The UNITE Foundation
Empowering Youth • Connecting Cultures
The UNITE Foundation wants to spread our message of hope and compassion. We believe that a single action can make a difference in the community, and that collective action can greatly impact the world. Through advocacy and outreach activities, our team works tirelessly each day to contribute their part to the greater good.
Our History
What We Do
Founded in 2008, The UNITE Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to youth development. Though we are headquartered in Washington, DC our inspiration comes from across the Atlantic Ocean in the small West African nation of Togo. Each year, Volunteers with Peace Corps/Togo and Togolese non-profits work together to organize a youth development program unlike any other operating in Togo today: Camp UNITE.
Created in 2001, Camp UNITE is an educational summer camp that equips young Togolese with the life skills they need to overcome the challenges of growing-up in a developing nation. Many young people in Togo lack essential knowledge about health, gender equity, and the importance of education. Others are facing the difficulties of adolescence familiar to young people around the world. Camp UNITE has created a curriculum designed to give campers essential facts about health, wellness and education, but also the teamwork, communication, and leadership skills needed to put their knowledge into practice.
Four of the Volunteers responsible for organizing Camp UNITE 2007 were so inspired by the stories of the campers they served that upon their return to the United States, they decided to establish an organization that could serve as a source of support for this essential program. Working in partnership with our generous donors, The UNITE Foundation raises funds for an annual "Life Skills" grant to Camp UNITE. The funds we provide ensure the transformative experience of Camp UNITE remains available each summer to a new group of promising young West Africans.
Camp UNITE Togo
Eleven Years and Counting
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Meet the Team
Rose Lindgren
President
Rose Lindgren served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo from 2008-2011 where she worked with small businesses and non-profits to improve management and opportunities for growth. Since her return to the U.S. in 2011, Rose has served as a board member for the Unite Foundation in order to keep investing in the young people and mentors she knew during her Peace Corps service. Rose studied political science and gender studies at the University of Notre Dame and international politics at the University of Edinburgh, where she was a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar. Rose speaks French, Spanish, and Arabic.
Bryce Leary
Board Member
Bryce Leary is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Senegal, where he served as a Sustainable Agriculture Extension Agent and helped lead Camp SeneGIRL from 2015 to 2017. Having worked as a camp counselor and youth educator in the Maine woods for 7 years, Bryce has seen how camp can help people and communities thrive. Coming to the UNITE Foundation, Bryce hopes to bring transformative camp experiences to youth across West Africa.
Kimiko Marsi
Treasurer
Kimiko Marsi joined the Unite Foundation because she knows how amazing the UNITE camp experience is for not only the participants, but also the counselors and organizers. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo, she was a UNITE camp counselor in 2014 and an organizer in 2015. She personally witnessed cultural exchange between youth from different regions of Togo and discussions of topics that many of the participants had never had opportunities to speak freely about before. Kimiko has been Treasurer since 2019.
Henry Ewrujakpor
Secretary
Henry is passionate about the UNITE foundation's goal towards youths empowerment and development, and connecting cultures in sub-saharan Africa. Henry has extensive experience in finance and IT, business and public administration. Henry is a board member at Boundless Freedom Project through his advocacy work, research, treasury and financial management activities related to restorative and criminal justice with a BFP.
Henry is a multidisciplinary professional in accounting and finance, computing and digital technology, public affairs and policy administration. A qualified accountant and member of ISACA with various IT certifications, CISA, CISM, CDPSE. He is an alumnus of Cranfield School of Management, John F. Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge Judge Business School, and the University of California, Berkeley. Henry currently resides in California.
Katie Ayers
Board Member
Katie Ayers is a returned Peace Corps volunteer and served in Togo from 2013 to 2015. She now lives in DC with her Togolese dog and cat.
Christiane Geisler
Board Member
Christiane Geisler has been a nurse all her life and worked in a public health project in the Moyen Mono, Togo in the 70s, training and supervising community health workers. There she met and married her husband Dan Geisler, who was a PCV in Notse. She has been a Clinical Research Coordinator for HIV trials for the past 15 years and recently retired from that job at CrescentCare Health in New Orleans.
Rose Nabine
Board Member
Rose
Torey McMurdo
Director of Communications
Torey
Whitney Shields
Board Member
Whitney