Tag Archives: interviews

By Tracey Li and Natalia Zegarra.

“Even if you study somewhere far away from your home, you should realize that you can return to your home community afterwards and make a real impact there.”

Being able to study or travel away from home has many personal rewards. But it is when people use their experiences to return home and improve their communities that the social benefits begin to be reaped and those community members shine as examples for others to follow.

Manuel Gonzales, Director of Environmental Affairs for the local government of the city of Viacha that lies just southwest of La Paz in the heart of Bolivia’s Altiplano, is one such individual. Development Roast spoke with him about his experience studying to become an agronomic engineer at the at the Unidad Académica Campesina de Carmen Pampa (‘Rural Academic Unit of Carmen Pampa’, UAC-Carmen Pampa) and subsequently applying what his learnt in his home community*. Read More »

The idea that forced non verbal poses can, at least temporarily, change one’s state of mind is nothing new, but the question of to what extent is being taken to new heights. Many of you will have heard that forcing yourself to smile can actually make you feel happy, however how many of you have used this useful theory to relieve yourself of sadness? I expect surprisingly few considering that nobody likes to feel sad and often even take other, more damaging, happiness restoring measures, like eating huge amounts of ice cream.

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