CLICK ON THUMBNAIL FOR

LARGER VERSION

Claudia Blandon

Interesting person, interesting story.  Our speaker today was Claudia Blandon who spent several years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, West Africa.  Niger was originally a French colony and the official language is French.  It is an extremely poor country, ranking 174 out of 177 countries in the recent Human Development Index report.  It has limited natural resources and 2/3 of the country is comprised of the Sahara Desert.  The population in mostly nomadic with 80% of the population subsistence farmers and herders.  Ethnically Niger is 90% Muslum.

Claudia found out about Rotary through the Polio Plus program in Niger and was taken by the mottto "Service Above Self".   While there she also got involved in a water project which developed pumping stations to replace the prior method of getting water by hand.

A very interesting and enthusiastic person!