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Staff Report
Yadkin Ripple
Jun 20, 2013 | 933 views | 0

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Patrick Dowd moved with his family to East Bend when he was 11 years old, attending public schools in Yadkin County from the sixth grade on.
Dowd graduated from East Bend Elementary first and later Forbush High School with the class of 2006.
Dowd continued his education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he graduated with honors and highest distinction with majors in cultural studies and English and comparative literature. While attending UNC he received a Phillip’s Ambassador Scholarship to study Hindi language and Indian culture and development in Jaipur, India his junior year.
After graduating he received a Princeton in Asia fellowship in order to teach English literature at Payap University, a private university in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Following his Princeton fellowship he worked for the non-profit organization EarthRights International where he trained human rights and environmental activists from Tibet, China, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam in subjects ranging from human rights to critical thinking and report writing.
He has recently been awarded a Fullbright Scholarship to do research work in the Himalayan Mountains of India with Tibetan refugees who have fled from the Chinese occupied Tibet.
He arrived in India August 8, and his fellowship will last nine months.