Alumni Connects: Carol D. Pobanz

It's hard to explain what I've been doing recently in just one paragraph because I'm working in a number of organizations and areas and they are all connecting and overlapping.

I started an RYS outgrowth organization through UPF called PeaceIN - Service through Art (www.peaceinproject.com). In 2014 I made a determination to do an Art project on Honduras, which eventually led to doing a cultural exchange project with Honduras in my hometown in NJ, which led to beginning a Peace Park in Tela, Honduras. The NJ project also led to doing an art project at the UN. Mario (from RYS Honduras) and I wrote an article together about our projects which caught the interest of one of the editors from France who suggested we connect with an NGO called International Cities of Peace (ICP). Both my hometown Nutley, NJ and Tela, Honduras registered as Cities of Peace. The ad hoc group made up of the people from the NJ project became the group to register my hometown as an ICP and decided to replicate a sculpture from the Honduras Peace Park. In two weeks the leadership of my hometown will host the Mayor of Tela, Honduras at the unveiling of the UNITY sculpture and become sister cities. (https://www.internationalcitiesofpeace.org/?s=nutley+nj)

Also during this time I joined Y Service International (part of the YMCA) ... the organizers of that club became interested in my work in Honduras and have funded and are continuing to help fund our work in both NJ and Honduras. The expansion of this work as far as I can see is simply based on my determination and vision to begin a project in Honduras in 2014...these activities have taken on a life of their own!.