Emily Groves ’05 Provides Policy and Strategic Advice in Peru’s Sacred Valley

Groves is a volunteer for Awamaki, a Peruvian nonprofit that supports community development initiatives near Ollantaytambo, Peru. Well-known for aiding microenterprise craft cooperatives, the organization also offers programs in health, education, and sustainable tourism.

Women warp looms at an Awamaki weaving co-op in the mountainous community of Kelkanka (12,000 feet), where the Sacred Valley Health monthly mobile clinic is held.

Groves travels to rural communities to teach English, support mobile medical clinics, and help people with disabilities. She also advises the organization on management systems, fund-raising, and strategic planning.

“Working at the NGO level has taught me more than I could have imagined,” she says. “There is so much to learn from other cultures and other ways of life, especially when you are able to live, work, and speak the language of the population.”

Quechua villagers wait to be seen by a doctor at a monthly mobile clinic in the village of Yanamayo.

Groves also co-founded Sacred Valley Health to provide health care to the rural inhabitants of the Ollantaytambo District (about 10,000) by combining regular monthly mobile clinics with community health worker training. She is developing training programs and raising funds for the initiative. The goal is to expand services to all 30 villages in the district.

The Sacred Valley Health team has dinner with the Yanamayo village president and his family after a mobile clinic day.

An English graduate and Marquis Scholar, Groves says, “So much of what I learned at Lafayette shaped who I am today. Strong writing and research skills have been important in all of my professional roles—especially at Brookings.” Groves is the daughter of Bruce Groves ’75 and sister of Anne Groves ’13.

Groves credits Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger, professor of German, for fostering her interest in languages and Dan Bauer, professor emeritus of anthropology and sociology, for her first taste of policy writing and local government work during her Technology Clinic class’s Easton riverfront redevelopment project.

In 2006, Groves won a Fulbright Teaching Assistantship and traveled to Peine, Germany, where she taught English, American studies, and British studies, and researched the relationships and stereotypes generated through German and American media.

One of her last projects at Brookings involved managing a multimillion-dollar program that used national data to conduct virtual policy experiences for the assessment of strategies to increase opportunities for children and youth from low-income families.

“I researched social policies, developed outreach plans and management systems, wrote strategic and fund-raising proposals, ran events, and collaborated with foundations and other networks,” she says. She worked with Gordon McDonald ’95, former Brookings assistant director for special projects and now a senior adviser at the U.S. Treasury.

Emily Groves ’05, with alpacas nearby, hikes around Mount Ausangate, the highest mountain in southern Peru.

In May, Groves will return to the United States for her next challenge, which she hopes will strike a balance between policy making and public service. Forever touched by her experience in Peru, she will continue to serve the country’s people as a board member of Sacred Valley Health.