Meet the Team
Guatemala
Ruth Garrido
Ruth started as a program coordinator in Guatemala in November 2005. Ruth Magaly Garrido Gómez is a Guatemalan citizen who received a bilingual degree at the Instituto Guatemalteco Americano (IGA), and then studied business in Stow, Ohio from 1993 to 1995. After working at the Akron Music Center in administrative accounting, Ruth returned to Guatemala where she handled all programming and interpretation for North American student groups as the Associate Director for Central America Study and Service (SEMILLA) from 1996 to 1999. Ruth has also served as the co-coordinator for Sister Parish Linkage, accompanying North American Sister Parish delegations to Guatemala. Currently, Ruth most recently was the coordinator of handicraft projects for the Sharing the Dream Organization.
Fidel Xinico Tum
Fidel is a Guatemalan citizen of the Cakchiquel Maya ethnic group. He is from a small village called Chipiacul, in the Department of Chimaltenango. He studied at the Catholic High School Seminary in Sololá, and at Francisco Marroquín University in Guatemala City, where he received a B.A. in Secondary Education and Philosophy. In 1984, Fidel received a scholarship from the New Ulm Dioceses of Minnesota to study at St. Paul Seminary at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he graduated with a M. Div. in 1988.
Since returning to Guatemala in 1988, Fidel worked with the San Lucas Tolimán Parish as director of catechists and delegates of the word, as well as teacher and high school principal in his home village. He also worked closely with Sister Parish since its inception in Guatemala, organizing parish-to-parish linkages, and working with delegations.
Fidel joined the staff of the Center in 1993 working with the Center's short-term travel seminars, then with semester programs. Fidel feels that this work has taught him about his own society and its problems, and he really enjoys an active exchange of ideas with North Americans and people from other countries who participate in the programs. He currently lives in San Lucas Sacatepéquez, a town near Guatemala City with his wife and three children.
El Salvador
César Acevedo
César was born in El Salvador and as a youth participated in the Christian Base Community movement and other social movements. In 1982, due to the political repression, Cesar and his family were forced to leave El Salvador. He lived in exile in Canada until returning to El Salvador in 1993. In Canada, he maintained close contact with the situation in El Salvador, primarily through his work with the El Salvador Ethno-cultural and Humanitarian Society and the Salvadoran Base Christian Community in Exile.
Prior to working for CGE, Cesar was youth educator for FUNDASIDA, the Salvadoran National AIDS Foundation. His work entailed training youth promoters in HIV/AIDS issues, including transmission and ways to avoid AIDS, human sexuality, gender roles, and self-esteem. He also has worked with Sister Parish in El Salvador and with organizations in Canada working on refugee resettlement.
While in Canada, César received a Social Work Diploma from Grant MacEwan College and has worked as a social worker. He recently concluded his studies in Latin American Social Work at the Salvadoran Lutheran University and is currently working on a thesis on the process of reinsertion of Salvadoran deportees from the United States.
Margaret (Peggy) O’Neill
Peggy completed her Masters Degree in Theology at the University of Marquette and her Doctoral Degree at New York University. She has taught at Iona College in New York and Barry University in Florida. She presently teaches for Casa de Solidaridad, a study abroad program for university students from the United States. Peggy has lived in El Salvador since 1987.
Nicaragua
Suyen Barahona Cuan
Suyen started as a program coordinator in Nicaragua in January. She holds a B.A in international relations from Mobile University, San Marcos, Nicaragua and a M.S. in environmental studies with a concentration in environmental policy from Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. Prior to her work in the Center, Suyen worked as campaign and project coordinator for various Nicaraguan non-governmental organizations involved in environmental work at the national and international level. Her experience includes: research, lobbying and advocacy work on Nicaraguan environmental policy; the relationship of macroeconomic policies and natural resource management in Nicaragua (analysis on external debt, free trade agreements); organizational, educational and advocacy work involving ethnic, indigenous communities and local organizations in the Caribbean of Nicaragua. In addition to working with travel seminars Suyen teaches Political Science in the CGE semester program in Nicaragua.
Mark Lester
Mark shares the position of Regional Co-Director of Central America and the Caribbean for the Center for Global Education with Kathy McBride. In addition they share the responsibility for the Center's program in Nicaragua. Mark began working with the Center in 1987. His responsibilities include designing educational experiences that help participants from the First World explore Third World culture and issues and understand the impact that relationship has on the lives of the local population. I In addition, Mark is the representative of the Winds of Peace Foundation, part of a contract with the Center for Global Education in Managua.
In Nicaragua, Mark has also been Material Aids Coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee, and represented the Wisconsin Coordinating Committee on Nicaragua in the Central Credit Committee of CEPAD in their Nicaraguan Community Development Loan Fund. He coordinates the Sub-Committee on Neo-liberalism for the Ecumenical Committee of U.S. Church Personnel in Nicaragua.
Prior to his work with the Center, Mark was a pastor of San Dionisio Parish in San Dionisio, Matagalpa, Nicaragua for two years (1985-87). He received cross-cultural and language school training with the Maryknoll Missioners Associate Priest Program in both New York and Bolivia. He was also a parish priest and high school religion teacher in Ft. Wright, Kentucky. Mark received his B.A. in Philosophy from St. Pius X Seminary in Erlanger, Kentucky and his M.A. in Theology with a concentration in Scripture from Mt. St. Mary Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
Juan Carlos López
Juan Carlos Lopez is a Program Coordinator for the Center’s program in Nicaragua. He is a Nicaraguan and graduated from the Central American University in Managua with a degree in English translation. Before joining the Center, Juan Carlos worked for 6 years at the El Limon Mine with a Canadian gold-mining company as a translator and manager of the procurement department. He joined the Center as a Study Abroad Facilitator in August of 2001. In addition to his work with the center, Juan Carlos has worked with exchange programs through churches and has accompanied doctors and dentists from the US who come to provide free medical and dental consultations for rural Nicaraguans. Juan Carlos is married and has a lovely wife and two children.
Kathleen McBride
Kathy shares the position of Regional Co-Director of Central America and the Caribbean for the Center for Global Education with Mark Lester. In addition they share the responsibility for the Center's program in Nicaragua. Her responsibilities include coordinating the Central America semester abroad program, oversight of regional staff and programming, and designing cross-cultural educational experiences within Nicaragua for travel seminar participants and university students.
Prior to joining the Center for Global Education in 1988, Kathy worked with the Christian Base Communities for three years in Nicaragua. Before moving to Nicaragua in 1984, she worked for 8 years in community development in a squatters’ settlement on the outskirts of the city of Caracas, Venezuela. Her primary work involved literacy training and teaching primary health care to women factory workers. Kathy has received theological and cross-cultural training in the Maryknoll Lay Mission Program. She holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies from George Mason University and Masters Degree in Education from Harvard University with a concentration in International Education. Kathy teaches History & Women´s Studies in Nicaragua since 1999.
