Wednesday 08 September 2010
Peru’s Challenge is very excited to announce that it has won ‘Highly Commended’ in the ‘Best Volunteer Organisation’ category of the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism The Responsible Tourism Awards are the most competitive and prestigious awards of their kind in the world. Peru’s Challenge was founded in 2003, by Jane Gavel from Australia and Selvy Ugaz from Peru (when they were only 23 years old), with the primary aim of working with rural indigenous communities near Cusco, Peru to alleviate the acute poverty in these communities. The organisation works in partnership with local residents developing functional and sustainable schools and communities with a particular focus on education, health and general well being.some of the organisation’s achievements include: hosting over 600 volunteers from around the world, constructing four schools in four rural communities and making a difference to lives of over 2,000 community members. In its history, Peru’s Challenge has been recognised as one of the top five volunteer experiences in the world by Lonely Planet and the Peruvian Minister for Education believes that the Peru’s Challenge model of developing sustainable schools and communities should be the adopted standard for all Non-Government Organisations (NGO’s) working in Peru.
Jane Gavel, President and Co-Founder of Peru’s Challenge, said, “Peru’s Challenge is very proud to receive Highly Commended for Best Volunteering Organisation in the Virgin Responsible Tourism Awards. It is a fantastic achievement for us especially given the size of our organisation and that we have been operating for only six years. “The Peru’s Challenge team is a small group of very dedicated individuals who work tirelessly towards improving the living standards of those rural indigenous communities in Peru living in acute poverty. To be recognised in this way, firstly short listed in not one but two Award categories [Best for Poverty Reduction and Best Volunteering Organisation], and then receiving Highly Commended for Best Volunteering Organisation against more than 580 international organisations is a true testament to our work,” continued Jane Gavel.
the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards aim to celebrate those individuals, companies and organisations in the travel industry that are making a significant commitment to the culture and economies of local communities and are providing a positive contribution to biodiversity conservation.
Jill Tummler Singer, Deputy Chief Information Officer at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), is now a Ulitzer author. Appointed in November Ms Singer is responsible for ensuring CIA has the information, technology, and infrastructure necessary to effectively execute its missions. Prior to her appointment as Deputy CIO, she served as the Director of the Diplomatic Telecommunications Service (DTS), United States Department of State, and was responsible for global network services to US foreign missions. Speaking at the recent GovIT Expo in Washington DC, Ms Singer highlighted cloud computing as an important CIO tool for quick and rapid provisioning of infrastructure to support business needs. ” Cloud computing makes all of this possible through inexpensive, commodity-based components that you can daisy chain together with a few clicks on the keyboard. You need temporary storage or fast dedication of storage to a new effort; the storage cloud can do that. If you need compute power, you can call up a dozen new servers to improve processing time and then decommission those servers when your peak has subsided. Or, if you need on-demand security services to process sensitive data, Cloud Computing can give you a private enclave with a full suite of security services in a matter of minutes and not months.”
