True Roots consultant Summer Lewis was interviewed by The Rotarian Magazine, the official publication of Rotary International for the feature, “Cultivating peace: Our peace fellows dig into Rotary’s areas of focus”.
Needless to say, Summer was honored when she was asked if she’d share a bit about her experience as a Rotary Peace Fellow and her current work as an international development consultant with True Roots Consulting Group.
Here is a synopsis of the article:
Rotary Peace Fellow | University of Queensland
I studied as a Rotary Peace Fellow at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia from 2011 – 2012. The Rotary Peace Fellowship allowed me to hone my academic and practical knowledge, skills, and experience, preparing me well for advancing my professional career in international development. It also made me hungry again to be back in the field and on the ground.
Program Coordinator | Coffee Kids
Post-graduation, I was blessed with the opportunity to work in Oaxaca, Mexico as a Program Coordinator for Coffee Kids, a nonprofit dedicated to improving livelihoods for coffee farming communities through health, education, food security, economic diversification, and capacity building projects.
My work with Coffee Kids taught me a lot that I hadn’t learned in the classroom—about relationship building, trust, and integrity. About building strong projects and resilient communities—and just what sustainability really means, and how to achieve it in a project.
True Roots Consulting Group
My work with Coffee Kids inspired me, along with my former boss José Luis Zárate, to start True Roots Consulting Group in 2015.
To be fair, my colleague and I had always been wary of consultants.
We’d seen one too many provide their services to a nonprofit organization, and then exit upon project completion, leaving local staff and participants more dependent upon a now absent skill set, knowledge, and product.
We decided we could be—we would have to be—different. We would provide consulting services with a conscience. We would focus on building confidence and self-management capacities—rather than dependence—in local organizations, staff, and participants.
And we would do this by being ourselves, and by connecting at the same level. We know what it’s like for a small-scale producer trying to make ends meet, and we also know what sorts of possibilities are out there for providing the resources and tools necessary to help make life better. It’s about building bridges and connecting people and resources and hope.
Based on this knowledge and experience, and what we could call “common sense”, we are able to uniquely position ourselves as professionals who are down to earth, and yet have the capacity to help participants dream. And we provide the tools and guidance.
Read the full interview here.