Boca volunteer heading to Panama with Peace Corps

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Matthew Ferner, 24, of Boca Raton, left for Panama March 3 to provide indigenous communities with humanitarian assistance as a Peace Corps Response volunteer.

Though Panama City features skyscrapers, shopping malls and expensive restaurants, 95 percent of Panamanians who live in that area suffer profound poverty. Of those citizens, 86 percent live in extreme poverty, earning less than $1 per day.

Ferner will work with Winrock International to apply information and communication technologies to the development of eco-tourism in two communities in the Panama Canal Watershed. He will act as a liaison between community members and Winrock staff as well as between other organizations in the area, working on technological development.

The Boca man will also design and conduct computer literacy classes for the two communities.

Ferner previously served as a youth development promotion Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic from 2005 to 2007. He conducted English classes and held HIV/AIDS peer education youth groups.

Ferner graduated from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., earning a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and Spanish in 2005.

To best capture the full scope of what Peace Corps Volunteers do, Crisis Corps has officially been renamed Peace Corps Response.

Since its inception in 1996, hundreds of returned Peace Corps volunteers have taken the opportunity to use skills and experience to address ongoing community needs in more than 40 different countries. Peace Corps Response allows volunteers to return to the field in short-term assignments that typically range from three to six months.
The Peace Corps, created 47 years ago, currently has 8,000 volunteers abroad, a 37-year high for volunteers in the field. Since 1961, more than 190,000 volunteers have served.