Who We Are
Borders are the scars of history — Robert Schuman, French Prime Minister
PADF Team
PADF Team
The Our Border Program is run by a small, “Pan American” team — Dominicans, Haitians, Colombians, and Americans (USA). We are all multilingual (as is the island) and most of us have been working with the program since it started five years ago.
Daniel O'Neil
Daniel O’Neil (USA) Project Director: Dan started working overseas with the Peace Corps in 1986 and has never stopped. He has spent 12 years on this island with his time split between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Dan’s job is to keep pushing the project forward and to seek out new approaches to attract attention to the border, like this website. Dan says that the best part of working on this project is the great variety to his days, “One day I’m sitting on plastic chairs, eating goat with the beekeepers in the border and the next I’m sitting on a leather coach discussing trade policy with customs officials in the capital.” doneil@padf.org
Joe Felix
Joseph Felix (Haiti) Director for Haitian Border Activities: Joe is an engineer-agronomist who has worked with PADF for over 15 years. Besides his work on the border, Joe is also a community development specialist, an expert on reforestation a former professor in the Faculty of Agronomy, and a specialist in risks and disaster management. He spends his time in the border region that he calls “the third country on Quisqueya due to its complexity and the mixture of the two cultures and realities that make it distinct from both Haiti and the Dominican Republic.” Joe is well-known for his public relations work, especially for the borderlands. jfelix@padf.org
Cesáreo Guillermo
Cesareo Guillermo (Dominican Republic) Director for Dominican Border Activities. Cesáreo has a Masters in Public Management, with specializations international relations, the Dominican – Haitian border, and organizational strengthening. He has over 10 years implementing social projects and an impressive network of actors, both nationally and internationally. “The border represents an unparalleled challenge for me–one that I enjoy very much.” He likes bringing people from both sides together to discuss solutions to common problems and trying to serve as an important asset for the whole region. cguillermo@padf.org
Sebastián Molano
Sebastián Molano (Colombia) Program Coordinator: Sebastian quit his job as an investment banker to join the Our Border Program. His job is to get things done–both within the office and along the border. What he likes more about his job is “the way we interact for bringing people together to discuss and create new ways of improving the bi-national relation. Maybe it would happen on its own, but our magic is to make it happen now”. He is really proud of having the border region as his second home. smolano@padf.org
Adnerys Ramirez
Adnerys A. Ramirez V. (Dominican Republic) Financial Manager: “Before coming to work for the Our Border Project, my work had been mainly office work. However, now I get to travel to the border to work directly with our partner organizations and to see the real impact of our work. I like the challenge of trying to ensure that our local partners practice the same types of financial controls as us. Working with the Our Border team is really like working at home with my family!” aramirez@padf.org
Daniel Salcié (Dominican Republic) Program Assistant: “Although I just started working for the Our Border Project in January, I am very proud of the contribution that I have been able to make. When I took this job, I was afraid that I would be stuck in the office. Instead, I travelled to the border to help our local partners develop their websites and been involved with a number of exciting initiatives. I really like how I can see the direct impact of my work on the young people in the border.” dsalciec@padf.org
Current Volunteers
Jessica DuRousseau is in her second year at George Washington University in Washington DC studying international
Jessica
affairs, concentrating in economics and development. She is working with PADF this summer conducting research and developing strategies and projects dealing with agricultural cooperatives on the Dominican side of the border. What she most enjoys about being in the Dominican Republic working with PADF is the opportunities available for travel to diverse areas of the country and interaction with people from all levels of Dominican society, from leaders in government organizations to farmers on the border.
Ryan Alexander
Ryan Alexander is a senior at Frostburg State University, a small Liberal Arts school in western Maryland, USA. He studies International Studies (with a concentration in development) and Spanish. He is spending his summer volunteering for PADF focusing on a small coffee-grower cooperative (Las Tres Hermanas) in the southern most border town of the Dominican Republic: Pedernales. He is developing a marketing plan to help ‘Las Tres Hermanas’ to sell their coffee at the local level. He is passionate about travelling and has enjoyed nearly every second of his volunteer experience with PADF at the border! We are part of the Pan American Development Foundation, an international non-profit organization, proudly affiliated with the Organization of American States. We work throughout the Americas to create a hemisphere of opportunities for all.
