Alumni Corner

Lesdiel Gómez, 17, won a silver medal in Panama’s National Chemistry Olympiad in October, placing second among the country’s top 100 high school chemistry students. Photo courtesy of Lesdiel Gómez PANAMA CITY, Panama – Meet Lesdiel Gómez: Chemist, electromechanical engineering student and committed conservationist.

At 17 years old, Lesdiel is one of the most promising young scientists in his native Panama.  

In October, Lesdiel won a silver medal in Panama’s National Chemistry Olympiad, placing second among the country’s top 100 high school chemistry students. In December, when Lesdiel graduated from Urraca Institute, he was singled out in his graduating class of 700 students to receive the Medal of Strength, Perseverance and Achievement.

Lesdiel, who is now a freshman at the Technological University of Panama, was one of 22 high school students from Latin America, the United States and Canada who attended the Institute of the Americas 2010 Summer Science Camp.  The two-week residential camp offered the students classroom and field instruction on the environment, climate change and alternative energy from accredited, Spanish-speaking teachers. They conducted laboratory experiments, studied marine biology on the shores of the Pacific Ocean and experienced American culture at a San Diego Padres ball game.

“When I returned home, I had a more open mind,” Lesdiel said in a recent telephone interview. “I saw things in a different way. I became more analytical.”

In 2009, Lesdiel placed 17th in the national chemistry competition. A year later, he was more focused.  During the month-long competition in October, he developed and executed a project to remove lead from industrial wastewater. He was judged not only on his ability to complete his project, but on his leadership skills when he faced difficult situations.

“That is how the camp helped me,” Lesdiel said. “It opened new horizons for me so I could evaluate things more critically.”

When he received the Strength, Perseverance and Achievement award during his high school graduation ceremony, Lesdiel said his attendance at the Institute’s Summer Science Camp was singled out as the “most important accomplishment” in his young career.

For the teenager from Panama, his first trip to the United States to Lesdiel Gómez worked on a chemistry project during the Institute of the Americas 2010 Summer Science Camp in La Jolla, Ca. Photo by Luis J. Jiménezattend the Summer Science Camp “helped me get to know the cultures of other countries – not just from textbooks, but from friends.”

The students from 12 countries in the Western Hemisphere who attended the camp “became a family,” Lesdiel said.  “We’re still in touch.  We talk about what’s going on in our countries.  We are even thinking about a reunion. I know that in the future I can count on these friends in all these countries to work together on projects that will help our societies.”

Lesdiel plans a career in robotics and aspires to study in the United States where he has already been granted conditional admission by the University of Arkansas, based on his ability to raise funds to pay his tuition.

“Since I returned from the Science Camp,” he said, “I’ve had a desire to learn something new every day and to find ways to improve myself even more.”

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Javier Cirielli, foreground, who serves as environmental director in Lincoln, Argentina, will inaugurate his city’s first recycling plant in March 2011. Photo by Luis J. Jimenez LINCOLN, Argentina – For Javier Cirielli it is a dream come true – a recycling plant for his municipality of 50,000 people. The project that began four years ago as “an idea on a piece of paper” has become a reality for the city of Lincoln, located 200 miles east of Buenos Aires.

Earlier this month, the recycling plant in this picturesque city began processing its first plastics, paper, glass and metal. In March 2011, Cirielli said the plant will be officially inaugurated and will boost its processing capacity to 50 tons of recyclable material a day.

Cirielli, who is Lincoln’s environmental director, attended an Oct. 4-8, 2010 professional workshop organized by the Institute of the Americas entitled, “Think Green/Act Local: Implementing a Green Municipal Agenda.” During that workshop, 11 municipal officials from countries throughout Latin America visited several innovative “green” projects, such as the EDCO recycling plant in San Diego, Ca.

The field trip to EDCO was particularly useful, Cirielli said, because “I could see that it is possible for private companies to operate parts of the recycling business. The visit to the Institute of the Americas allowed me to evaluate the parameters of my project. It was a very enriching experience.”

Cirielli said the workshop “allowed me to see the problems that are coming, for example, the issue of water -- not just quality but quantity. I am convinced that we are going to have to make important decisions at a global level. We are going to have to be very efficient in the future.”

Once the recycling plant in Lincoln is fully operational, Cirielli and other city officials will turn their attention to teaching residents about the importance of recycling. “The simple part is processing the materials at the plant. The difficulty is that here in Argentina, people do not separate their garbage. People are not educated about recycling.”

The solution lies with the children of Lincoln, who can – and must – be taught to be environmentally conscious.

“This is a project that has to begin in the schools,” Cirielli said. “It may take us 10 or 12 years to convince people to recycle, but there’s no time to lose. We cannot continue polluting.”

Journalist who attended IOA Natural Disaster workshop reports on volcano

GUATEMALA CITY – Disaster struck twice in Guatemala in the span of three days, first with the May 27 eruption of the Pacaya volcano and then with the relentless rains of Tropical Storm Agatha.

The eruption of Pacaya threw firey balls of molten lava from the crater and dumped tons of ash on Guatemala City. Then the rains started as Agatha ravaged the country, causing mudslides and turning the volcanic ash that covered the city into thick mud.  In less than a week, nearly 200 died.

Journalist Tulio Diaz had returned to Guatemala three weeks earlier from the Institute of the Americas, where he attended a five-day journalism workshop on covering natural disasters. During the workshop, Tulio and journalists from eight other countries in Latin America learned about the science of natural disasters, ways of informing the public when disaster strikes and about reporting with empathy on the people whose lives have been destroyed.

“I came home strengthened, psychologically and professionally, to confront a situation like this,” Diaz said in a recent phone interview from his home in Guatemala City. “We have to show our readers how people are suffering.  It is our responsibility, first as human beings and second as professional journalists.”

Diaz traveled to the countryside, where the corn crops of peasant farmers were destroyed. And he crossed the capital to talk with city dwellers who had lost family members in the storm.

“There are many people who do not have drinking water, and there are many more who do not have any food to eat,” he said. “Their suffering motivated me to demonstrate that the government has the obligation to give the neediest the help they need. Part of our job is to show how these people are living.”

Diaz’s voice cracked with emotion as he talked about the death of fellow reporter Anibal Archila who was struck by a ball of lava as he was filming the volcano.

“We all understand that this is an extremely risky profession but we all hope that nothing like this will ever happen,” he said.  “We have covered shootouts but we know where the bullets are coming from.  With nature, we don’t know what’s coming or when.”

MEXICO CITY— Codigo Topo, a monthly magazine published by the Mexico City newspaper Excelsior, will report on its investigation into the murders and disappearances of Mexican journalists in the July 6 edition.

Mauricio Suarez, content coordinator for Codigo Topo, said the special report was inspired by the Institute of the Americas’ journalism workshop entitled, “Silencing the Press: Violence Against Journalists and the Threat to Democracy.”

“The instruction we received from your organization left a mark,” said Suarez, who attended the May 4-8 professional training session.“It continues to surprise me that journalists die in Mexico and their own media do nothing more than write about the incident. Their memory is very short.”

Among the contributors to the July 6 edition will be Renan Estenssoro, president of the La Paz Journalists Association in La Paz, Boliva, who also attended the May workshop.