EDEN Extends Membership to Bicol University
Virginia Morgan White
11/7/2012
The Extension Disaster Education Network (EDEN) has voted to extend a three-year full membership to Bicol University Extension in the Philippines.
2011 meeting: Bill Hoffman, USDA/NIFA; Leilani Pavilando, Bicol University Extension Director; Fay Lauraya, Bicol University President; Rick Atterberry, then EDEN chair-elect; Virginia Morgan White, then EDEN chair; and Louis Lauraya, Bicol EDEN.
Bicol University is a public institution in Legazpi City, Philippines, and includes disaster education in its Extension programming.
The decision was made at the October 2012 annual meeting in Tunica, Mississippi.
Bicol University President Fay Lauraya indicated that Bicol Extension is looking forward to contributing to the network.
EDEN chair Rick Atterberry said, “With this international membership, EDEN remains faithful to its roots while expanding its reach and expertise. Offering a three-year membership to Bicol University Extension gives us an opportunity to check the realities of international membership.”
Historically, EDEN membership has been available to those institutions in the United States and its territories that provide outreach through Extension, offering nonformal education at the local level to reduce through education the impact of disasters. Bicol University Extension is similar to the Extension service in the United States.
Atterberry, who is a marketing and communications specialist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, also noted, “The advantages of extending membership to qualifying international institutions run in both directions. Traditional and international members gain access to additional research, new perspectives on understanding disaster, and contact with university-based and field-based experts from other countries, expanded reach, and potential new funding opportunities.”