Our Circle

Our Colleagues in Tanzania
Joyce Liundi lives in Masasi, Tanzania, and works with the Anglican diocese. She has been the lead worker of an organization which works to improve the lives of women, "Mother's Union." In this role, she works closely with women throughout the southern region and is well connected to many small women's groups. Ms. Liundi leads the solar cooking project for Solar Circle. With colleagues, she directs an educational program that is essential to the solar oven project's success.

Brother Yohannes Mango lives and works at the Benedictine Abbey in Ndanda, Tanzania. He is department head of plumbing and metal work at the Ndanda mission and teaches in the Abbey's vocational education program. Br. Mango is overseeing production of solar ovens for Solar Circle.

Our Board Members
Nancy Conrad Evans lives in Florida and Michigan. She has taught fourth and fifth grades and served as an elementary school assistant principal and as a principal in the East Lansing public schools. After her long career in education, she successfully owned and managed several retail stores in west Michigan. While working for charitable casues, she has dedicated much of her time to Solar Circle. In Florida, where the sun is wealth - "Jua mali" - she promotes Solar Circle by making presentations to service groups, churches, and private gatherings.

Joan Hunault, a legislative analyst working at the Michigan House of Representatives Fiscal Agency, has a research interest in policy-oriented learning in legislative contexts which she pursues with the University of Michigan Discourse Group. She has taught school, worked with a community group to create a health center, designed curricular and professional development materials for teachers at Michigan State University, and was elected to the East Lansing City Council where she served as the community's mayor. During the past year, Joan worked with a physics instructor at Lansing Community College to prepare a solar cooking curricular unit and portable laboratory for use by teachers in Masasi, Tanzania.

Judy Martin is a former teacher and retired attorney living in Okemos, Michigan. She has worked on the staff of the Michigan House of Representatives, practiced law representing low-income people on utility matters, worked with a program to assist Michigan universities recruit, enroll and retain minority students, and worked for a statewide network of health clinics in urban and rural areas serving low-income people. During the 1960s, Judy taught in Tanzania. She later returned to Tanzania in 2001 with friends, and with them partnered with local people to start solar cooking in the Masasi District, southern Tanzania.

Gina Torielli is an associate professor of law and the director of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School Graduate Tax Program. Prior to that, she was President of a major Michigan law firm, and her legal practice involved many charitable, nonprofit and governmental clients. She has served as an officer or a board member for numerous charitable and civic organizations, with a special focus on those involved in assisting women and children at risk. She lives in southeast Michigan.

Vic Weipert is a social worker and attorney living in Bath, Michigan. Vic practiced social work in Ohio and Michigan, was a fiscal analyst for the House of Representatives' Appropriations Committee for 15 years, and was an administrator for the Michigan Department of Social Services in many capacities, including directing a large institution for delinquent youth.  He also directed Citizens for Better Care, a non-profit advocating for residents of nursing homes.  He taught social work courses at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University and undergraduate human resource management at Spring Arbor College. Tennis, bridge, bookkeeping for Solar Circle and gardening are major activities in his current retirement.

Our Co-Founders
Carlotta Johnson is retired from secondary school teaching and psychotherapy practice. She worked in the inner city of Newcastle as a social worker and psychotherapist. Carlotta now writes poetry, birdwatches and canoes. She and her husband Frank (gynecologist/obstetrician) lived and worked in Tanzania for nine years. They lived in Masasi where Carlotta taught at the secondary school and Frank ran the district hospital with a team of British doctors. Carlotta and Frank met and married in Masasi and since leaving Tanzania for England, have repeatedly visited friends and contributed to medical, educational, and now solar cooking efforts in Masasi.

Judy Martin, see bio above.

Adele K. Miller is a nurse and teacher and has had extensive experience in both fields. She has worked on a farm, done occupational health nursing, volunteered as an emergency medical technician for a busy rescue service, and taught at Masasi Girls Secondary School, in southern Tanzania. Adele continues to work with behavior and developmentally challenged people and to perform private duty nursing. Adele retuned to Tanzania a few years ago to visit, and there partnered with her sister, Carlotta Miller, and friend, Judy Martin, to begin a solar cooking project, using the power of the sun to enrich lives.

Work with Sun-Catchers
SunCatchers is a voluntary organization in England, founded in December 2004, by Carlotta and Frank Johnson. The group raises funds to promote the solar cooking project already ongoing in Tanzania . Brother Cyril Kessi is a Salvatorian brother eager to spread solar cooking in the Masasi area. His work, supported by Sun-Catchers, is to interest people in cooking with the sun. Working with project director Joyce Liundi, he has organized several groups of people to learn about solar ovens, and is quite the salesman!

Work with MSU
Each year, the Michigan State University Department of Mechanical Engineering conducts a design program. Teams of students work with industry on engineering projects. In Fall 2006, a multi-college team of engineering students is working to improve the solar oven being produced in southern Tanzania.


Work with LCC
The Physics Department at Lansing Community College is assisting us in developing a simple curriculum to use with school children in Tanzania. The focus of the curriculum is to help them understand why and how solar cooking works. Professor Alex Azima has taught physics to children and adults for over two decades and is sharing his laboratory with us to test experiments. He has also reviewed several curriculum drafts to check our understanding of science.

Amazwi Gallery
For the past two years, the generous owners of the Amazwi Contemp orary Art Gallery in Saugatuck have opened their doors and invited the community in to raise funds for Solar Circle. Click here to find out more about them.

Elk Rapids, MI
The 7th grade class at Cherryland Middle School in Elk Rapids, Michigan, organized a community fundraiser to help the people of Tanzania. Click here to find out more about their efforts.