Meet Our Alumni

AJWS has been sending volunteers to the developing world for over 10 years and is proud to have an ever-growing community of over two thousand alumni. Please read the following stories about the work of a few of our incredible volunteers.

Alumni Spotlight

This past summer, the AJWS-AVODAH Partnership piloted the Double Impact Social Justice Grants program, designed to broaden the experience and deepen the skill sets of AJWS and AVODAH alumni committed to anti-poverty work and to offer support to organizations working on anti-poverty issues domestically and abroad. Double Impact Social Justice Grant applicants were required to have arranged full-time summer/fall 2008 internships with well-designed projects at anti-poverty organizations.

We are proud to share information about the twenty AJWS and AVODAH alumni who received grants. This impressive group ranges in age from 19 to 29 and their internships are located across the globe, from California to Zambia. Many are working on similar issues or with similar populations, from researching gentrification in D.C. to working on affordable housing in Vancouver. Please see below for interviews with three of our alumni grantees, and click here for the complete list of recipients and where they are working. Congratulations to all of them on their phenomenal efforts!

Rachel Gold

AVODAH
New York, 2002

Rachel Gold participated in AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps in 2002-2003 in New York City. She received an AJWS-AVODAH Double Impact Social Justice Grant this summer to support her internship with the British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Aaron Wieler

AJWS Volunteer Corps
Namibia, 2007

Aaron Wieler spent a year volunteering in Namibia through AJWS Volunteer Corps in 2007. In summer 2008 he received an AJWS-AVODAH Double Impact Social Justice Grant to support an internship with Design for Development in Ladakh, India. Aaron currently works for Whirlwind Wheelchair International in San Francisco.

Miriam Fogelson

AJWS Alternative Breaks
El Salvador, 2003

Miriam Fogelson participated in AJWS Alternative Breaks in El Salvador in 2003 and the AJWS Young Adult Delegation to the Dominican Republic in 2004. She received an AJWS-AVODAH Double Impact Social Justice Grant this summer to support her internship with Save Our Schools New Orleans Louisiana (SOS NOLA). Miriam is currently the director for leadership programs at the Lower East Side Girls Club in New York City.

Read more profiles in the Alumni Spotlight archive.