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Julia MacGlashan was a participant on the Spring 2006 CIEE-Khon Kaen (Thailand) Study Abroad Program. She has postponed her last year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to return to Thailand as a Program Intern. 
Virginia Leavell was a student in the Fall 2003 CIEE-Khon Kaen (Thailand) Study Abroad Program. Prior to returning to Thailand as a Global Citizen in January 2006, she graduated from Georgetown University and trained student living wage activists. 
Ellen Roggemann participated in the Fall 2003 CIEE-Khon Kaen (Thailand) Study Abroad Program. After graduating from Occidental College, she worked for ENGAGE, coordinating Speaker Tours in the United States for Thai rice farmers and non-profit workers. She then returned to Thailand to work as a program intern in the Fall of 2006 and a community intern in the Spring of 2007. Her community internship entails working with Suvit Gulapwong to help organize a 
network of communities in the Northeast interested in using an economic, social, and cultural rights framework to strengthen their movements. Past Global Citizens
Peggy Reents
Fall 1999: CIEE-Khon Kaen (Thailand) Study Abroad Program Participant
2001-2003: Global Citizen, Isaan Region, Thailand
Peggy began her Global Citizen internship in the Khon Kaen slum community, learning about local struggles while working in a high school on education reform and curriculum development. As part of her internship, she also organized and led a university student conference on the effects of dam development. Peggy was also an organizer and translator for ENGAGE on the Fair Trade Rice Campaign Spring 2003 Farmer Tour, bringing Thai farmers from the Alternative Agriculture Network of Thailand to the United States on an educational tour. The tour focused on organic agriculture, Fair Trade, and trade policies.
Currently, Peggy lives in Northern Thailand. She and her husband, Joe, started an organic farm, which serves as a sustainable living and learning center and hosts trainings, workshops, and interns throughout the year. At the center, indigenous knowledge is preserved through seed-saving techniques and natural cultivation methods. If you would like more information about the center, visit www.punpunthailand.org or click here to email Peggy.
Enoka Herat
Fall 2001: CIEE-Khon Kaen (Thailand) Study Abroad Program Participant
Fall 2003: Global Citizen, Isaan Region, Thailand
As a Global Citizen, Enoka worked on mining issues, focusing on potash mining. She collaborated with TERRA-PER (Foundation for Ecological Recovery), an environmental non-governmental organization (NGO), the local people, and study abroad students to draft a Human Rights Report on behalf of the villagers.
Enoka also organized projects with study abroad students and assisted students on project design. Upon return to the United States, Enoka worked with the Bank Information Center in their Policy department. The center promotes social and economic justice, advocating for people’s rights and participation. It also serves as a watchdog organization, ensuring that the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and regional development banks are transparent.
Enoka is currently in Baltimore, MD, working with refugees at the Advocates for Survivors of Torture and Trauma. She will be attending law school at the University of Washington in Fall 2007. Click here to email Enoka and learn more about her work.
Chris Tyler
Fall 1999: CIEE-Khon Kaen (Thailand) Study Abroad Program Participant
Fall 2000-Spring 2001: Global Citizen, Isaan Region, Thailand
During his Global Citizen internship, Chris facilitated group sessions and translated exchanges for CIEE-Khon Kaen students and worked on expanding Voice of the River, a student publication created on the program. He also stayed on local farms, building relationships with villagers in the Alternative Agriculture Network, a network of Thai non-governmental organizaitons (NGOs) working on sustainable agriculture.
Chris currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area at a sustainable living center called Magic, which focuses on value-science as its central theme to living. The center does educational outreach, workshops, habitat stewardship, natural resource management, and community organizing. To learn more about Magic and his experience as a Global Citizen, click here to email Chris.
Laura Millay
(photo coming soon!)
Spring 2002: CIEE-Khon Kaen (Thailand) Study Abroad Program Participant
Summer 2002-Fall 2002: Global Citizen, Isaan Region, Thailand
When her Global Citizen internship began, Laura, in collaboration with CIEE-Thailand staff members, worked on changing the structure of the program and played an important role in group dynamics. She also helped gauge student interest in the movement against dam development and continued to internationalize the support of villagers’ who were affected by dam construction.
Later, along with fellow ENGAGE members, she spearheaded the development of the Fair Trade Rice Campaign and organized events for the inaugural Fair Trade Speaker Tour in 2003, where Thai farmers came to the United States to educate the public about organic agriculture, trade policies, and Fair Trade practices.
Returning to Maine in the United States, Laura worked with a non-profit organization called Food and Medicine, bringing farmers, labor unions, and business people together in dialogue about building local partnerships and creating better understanding among different interest groups. She continues to raise awareness about organic farming and globalization. Click here to contact Laura and learn more about her current work.
Katie-Jay Scott(photo coming soon!)
Fall 2003: CIEE-Khon Kaen (Thailand) Study Abroad Program Participant
January-August 2004: Global Citizen, Isaan Region, Thailand
As an ENGAGE Global Citizen in northeastern Thailand, Katie-Jay primarily worked with villages affected by the Rasi Salai Dam on the Pak Mun River. She lived in several communities that were trying to implement the School of River curriculum in their local provincial schools, and helped coordinate villagers interested in teaching students and visitors traditional ways of living, such as mat weaving, fishing, cooking and basket making. In this role, the villagers would teach the students a lesson in Thai and Katie-Jay would teach it to them in English; then, they would spend a day actually doing the activity as a group. She also organized the community visits, home stays, and student projects for CIEE-Khon Kaen students.
Now living in Portland, Oregon, Katie-Jay is currently continuing her community development experience as an AmeriCorps VISTA participant. She works as the Volunteer Outreach Coordinator for "I Have a Dream" Foundation-Oregon, which mentors and tutors at-risk students from third grade through their high school graduation. She is also a coordinator with the Portland Coalition for Genocide Awareness and a current ENGAGE Board of Peers member. Along with fellow ENGAGE member Cash Nigro, Katie-Jay serves as an ENGAGE Regional Coordinator for the Portland area and work to educate community members about Fair Trade Jasmine Rice.
Click here to email Katie-Jay Scott to learn more about her work and to get involved with ENGAGE activities in the Portland, OR area.
Nico Lustig
Summer 2001: CIEE-Khon Kaen (Thailand) Study Abroad Program Participant
Fall 2001-Summer 2003: Global Citizen, Isaan Region, Thailand
Nico began her Global Citizen internship living in the slum communities in Khon Kaen, Thailand, where she experienced the power of community organizing first-hand while the urban network negotiated a lease of land. Nico also worked with other ENGAGE Global Citizens to organize a student conference at Khon Kaen Universeity that focused the effects of the Pak Mun Dam on the Mun River. Inspired by her success in conference organization, Nico used her organizing skills to coordinate workshops for Thai villagers, teaching the practical use of traditional methods and materials (clay) in constructing sustainable and low impact housing, requiring little or no dependence on intensive environmental extraction such as cement. She also worked with the CIEE-Khon Kaen study abroad program as a translator and language teacher, and facilitated student group projects focusing on environmental issues in Thailand and the impact of large industrial development on communities, farmers and native plant species.
Nico supported ENGAGE with the development of the Fair Trade Jasmine Rice Campaign, contributing from the field (literally!) in Thailand, and helped to organize the first Fair Trade Speaker Tour in the United States in 2003. On her return to the United States, Nico worked with other ENGAGE members to establish ENGAGE as an organization, moving to Maine to work in the first national coordinating office.
Based on her experience as an ENGAGE Global Citizen in Thailand, Nico learned to view taking health into your own hands and out of big pharmaceutical corporations as an act of politics. Today, she leads a simple, healthful life on an organic farm where she tends a big garden, cooks whole food macrobiotic meals, swims in the summer and skis in the winter, dances year round, practices Iyengar yoga and studies plant medicine. Recently Nico has taken ownership of a small medicinal herb tea company, Watermark Botanicals, which specializes in blending the most delicious herbal teas available using many local ingredients. Nico also works as a manager at the Blue Hill Food Co-op, where they sell Fair Trade products from Thailand's Prae Pan Weaving Cooperative, along with Fair Trade Jasmine Rice. In her community, she organizes monthly workshops, including "Health Angels," where alternative health practitioners come to teach practical skills for healthy living. Click here to connect with Nico by email.
