for her tireless advocacy and making Chattanooga a more hospitable place for others,” stated Mr. Canler in presenting her the award. He recognized that she was retiring from her post but would continue as a volunteer.
Conatact: La Paz de Dios
St. Andrews Center
1918 Union Avenue
Chattanooga TN 37404
624-8414
Or contact Ed Canler, president of La Paz, cubaed@aol.com
3. Jim Steele, Uganda Children’s Project.
Jim Steele is dean of the Business and Information Technologies Division at Chattanooga State, but that is not all he does. He became interested in Uganda in the mid 1980s when he was at Covenant College, and the director of a small clinic in Uganda stayed in his home.
The Ugandan clinic director had lost her brother-in-law to AIDS leaving a 10 year old boy for her to raise. She already had four children of her own and three others she had adopted so she was unable to take on his tuition.
A man agreed to pay the boy’s fees and Jim agreed to collect the money and send it to Uganda.
A few weeks after the clinic director returned home, Jim and his wife received an envelope with 14 more pictures of children with their stories. She had attached a note on top: “these children need help, too.”
They found sponsors for these kids among the members of their church. A few weeks later, they received 54 more pictures and descriptions, then 150 more.
The Uganda Children’s Project was created to sponsor the children, and the Brainerd Presbyterian Church agreed to house the project.
Today, there are 280 sponsored children in the program. Most of the children have lost one or both parents to AIDS. All are desperately poor and range in age from kindergarten to university.
Jeff Olingy, Special Assistant at Chattanooga State, praised Mr. Steele for his personal commitment as he handed him a certificate as a Citizen Diplomat. Mr. Steele will make his seventh trip to Uganda in June.
Contact to sponsor a child:
Uganda Children’s Project
c/o Brainerd Presbyterian Church
1624 Jenkins Rd.
Chattanooga TN 37421
423-396-3777
jimsteele@ugandachildrensproject.com
4. Chuck Carpenter, Bridge Refugee and Sponsorship Services. Inc.
Mr. Carpenter, a retired accountant, was recognized for exceptional volunteer work supporting refugees and asylees resettling in Chattanooga through Bridge Refugee and Sponsorship Services.
In 1998, when Mr. Carpenter started helping Bridge, that one year alone Bridge sponsored 110 refugees from Bosnia.
As soon as he heard refugees were coming, Mr. Carpenter went to work calling places to find enough furniture. When houses and apartments were found for the families, Mr. Carpenter organized a group of men in his church with trucks to pick up the furniture and haul it to where it was needed.
His church, St. Thaddeus Episcopal, sponsored two families themselves under his leadership.
About that time, the state coordinator for Bridge Refugee Services left and someone was needed to put the books in order. Having an accounting background, Mr. Carpenter volunteered. He drove every week for over a year back and forth to Knoxville to get the books straight, and he also served on the board of directors.
The refugees continued to come to Chattanooga, not only from Bosnia and Croatia but from the Ukraine, Somalia and Rowanda. As the families settled in Chattanooga, they found jobs but often didn’t have cars. Since public transportation doesn’t always go to the places needed, Mr. Carpenter organized a transportation team to drive them to work everyday for three years.
Anne Curtis, executive director of Bridge Refugee Services, made the presentation. She noted that long-term dependable and versatile volunteers like Chuck Carpenter are the life-blood of organizations like Bridge.
Contact to sponsor a refugee family:
Bridge Refugee Services
Anne Curtis
423-954-1911
bridgechat@aol.com
5. Irven Resnick, UTC’s Hebrew and Jewish Studies
Since arriving at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Dr Irven Resnick has worked to establish opportunities for young people to understand the holocaust and to prevent such disasters internationally.
Hugh Prevost, interim Vice-Chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, recognized Dr. Resnick’s extra-curricular work in organizing three regional conferences entitled “Learning from the Holocaust.”
Dr. Resnick is the faculty liaison for UTC’s international study program at Israel’s University of Haifa and will lead in the summer of 2007 students to live and study at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, in Oxford, England. He serves locally in community relations committees and was appointed by former governor Don Sunquist to the Governor’s Tennessee-Israel Cooperation Committee.
Contact: Irven Resnick
University of TN at Chattanooga
615 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga TN 37403
423-425-4141
Chattanooga Sister Cities is a non-profit, membership-based organization. Chattanooga has five sister city relations in countries which were former areas of conflict. Today Chattanooga is building peaceful relations with people in these countries through interaction based on the volunteer efforts of people in Chattanooga.
If you know of any stories similar to these or if you know of anyone who has made a personal commitment to bridging the gap between our community and the people of another country, please contact us.
Contact person: Eleanor Cooper, elecooper@comcast.net
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