Board of Directors, ATRAVES Nicaragua
Leticia Rojas Berroterán, President
Leticia Rojas is a co-founder of ATRAVES, and Executive Director and board President of ATRAVES Nicaragua. Originally from Carazo, she has spent her entire career in community development and teaching and educational leadership, working throughout Nicaragua. She was educated at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua (UNAN)-Managua, where she studied history and pedagogy. Before becoming Executive Director of ATRAVES in 2004, she worked with Nicaraguan Catholic organizations, where she founded and directed over a dozen schools, taught primary and secondary school in a variety of subjects, helped with disaster relief efforts, and managed countless social service projects. She and Julio López met Brady Dunklee in 2002, and put him to work volunteering in San Juan de La Concepción, Masaya, where was completing a school-kitchen consturction project. She worked with Brady and Julio to found ATRAVES in 2004, enrolling many representatives from communities she had long connections with in the project. She has overseen the growth of ATRAVES from idea to reality, and continues to work tirelessly in service to the communities we support. Leticia lives in Managua.
Julio López Ramírez, Vice President
Julio López is a co-founder of ATRAVES, and Vice President of the Board of ATRAVES Nicaragua. He is a well-known professor of pedagogy at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua (UNAN)-Managua, where he has directed the teaching practicum program for many years. He is recognized in schools throughout the Pacific Basin. His experience, contacts and efforts were vital to founding of ATRAVES, and his leadership on the board of directors continues to sustain us. He lives in Jinotepe and Laguna de Apoyo.
Carlos López López, Secretary
Carlos López is the director of a primary school in San Juan de Oriente, Masaya, and serves as the Secretary of the Board of ATRAVES Nicaragua. He and his wife Luisa are also master potters, and they run a ceramics shop with the rest of their family in their home. He lives in San Juan de Oriente, where he participates in the ATRAVES-supported artisans' cooperative UNIARTE.
Salvadora Herrera Rugama, Treasurer
Salvadora Herrera is a teacher of children and adults, a leader in the Yo Sí Puedo literacy program, and the matriarch of an enormous family. She has supported ATRAVES from its early days as an advisor and home-stay mother, and serves as treasurer on our board of directors. She lives in Jinotega.
Elieth Escarleth Silva Somarriba, Planning
Elieth Silva is the founder of Escuela H.D., a teacher at the school, and a committed supporter of ATRAVES for many years. Elieth is completing a teaching degree, and serves as our planning director. She lives in Managua.
Patricia Mercedes Torres Guerrero, Fiscal
Patricia Torres is a sixth-grade instructor at Escuela H.D., an official with the Ministry of Education, and an expert in teaching. She also has extensive administrative experience, and is an occasional home-stay mother. Patricia serves as a member of the board of ATRAVES Nicaragua. She lives in Managua.
Board of Directors, ATRAVES U.S.
Sherry Erickson, President
Sherry Erickson, is the owner of Aspen Naturals, a Colorado brokerage specializing in the sale of natural products, vitamins and herbs, and is the mother of two teen girls. After spending nearly twenty years in Santa Fe, she now lives in Denver, Colorado and is finishing a bachelor's degree in Integrative Therapeutic Practices through the Holistic Wellness department at Metro State College in Denver. She first visited Nicaragua three years ago, and saw the tremendous need for health care services. At that point she joined the ATRAVES team in an effort to bring health care services and education to those in need, and helped open their first clinic near Juigalpa, in the state of Chontoles. Her commitment to educating others regarding the use of natural and holistic medicine is a perfect complement to the existing understanding of many natural remedies in Nicaragua, and she shares the vision of health care for all as a human right, not a privilege.
Lindsay Jonasson, Vice President
Lindsay began her work with ATRAVES in 2005 as a backpacker-turned- volunteer in La Concepción, Nicaragua. With the support of ATRAVES, she returned to the community during the following years to promote the sexual and reproductive rights of local adolescents by conducting a sexual health needs assessment. After graduating from Pomona College in 2007 with a bachelor's degree in Gender Studies and Politics, Lindsay moved back to her hometown of Portland, Oregon where she is currently working with the Northwest Workers' Justice Project to defend the labor rights of low-wage, immigrant workers. She spent Spring 2008 in Managua assisting the ATRAVES staff in the planning and implementation of a series of community health projects. Lindsay continues her involvement with ATRAVES because she believes in the potential of the organization to make radical connections between people and to redistribute resources in service of social and economic justice for impoverished communities.
Andrew Frishman, Secretary
Andrew grew up in Andover, MA. After graduating from Wesleyan University in 1997, Andrew taught at Renbrook School in CT, and Hackley School in NY. In 2002, he completed a Master of Arts in Teaching at Brown University. From 2002-2006 he was an advisor at the The Met School in Providence, RI One of Andrew's students, Noam Bar-Zemer, working closely with Brady Bunklee, undertook a senior thesis project that became the first student group delegation through ATRAVES. Andrew lives in Davis, California; he is the internship coordinator at the Met Sacramento High School and an associate producer on Insight on Capital Public Radio. He recently completed an administrative credentialing program focused on Urban Education. Andrew serves as the Secretary of the Board of ATRAVES.
Nick Horton, Treasurer
Nick became involved in Atraves as a volunteer, spending two months in Jinotega teaching in 2005. He currently works in Providence, Rhode Island for a non-proft that provides services and advocacy to people who have been in prison. He graduated from in Brown University in 2004 with a degree in biology.
Noam Bar-Zemer
Noam is a student at Sarah Lawrence College. In the fall he will pursue a course of study in political philosophy and music at Oxford University. Noam has been working with ATRAVES since his junior year in high school when he helped to bring ATRAVES' first delegation of high school students to Nicaragua where they completed a course of study in education and participated in service projects.
Hoa Phan
Hoa graduated from the University of California, Davis with a Bachelor's degree in Biology (1999) and is currently pursuing a joint master in Business Administration and Public Policy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2011). Hoa worked several years at an Internet start-up in Silicon Valley before joining Summer Search, a national youth leadership development program for low-income high school students, in 2002. Working as IT Manger and Director of Operations, Hoa helped Summer Search build its national office and infrastructure. Hoa volunteered with ATRAVES in 2006 and is committed to helping ATRAVES develop its organizational capacity.