Resource Exchange International, Inc. is incorporated!
Doug Sparks leads a team of 20 men into Vietnam as REI volunteers to research service opportunities for REI. Other survey teams visit Cambodia and the People’s Republic of China. A team visits Russia, where they teach business seminars to local businessmen, while a team in Kazakhstan conducts training with nationals about local environmental issues.
REI starts programs in Kazakhstan teaching English as a second language (ORKEN), in Croatia providing therapy to families through equestrian activities (Krila), in Indonesia teaching English, and in Vietnam training local leaders in education, agriculture, and economics. REI conducts business finance training in Russia for 40 regional bankers and teaches American medical practices to local practitioners.
REI starts gathering supplies for several orphanages in Bulgaria (Moho Foundation). REI begins sponsorship of the Transylvania Business Forum (TBF), which trains local businessmen in economics and leadership skills. REI also expands its Vietnam program into the medical sector, bringing advanced medical equipment into hospitals and training Vietnamese physicians, and REI Vietnam’s first resident staff family moved into Hanoi to teach English at the Ministry of Education.
REI starts an Intercultural Studies program in the People’s Republic of China.
REI starts teaching English and agriculture in Uzbekistan and the ReXi Foundation is established in Russia. REI’s organization in Kazakhstan (ORKEN) continues developing English-Kazak-Russian language curriculum, such as a Kazak-English dictionary, teaching introductory computer skills classes, and conducting community development activities, such as small business and career development consulting.
REI begins a program in Indonesia teaching English language and business courses and training local professors in methods of teaching English. REI’s program in Uzbekistan expands to teaching seminars on water quality and irrigation improvements and to providing computer equipment and computer skills training to nationals.
REI starts a program in Morocco to develop computer training curriculum for Moroccans. REI’s Russia program brings medical training to local practitioners through the ReXi foundation. REI Vietnam expands its medical program into veterinary training. REI’s program in Indonesia begins providing vocational skills and small business start-up training for local entrepreneurs. REI Vietnam also expands its medical program into family practice medicine.
REI’s Vietnam program develops a microcredit initiative to provide loans to local farmers in Hanoi. REI’s program in Indonesia gives individual guidance to three local start-up businesses, which creates 31 jobs. REI’s program in Uzbekistan organizes a study tour through the U.S.A. for four Uzbek agricultural water engineers and one Uzbek agricultural policy economist. REI’s Russia program begins an English club for students at a local university. REI’s Morocco staff member initiates telecommunications training for nationals and receives a Fulbright Grant in support of his Ph.D. computer research project.
REI starts programs in Kyrgyzstan with Central Asian Initiative, a local foundation that carries out community development activities, and also in Cuba, conducting medical training for local physicians. REI Vietnam donates over $500,000 worth of medical materials to local hospitals and staff to help improve Vietnamese medical practices. REI in Kazakhstan (ORKEN) publishes a medical booklet in Russian, Kazak, and English entitled “Advice for Pregnant Women and Young Mothers,” along with publishing other linguistics texts. REI in Uzbekistan creates a Professional Development program for locals.
REI starts a program in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) training locals through REI’s water resource specialists. REI in Russia opens a library for nationals. REI Vietnam expands into the sector of social work.
REI in Vietnam provides Vietnamese doctors with a chance to study and work with doctors in the United States through the J-1 visa program. In Kazakhstan, REI’s ORKEN English language courses are taught by both expatriates and locals. REI’s fellow in the People’s Republic of China is appointed “Graduate Professor of Intercultural Communications” at Shanghai Intercultural Studies University. REI Indonesia begins an agricultural consulting project with the Ministry of Agriculture.
REI’s Uzbekistan program now provides three levels of English instruction to over 400 local students each year. REI Kazakhstan (ORKEN) expands its microenterprise development program to 90 local families in four villages, none of whom default on their loans and all of whom started successful businesses because of business consultations with REI staff. REI celebrates 10 years of service in Vietnam, and REI Vietnam’s pioneer, Doug Sparks, passes away.
REI forms a program to teach English and business principles in Djibouti, working closely with the Ministry of Education to write curriculum and train local teachers.
REI surveys Laos for medical, English teaching, and agricultural service opportunities. REI starts a program teaching English in Jordan through the Global Institute, also providing computer and business classes to nationals. REI in Indonesia begins a program to restore local soil that was damaged by the December 2004 Tsunami and to seek new local agricultural products (such as vegetables and mangoes) to grow and sell. REI in the U.A.E. introduces fresh drinking water technology to local homes and offices. REI Uzbekistan employs 35 locals to teach English to the 472 students enrolled in classes and to the 875 locals who participate in various REI sponsored English clubs.
REI Indonesia develops a village-based mango processing industry through training local farmers in product development, sales, and marketing. REI’s fellow in the People’s Republic of China creates the Intercultural Institute at a local university, becoming the founding professor of the Institute.
REI starts a medical program in Laos. REI in Djibouti gives microenterprise training and loans to local underprivileged women so they can start their own businesses.
REI starts a program in Egypt teaching women quilting and other life skills. REI initiates leadership and management courses for hospital staff in Laos, as well as training medical professionals in their practices, such as in sanitation and hygiene, and in medical English.
REI’s Cuba medical team is welcomed into the Cuban ENT Society, and REI volunteers are invited to teach at two local hospitals. REI in Kazakhstan launches an English language theater program (KELT) for students through the local university, and over 60 local people help produce the two plays put on this year. The Ministry of Education in Djibouti renews REI’s English teaching contract for its adult continuing education program for another three years because of REI’s positive impact on the local community. REI’s staff in Egypt establishes the Minya center for women, to teach them quilting, as well as facilitating a photography club and establishing a clinic to teach mothers to care for their infants. REI Indonesia creates a new industry for local farmers, raising, dehydrating, and selling dried mangoes in the international export market. REI in Kyrgyzstan resumes medical work, establishes an English language teacher training program, and serves as a sponsor of a local homeless clinic.
REI in Djibouti starts a program through the state hospital teaching mothers to take good medical care of their children and also distributing 8,000 school kits to local children. REI Indonesia establishes a food manufacturing company in Indonesia called PT SunRei Food Products as a part of its poverty alleviation goal. REI’s staff in Jordan work to repair relations between people of different faiths through dialogue. REI Laos volunteers train doctors and nurses from five local hospitals in neo-natal resuscitation, with 14 practitioners meeting US standards of care. REI Laos also graduates 78 doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators in three levels of English according to internationally respected standards. REI in Vietnam celebrates 15 years of medical progress through REI volunteer efforts and also a move by local practitioners to take their new training from cities into rural Vietnam. REI’s U.A.E. and Uzbekistan programs close, although the work REI began in Uzbekistan continues under local management.
Resource Exchange International will continue to seek new opportunities to serve people in emerging nations so that we can continue “building people to build nations.”
