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Legislative Fellows Profiles

Minneapolis, MO Lavell Kirby

Jeannie Fox

Minnesota, USA • Expertise: Grassroots Lobbying and Advocacy • Home Organization: Minnesota Council of Nonprofits • Host Organization: Alianza ONG • Host City: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Ms. Fox is the deputy public policy director at the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, where she has worked for over seven years. She is ­responsible for direct and grassroots lobbying and advocacy ­efforts on behalf of nonprofit organizations in ­Minnesota.

Jeannie aims to create legislative ­strategies to ­promote the sustainability and ­resiliency of the ­nonprofit sector at the state level. She is also a national trainer for the Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest and on the leadership council of Nonprofit VOTE. For the last four years Ms. Fox has been an adjunct faculty for the University of ­Minnesota in the Public and Nonprofit ­Leadership Center as well as the Center of Advocacy and ­Political Leadership. She also serves as the Board President of the Immigrant Law Center of ­Minnesota. During her Fellowship at Alianza ONG she designed an advocacy plan for the government’s new volunteer protection law.

Pennsylvania, USA

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Expertise: Education Home Organization: Girard College Host Organization: Canta Brasil Host City: Porto Alegre, Brazil

Mr. Kirby is a Junior High and High School teacher in the Residential Education ­Department of ­Girard College where he teaches life skills to ­at-risk youth at the boarding school. Mr. Kirby is a ­member of Partners of the Americas ­Pennsylvania/ Bahia ­Chapter. He recently ­participated in the Group Study Exchange Program sponsored by Rotary ­International, where he spent time in B ­ razil ­learning about the people and culture. Mr. Kirby has a background in health and ­education and he recently received his Masters in ­Marketing ­Management from Wilmington University. He ­conducted his fellowship at Canta Brasil where he contributed to the school’s educational ­programming.

Legislative Fellows Profiles

Madeline Olsen Kastler Minnesota, USA

Minneapolis, MO John Pence Indiana, USA

• Expertise: Agriculture and Trade Policy • Home Organization: Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy • Host Organization: Organizaciones Solidarias • Host City: Bogota, Colombia

• Expertise: Consumer Protection Laws • Home Organization: Attorney General of Indiana • Host Organization: Procuraduría General de la Nación • Host City: Bogota, Colombia

Mrs. Kastler is a Senior Program Associate at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Prior to IATP, she worked as an aide to a local elected official where she focused on housing policy.

She was also the manager of a local homeless shelter for men. Madeline holds a master’s of public policy from the Humphrey Institute and is president of the Seward Co-op board of directors.

During her fellowship, Mrs. Kastler advised the Colombian government agency Organizaciones Solidarias on co-op development as a strategy to address extreme poverty.

Mr. Pence advocates for the enactment of c­ onsumer protection laws. In preparation for the 2012 ­Indianapolis Super Bowl, he joined the Attorney General’s legislative team to expedite the passage of Senate Bill 4, which increased the criminal penalties for those engaged in human trafficking.

He also translates consumer outreach documents into Spanish to protect Indiana’s growing SpanishSpeaking population from fraudulent business practices and other consumer scams. During his fellowship at the Procuraduría he examined the government’s human rights protection services.

Legislative Fellows Profiles

Minneapolis, MO

Rebecca Polcz Minnesota, USA

• Expertise: Legislative Processes • Home Organization: Indiana University • Host Organization: Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul • Host City: Porto Alegre, Brazil

Ms. Polcz currently serves as the Assistant ­Director for Government Relations for Indiana University. She works closely with university experts to determine what positions the ­university should take on bills and issues, as well as give regular updates and briefings about what is ­occurring during the legislative session. Ms. Polcz’s work is based on legislative processes so she believes it is important to compare solutions to policy issues that other states and countries have faced. She received her J.D. in 2009 from the Indiana University School of Law. Ms. Polcz has a strong interest in government transparency, especially regarding how transparency affects or improves higher education. She carried out her fellowship in Brazil at the Federal U ­ niversity of Rio Grande do Sul with a focus on higher ­education policy.