Class XVII (2019-2020)

3. Cora Lavin

USA

Cora was born and raised in Durham, North Carolina, and received her B.A in Interpersonal and Organizational Communications, as well as Spanish, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also a certified ESL teacher.

She spent 6 years working in Latin America, including Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia. During her four years in Venezuela she worked at a Binational Center, with oversight and funding from the U.S. Embassy, assessing the needs of at-risk youth and developing projects and programs to create inclusive spaces, grow youth and community development and to give youth the tools and knowledge to promote equality and address concerns encompassing the economic, social, and emotional impacts of the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis. Her past work has focused primarily on using education as a foundation to promote cultural sensitivity and to embrace diversity to alleviate the violence or conflict.

She hopes the skills and knowledge obtained during this program will enable her to promote youth and community development through the lens of cultural diversity.