Our accomplished CSP fellows, Raynel Rodriguez and Chervon Cupidore, are returning to their home countries of the Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago after four months of service. As fellows, Raynel and Chervon have played instrumental roles in a number of projects at Riis. This has included facilitating a community advisory board, building a youth mentorship program, working with NYC’s Racial Justice Commission to spread awareness about new ballot measures during the midterm elections, and planning and hosting a number of idea generation sessions as part of the first phase of NYC’s participatory budgeting initiative.
Funded by the U.S. State Department, CSP is a highly selective professional leadership development program in which fellows from around the world are paired with US government agencies and nonprofits like Riis. The program prepares fellows to respond to economic, environmental, political, and social challenges in their own communities by designing and implementing their own Community Action Projects upon their return.
In the D.R, Raynel is planning to implement a series of life skills workshops, including personal finances, partnership building, and conflict resolution, in one of the communities where he lives. In Trinidad and Tobago, Chervon intends to build a mentorship program over 10-12 weeks with young people ages 14-22, aiming to foster peer to peer accountability in her community. We are so proud of the impact our fellows have made at Riis, and we look forward to seeing them continue to facilitate change in their home countries.
