BECA Travels: Production Coordinator Jean-Pierre Bitchoka
Production Coordinator Jean-Pierre Bitchoka
(First, please excuse the abrupt break in the blog. My computer "died" over the weekend at the waterfalls, and I tried to keep up with trips to the Internet cafe, but it proved impossible. So this and subsequent entries are being written after the fact.)
Jean-Pierre Bitchoka is the Production Coordinator for this year's trip - and served in that role for the spring class and videos. This is Jean-Pierre's third trip with me. As an undergrad in our program, he traveled to El Salvador in 2010 and to Guatemala in 2011, after completing his B.A. and "walking" in the spring graduation. This year, as a graduate of our program who will begin the M.A. program in International Communication at University of San Francisco in the fall, I am fortunate to have Jean-Pierre with us to oversee our production work.
This job usually falls to a BECA grad student who has considerable production experience. In this case, although Jean-Pierre DOES have production experience, he ALSO has experience living in various countries in Africa. Jean-Pierre was born in Tanzania to a diplomat father from Cameroon. "JP" lived in the Cameroon and in several other African countries. In addition, he lived and taught in Ghana, roughly ten years ago. Along with English and the dialect spoken by his mother's family in Cameroon, JP speaks French, Swahili, some German and some Spanish. Jean-Pierre's father became a political refugee from Cameroon, and went to live in France before settling in the U.S. with his sons. (JP's mother died when he was quite young.) JP's experience living in Ghana, in particular, has been very helpful in planning this trip and in handling situations as they arose.
Another feather in JP's cap is his recent Clinton Global Initiative award. Jean-Pierre proposed a project to fight malaria among pygmies in Cameroon through mosquito nets and education, both about the nets and the disease. (Without education, this population would use the nets to fish!) JP traveled to Washington, D.C., in March to attend the CGI awards and conference. Throughout this year, he will work with a CGI "mentor" to develop his plan of work, and then next summer, he will travel to Cameroon to implement the project, working with a malaria-fighting organization in the country.
We in BECA are so proud of Jean-Pierre!
(First, please excuse the abrupt break in the blog. My computer "died" over the weekend at the waterfalls, and I tried to keep up with trips to the Internet cafe, but it proved impossible. So this and subsequent entries are being written after the fact.)
Jean-Pierre Bitchoka is the Production Coordinator for this year's trip - and served in that role for the spring class and videos. This is Jean-Pierre's third trip with me. As an undergrad in our program, he traveled to El Salvador in 2010 and to Guatemala in 2011, after completing his B.A. and "walking" in the spring graduation. This year, as a graduate of our program who will begin the M.A. program in International Communication at University of San Francisco in the fall, I am fortunate to have Jean-Pierre with us to oversee our production work.
This job usually falls to a BECA grad student who has considerable production experience. In this case, although Jean-Pierre DOES have production experience, he ALSO has experience living in various countries in Africa. Jean-Pierre was born in Tanzania to a diplomat father from Cameroon. "JP" lived in the Cameroon and in several other African countries. In addition, he lived and taught in Ghana, roughly ten years ago. Along with English and the dialect spoken by his mother's family in Cameroon, JP speaks French, Swahili, some German and some Spanish. Jean-Pierre's father became a political refugee from Cameroon, and went to live in France before settling in the U.S. with his sons. (JP's mother died when he was quite young.) JP's experience living in Ghana, in particular, has been very helpful in planning this trip and in handling situations as they arose.
Another feather in JP's cap is his recent Clinton Global Initiative award. Jean-Pierre proposed a project to fight malaria among pygmies in Cameroon through mosquito nets and education, both about the nets and the disease. (Without education, this population would use the nets to fish!) JP traveled to Washington, D.C., in March to attend the CGI awards and conference. Throughout this year, he will work with a CGI "mentor" to develop his plan of work, and then next summer, he will travel to Cameroon to implement the project, working with a malaria-fighting organization in the country.
We in BECA are so proud of Jean-Pierre!
posted by Betsy J. Blosser at
7/01/2012 02:06:00 PM
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