· In this experience with Fundacion Alpina, I had the opportunity to learn how to read, analyze and evaluate various projects related with socioeconomic development. I was able to learn how this projects work, how are they designed and implemented in the communities. Most importantly, I was given the chance to evaluate the performance and provide suggestions and solutions to the way that the projects are designed. More specifically, I was able to work with a project in Sopo, Cundinamarca (a small town close to Bogota, Colombia) that was an educative project for the community to learn how to have a better alimentary and nutritional security. This project was developed by Fundacion Alpina and the City Hall of Sopo. In this project I provided an additional component where a productive activities could be incorporated, and therefore not only alimentary and nutritional education will be provided, but also the municipality will benefit economically.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Updated Resume
Alejandra Ruales
Alejandra.ruales-almeida@loras.edu
HOME CAMPUS
Calle 127 B Bis 21-86 apt 117 1450 Alta Vista St. Box 1205
Bogota, Colombia Dubuque, IA 52001
(57) 2424434 (563) 495-5835 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (563) 495-5835 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
EDUCATION Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa August 2008- May 2012
BA in Economics and International Studies
Minor in Mathematics
Cumulative GPA: 3.729/4.0 – Honors Program
· Dean's List 6 semesters
The Fund for American Studies, Washington DC June-2010-July 2010
Completed nine credits in Political Science and Economics at Georgetown University
· Augmented studies with internship at National Hispana Leadership Institute (see below)
LANGUAGES Spanish, Native Speaker
English, Fluent
EXPERIENCE Intern, Fundacion Alpina, Bogota, Colombia Dec2011-Jan.2012
· Analyzed the organization’s national projects on social and economic development to provide solutions and alternatives to make them more efficient
· Evaluated an educative project in Sopo, Colombia to create a productive component to it to benefit the community economically
· Researched the current conditions of the project in Sopo, investigated the community’s perspective on the project to generate pertinent conclusions.
Honors Class, Peer Assistant, Loras College, Dubuque, IA July- Dec. 2011
· Led and prepared class presentations on the subject area upon absence of the professor
· Teamed with faculty and staff to prepare classes and discuss student performance
· Served as a positive academic and social role model for students in and outside the classroom
Volunteer, City of Dubuque Self-Sufficiency Center, Dubuque, IA Aug. 2011-Present
· Conducting research on implementation of a microfinance or credit union for the program
· Working with city and credit union officials, and possible partners to implement the project
· Designing possible models fitting for the mission and vision of the Self-sufficiency Center
Research Intern , The New York Times, Dubuque, IA Aug. 2010-July 2011
· Researched and targeted relevant information to create effective memos and facilitate the development of the stories for the newspaper.
· Created daily round-up clips of relevant news and organized a calendar to facilitate research.
· Created FOIA documents and several requests to the federal government.
Research Intern , Nat. Hispana Leadership Institute, Washington, D.C June - July2010
· Targeted potential clients for the Latina Empowerment Conferences in Portland and Miami.
· Researched and created an organized agenda of best options for hotels in large events.
· Created spreadsheets to organize groups and organizations with similar interests by region
· Promoted events via mass communication media such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.
Spanish Tutor, Spanish Department, Loras College, Dubuque, IA Sept. 2009-May 2010
· Identified students’ common mistakes to develop individual studying plans.
· Facilitated students’ learning process of a foreign language by strengthening their oral skills through conversations
Tutor, Physics and Mathematics Classes, Bogota, Colombia Jan. 2005 – Aug. 2009
· Provided in-home supplementary instruction to individual students.
LEADERSHIP/ ACTIVITIES | · UNICEF at Loras, President 2011-2012, Vice-President 2010-2011 · Loras Intercultural Students Association, President Spring 2010,Vice-President Fall 2009 · Loras Varsity Tennis, Captain 2010-2012 · PAIDEIA Honors Club, Class Representative, 2009 · Du-Talk Program, participant, Diversity and conflict solving training · Loras Economics Club, Principles of Macro/Microeconomics, Tutor, 2009-2011 |
Sunday Summary Week 3
This week, I had the opportunity to finish and turn in my final project on why productive projects should be incorporated in educative projects on a national level. Also, I had the opportunity to go over a lot of pictures and videos from activities that took place throughout the year in Sopo, where people learned how to have a proper alimentary and nutritional security. It was not a very busy week since I finished early my project, but it gave me the opportunity to realize how meaningful this experience was for me.
First of all, and as I commented on previous posts, I had the opportunity to change paradigms that I used to have about multinational companies. This is important because before this experience, I would never have considered working in a multinational company as something that I see for my career, first because I felt that I would not enjoy a “corporate culture” where people just care about increasing profits, keeping a budget and showing growth results of a company measured in economic gains. Through this project, I had the opportunity to see the flip side of multinational companies, where some of them do believe in the importance of having a role in the communities where they operate. Not only that, but it made me realize that the “corporate culture” that I stereotyped before, does not apply to every single company. As a perfect example, Alpina has as part of their vision and culture to produce with sustainability and to create sustainable interactions with the community. Through this, Fundacion Alpina plays a fundamental role showing that “Alpina, alimenta tu vida” (Alpina, nourishes your life) is a motto that goes beyond “nourishment” in a physical way. It is much deeper, as they try to nourish the relations with the community, try to nourish people by making them believe in their abilities by providing them with the tools to grow, to develop and to create wellbeing for them and their families. In this way, I learned a very valuable lesson, that is that wherever I work, I want to feel the passion that the people that work in F.A feel when they develop their projects when they can improve people’s lifestyles in a sustainable way. I want to feel satisfaction not where I have to show a growth indicator, but where I can show a development indicator.
News Story Week 3
Alpina begins operations in New York with a Greek yogurt and a new Factory
“Alpina apuesta en Nueva York con un yogur griego y una nueva planta”
Alpina has begun operations in New York through Alpina Foods by releasing a Greek yogurt in the market. The New York Times, comments that Alpina will be an important player in the yogurt market in the area. Alpina has intensions of expanding to New Jersey, Connecticut and Toronto. The yogurt released, is a Greek yogurt, which is much denser than conventional product, requires three times as much milk as a regular yogurt will need and is perceived as a healthier yogurt option.
The current expansion of Alpina’s market in the United States, and earlier in the year to Ecuador and Venezuela, is going to be important for the company and for Fundacion Alpina. From what I heard a couple days ago in the office, Alpina is planning to double its production in 2012, and by opening new markets they are going to need a much higher supply of milk in the territories where they have operations. This could be an important opportunity for small and medium producers to associate with Alpina. Here is where Fundacion Alpina would intervene. By finding opportunities of association with small and medium producers, they would not only be expanding their range of action and the amount of projects that they have, but they would also be collaborating with Alpina’s goal of 2012. In this way, the current expansion of Alpina to international territory could also be an opportunity for local producers to find a direct commercialization with Alpina. Further than that, it could be an opportunity to expand the effects of economic development that Fundacion Alpina tries to work for.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Journal Entries Week 3: #3
Part A: Professional Career Reflection
Part B:
As I look at my professional career, this experience was extremely meaningful because it opened a career path for me that I never consider before. I have always been interested in development economics, and before this experience I never envisioned working in a multinational company as an option. Working with Fundacion Alpina, helped me to change the paradigms that I used to have about multinational companies and realize that many have an important social responsible component. Companies like Alpina, have as a main part of their corporate culture to dedicate their efforts to guaranteeing sustainability, not only in production, but also in terms of creating sustainable communities that will be able to be economically integrated in a successful way.
As part of my goals in my future career, I want to keep my options open to paths that I haven’t considered before. I was not expecting that I would enjoy this experience as much as I did. I would love to have the opportunity to work for F.A or Alpina again. They truly represent the principles of social responsibility that I am looking for in my personal career and I believe I definitely fit in a corporation like this one. For this reason, I believe that continuing to change paradigms or ideas that I have from multinationals in general is an important step to open my career possibilities and to finding a place where I would truly enjoy working at. I would also like to continue improving my analytical skills, since I would like to work in a place where I am able to do research and evaluation of these types of projects that create socioeconomic development. Most importantly, I want to strengthen my ability to work directly with the communities involved in these projects, in this case due to the limited time I did not have as much time as I would have wished to interact with the Sopo community, but I believe this is something that I need to do more in other projects.
As part of my goals in my future career, I want to keep my options open to paths that I haven’t considered before. I was not expecting that I would enjoy this experience as much as I did. I would love to have the opportunity to work for F.A or Alpina again. They truly represent the principles of social responsibility that I am looking for in my personal career and I believe I definitely fit in a corporation like this one. For this reason, I believe that continuing to change paradigms or ideas that I have from multinationals in general is an important step to open my career possibilities and to finding a place where I would truly enjoy working at. I would also like to continue improving my analytical skills, since I would like to work in a place where I am able to do research and evaluation of these types of projects that create socioeconomic development. Most importantly, I want to strengthen my ability to work directly with the communities involved in these projects, in this case due to the limited time I did not have as much time as I would have wished to interact with the Sopo community, but I believe this is something that I need to do more in other projects.
Journal Entries Week 3: #2
Part A: Turn in final version of the project, collect pictures, videos of the project in Sopo to use as material for power point presentation
Part B:
I turned in the final version of the project. I received feedback from my supervisor today and she was extremely pleased with it. She mentioned that she sent it to the director of Fundacion Alpina to read it and to some co-workers involved in the Sopo project. I received very positive comments about it and I am excited to hear what the director, Eduardo Diaz has to say about it. Later in the day, my supervisor gave me time to collect pictures, videos and other material to take back to Dubuque and show for my presentation. She also gave me time to work on my final presentation for the CEL office because she told me she wanted to see it before I left.
After finishing my project, and being so close to the end of this experience, I learned extremely valuable skills and lessons that I will be able to use in my professional career. First, I learned skills that I thought I had before, but I realize that I strengthen them through this experience. I became a lot better with time management and organization. It was very important to keep these two together since I had to learn a significant amount of information in a very short period of time, and not only that but I had to apply it to analyze different projects. Furthermore, I learned how to create effective reports, and to evaluate important information based on theoretical knowledge and direct experience. A very important lesson that I learned was to be open to alternative was of working. Before this project, I used to be closed minded about alternative ways of developing tasks, since I believed that the way I worked was efficient and the best to go with. However, having Ana Maria as a mentor, opened new possibilities for me and although it does not sound important, she really helped me to learn how to listen and to open to alternative ways of working. I believe this is going to be extremely important for my future work opportunities since it helps me to work better in group.
Furthermore, given the nature of my project, which was research oriented, some major lessons I learned were: the importance of critical reading, as it is fundamental to understand and analyze the relevant information in projects and to use it for future analysis. Second, use that critical reading to analyze and evaluate documents, and create efficient reports and critiques about the information processed before. Third, to provide alternatives and solutions to existing problems. One of the advantages of having a project where I had the liberty to evaluate work previously done is that I could be creative and find multiple ways to approach the flaws or to identify potential benefits for the project.
Journal Entries Week 3: #1
Part A: Finishing final project, adding background information.
Part B: The past week, I was able to successfully finish my final project and turn it in to my supervisor. This project was an analysis and evaluation of the possibility of implementing a productive component to the educative projects that Fundacion Alpina has in the country. This week, I received feedback from my supervisor, she said that she really liked the project but gave me a couple of suggestions to work on to make it more complete. I did not realized that I designed this project in a way that I assumed that the reader would know exactly the specifics of the project in Sopo, and the other projects that F.A has in Colombia, so she suggested me to add some background information on what was Alpina, why did they created Fundacion Alpina, what was its mission, vision and how they worked their projects. This is one important lesson that I learned: never assume that the reports you turn in will be read by someone who knows what are you talking about (unless specified). With my assignment, it was extremely important to give a context to the final document, since my supervisor wanted others in Fundacion (who not necessarily knew all the specifics in the Sopo project) to read the document, since I was acting as an ‘external consultant’ for them. I believe this is an important lesson, because sometimes when we do our work we assume that the audience knows as much as we do, and that might have an impact in the quality of our documents.
Also, after having the experience of meeting some people in Sopo, I changed my perspective a little bit on the project. Another important valuable lesson is that it is important to see “with your own eyes” the reality of the project. When I had the initiative to go there to meet the people, I learned a new side of the story. It does not mean that the reports created by the F.A where false at all, but talking to the people directly makes you think of situations that might not have been considered before, or were not documented. Thanks to this experience, I could give a more real context to my evaluation, and apply a direct example on how small productive parts of the project in Sopo could be better used and create an economic impact in the municipality. One of this was the use of homemade orchards as a way of supplying fruits and vegetables for the community and the stores.
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