Tuesday, December 19, 2006

[FOG/PC-Guinea commentary]: Praise for the work of the gender conferences

Becky and Rick Thyne shared the following thoughts (reposted here with permission) upon hearing that the gender conferences would continue.

Dear friends of Guinea and the Peace Corps programs there:

Our son Jesse Thyne and his Peace Corps Volunteer friend and colleague Justin Bhansali were killed in a highway accident near Pita nearly seven years ago, on January 7th, 2000. They were returning from a holiday in Ghana, each heading back to the kind of important work all of you are so deeply involved in.

What prompts this note is the announcement about the gender conferences. Jesse was deeply commited to the women and girls of Diountou, the village an hour from Labe where he worked. After he died, several of our friends donated money to a fund in his memory, which we used in conjunction with the people of his village and Jesse's Guinean friend and patron, Mamodou Korka Diallo, to build a Center for Women and Girls in the village.

We're pleased to know that all of you are still making such an heroic effort to draw attention to gender inequality and to lift up women and girls so that they share in the benefits of education and dignity to which all of you are so dedicated.

We're also reminded that many of you will be on the road during these holidays and we're eager for you to be very careful and prudent as you travel.

We send you our continuing gratitude for your bravery and deligence as you continue in "the hardest job you'll ever love," and we send you our warmenst holiday greetings

Becky and Rick Thyne

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