Students in the Review

International students Noel Velasco, Servin Flores, Oscar García, and Sandra Ordóñez perform research and participate in beneficial projects relating to animal science, nutrition, and agronomy.

An agronomy student at the University of San Andrés in La Paz, Bolivia, Noel Velasco received the Gilbert Award for his work with the Benson Institute. His association with the Institute began in 1996 with a solar oven project. He has also worked with walipinis and pankar-huyus, two types of underground greenhouses. Velasco managed the BYU Poultry Laboratory in Spanish Fork, Utah, for nine months in 1999. He will complete his bachelor’s degree in 2000.

Servin Flores, a University of San Carlos agronomy student, will graduate with his bachelor’s degree in 2000. Flores completed his community service requirement in the Institute’s beneficiary community of Corral de Piedra during 1999. For his thesis research, Flores studied drought-resistance in 39 different corn cultivars in an effort to improve crop production in Guatemala.

The Benson Institute supported Oscar García in completing his animal science degree at the University of San Carlos in 1998. In return, he created teaching materials for use in rural communities. García also spent four years as the coordinator of the animal science component of the Institute’s Chiquimula office. He currently coordinates education at PROZACHI and teaches animal science classes at the University of San Carlos’s Chiquimula campus.

As a student of nutrition at ESPOCH in Riobamba, Ecuador, Sandra Ordóñez received logistical and financial support from the Benson Institute for the completion of her thesis work. She graduated in 1999 after completing research in the community of Tunshi-San Nicolás on the habits of pregnant women. She subsequently created lesson materials to be used in this community.

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