Meet the Team
Since COVID-19, we have used internet calling to stay in touch with our colleagues in Uganda. Now, Robert Fritz, Patty Seybold, and Alec Marshall are delighted by how effective video platforms have become in supporting AFPF's work in the USA and abroad—the AFPF Board connection bringing it closer together in spirit and practice. Robert Fritz (www.robertfritz.com) and Patty Seybold (www.customers.com) meet regularly with URDT department heads to work on the strategic and organizational planning process and plan implementation.
Team Legacies
Silvana Veltkamp
Silvana grew up in Italy, visited Somalia as a youth, and fell in love with her African brothers and sisters. Before she left Somalia, she put a handful of red dirt in her pocket and swore that she would come back someday. After many years of creating a family and career, including at the UNDP, she turned again to Africa. She had seen that a missing link in development was an education for the local people doing their own development. It could be said that without Silvana AFPF, URDT and ARU may not have ever been created. Silvana was a co-founder of AFPF in 1981 and served as the organization's first Executive Director from 1981-1997. She was the first Secretary of the Board of URDT and authored the organization's working documents. She is credited as a co-founder of URDT and ARU. Silvana previously worked at the Food and Agriculture Organization at the UN. She officially retired from her work in 2007 to return to Italy. Silvana Veltkamp was the co-founder of both AFPF and URDT. We are indebted to Silvana for her devotion to serving strong partnerships in international development. It was the 1980’s and Silvana was spending much of her time in Uganda. The country was recovering from the brutal dictatorship of Idi Amin. Milton Obote ruled the country after Amin had left, and still, things were violent and scary. However, the stories we heard from Silvana were about rural villagers finally being able to feed their families more than one meal of cassava a day, planting tomatoes and spinach and beans, creating fish farms for protein, and protecting springs for clean water. Silvana’s first partnership with a Ugandan development leader had its trials and ended after a few years. In 1987, Mwalimu Musheshe emerged as the leader for Silvana to partner with – and URDT was founded. In the early days, Silvana brought Ugandan leaders here to the US for training with Robert Fritz, Peter Senge, and others, and for fund-raising purposes. Silvana was living in the U.S. when she began partnering with Ugandan development professionals. Here, she encountered Robert Fritz’s work in structural dynamics and the creative process. She was inspired when she realized that this kind of education would be valuable to Ugandans in rural settings. She asked RF to be on the board of advisors of AFPF. Recently he told us that mostly he said NO to people asking for this kind of support, but with Silvana, he saw something special, and he said YES. Silvana held a conference on ending hunger, run by the Hunger Project. She invited others to take Robert Fritz’s course in her home. It was a 5-week course.
Martha Dolben
Martha has served AFPF as Board Member, Board Chair, and Executive Director (1997 – 2014). For these opportunities, she is grateful to Silvana Veltkamp, co-founder of AFPF and URDT. In 1981 Silvana introduced Martha to the work of Robert Fritz. It was Silvana’s plan to have Fritz’s teaching about the creative process become fundamental to the work of African professionals in rural development. Martha Dolben, AFPF Chair Emeritus. Martha served the AFPF-URDT partnership for over 35 years in many ways, including as an AFPF Board Member, Board Chair, and Executive Director. In November 2023, she sketched her larger ongoing life’s work as follows: I am a poet, author, and co-founder with Ingrid Miller of Guesswork Partners Press and the 1060 Women’s Studio, Concord, MA, a center for research and development on behalf of peace, trusted friendship, and the joy of life. We believe that humanity can keep becoming more reliably humane and that the coming forward of the Feminine now, when valued and served, is a great boon to our evolving character and contentment. My beloved late husband Don Dolben provides crucial and immeasurable personal and financial support for the 1060 Women’s Studio. Also, I am indebted to, and give thanks for, my work with women in circles for over 30 years, in the U.S. and at URDT’s Ugandan campus, which has provided friendships and learning essential to the founding of the 1060 Women’s Studio. Furthermore, and importantly, the 1060 Studio is building on and with a surprising opus of scientific, artistic, and literary work coming from Hadi Madjid and his physics partnership of over forty years with John Myers. This is thanks to my collaboration with Hadi of over thirty years, and my collaboration with Ingrid Miller over twelve years, exploring how to apply the gifts of Hadi and John’s science to the domain of human development. In 2005, Hadi and John published their guesswork proof, thus the name of our press. This proof and other work of theirs has established scientifically that the Unknowable is real and that surprises from the Unknowable are the source and driver of the scientific method. In other words, the scientific method is the way the connected inner and outer worlds – our character and creativity – come to evolve. Whether or not we think of ourselves as scientists, we all use hypothesis and experiment – or guessing and testing – to navigate life. However, for many people – whether professional scientists or not – recognition of the Unknowable and its surprises does not inform their thinking and living. Rather, many proceed unconsciously driven by a compulsion to find final answers and to live by fixed concepts. The extreme violence in our times is fueled greatly by the drive for final answers, with its false promise of power to end our confusion and suffering. In my ongoing efforts to bring transcendent inspiration and scientific self-reflection more reliably to the human invention of peaceful society, I need to collaborate with others also committed to this effort. At our 1060 Studio, we seek to promulgate friendships and circles that uplift us by developing our abilities to pair with the Unknowable and each other in all our living, learning, and creating. To support this journey, we are publishing poetry, books, and papers, showing artwork, and creating programs. We plan to offer shorter introductory programs and longer circle leader development programs. Eventually, we see chances for local circles around the globe to connect, learn from, and encourage each other, thus strengthening our abilities to advance peace, trusted friendship, and the joy of life.
Patricia Seybold
Patty is an ARU Council Member and AFPF Board Chair. She helped compile and edit the URDT Girls School Book, "It Takes a Child to Raise a Village." For many of these students, the book they created was the first book their family ever owned. She has visited URDT 12 times and her late husband, Tom Hagan, three times. She is a Customer Co-Designer (in International Development). She has been involved with the Uganda Rural Development & Training programme (URDT), whose motto is “Awakening the Sleeping Genius in Each of Us” since 1998. She has served on the Council for URDT’s African Rural University (ARU) since 2012. In addition to her volunteer work with AFPF and URDT, Patty is a consultant specializing in co-creating customer ecosystems with the participants, students, beneficiaries, or end-users of services as the design center. By involving the end-users of a product or service in the design and delivery of that service and including the representative stakeholders from the entire delivery ecosystem in the user-centered design process, the results are rapid adoption and utilization. Over her 50-year career, she has worked with hundreds of organizations worldwide. Thought Leader. Patricia Seybold has been a highly regarded visionary thought leader and business and technology strategist for over 50 years. From 1998 until the present, after the publication of her first best-selling book, Customers.com, she has been acknowledged as a leader in Customer Experience and Customer Innovation. Best-Selling Business Author. An internationally acclaimed best-selling author, Patty’s groundbreaking book Customers.com provides insight into how 16 still-thriving companies designed their e-business strategies to improve revenues, increase profitability, and enhance customer loyalty by making it easy for their customers to do business with them. Patty Seybold’s books have been translated into more than ten languages. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont, and is certified as a DMA and Three Principles Facilitator in Innate Mental Health. Selected Published Articles: (Most of Patricia’s articles can be found at https://customers.com).
Robert Fritz
Robert Fritz is an accomplished, writer, director, composer, consultant, and teacher who has been developing the field of structural dynamics for over thirty years. His work in the areas of creative process and organizational, business, and management issues has garnered worldwide acclaim. Fritz has authored 8 books which have been translated into 15 languages, among these are Your Life As Art and Identity. Robert began his career playing music and studying and teaching musical composition. He began to see that the structural principles that are so much a part of the composer's art have profound importance when applied to human development. It is from these insights that his structural approach was born. At the same time, Robert began to see that the very same process that creators use to create music, painting, sculpture, dance, drama, film, poetry, and literature could be applied to the way people live their daily lives, that it is possible to approach the life building process in exactly the same way – as if it were a work of art. He went on to develop his first course to teach people to use the creative process in their lives and later began to train instructors in his approach. Since then, more than 80,000 people throughout the world have taken trainings developed by him. His first book, The Path of Least Resistance, became an international bestseller. A true classic, it details how a person can utilize the creative process and the knowledge of structure to create their life according to their highest aspirations and deepest goals. His second book, Creating, gives even more detail on the principles of the creative process. His book, The Path of Least Resistance for Managers, takes the technology that is outlined in the first two books and applies it to organizations. His latest book Your Life As Art takes his groundbreaking work a step further. It covers the spirit of the creative process - what drives people to create. Many are saying it is his best book yet. Robert Fritz is the founder of DMA® and Technologies for Creating®. With Charlie Keifer, Peter Senge, and Peter Stroh he co-founded Innovation Associates, a company dedicated to helping people build organizations using principles of the creative process. Robert Fritz is an accomplished composer, filmmaker, and writer, and he is also an organizational consultant for some of the largest companies in the world. Robert lives in southern Vermont, with his wife and colleague Rosalind. Learn more about Robert Fritz work and seminars ....
Alec Marshall
Alec Marshall has recently joined the AFPF Board. Alec and his wife, Jessica Boatwright, lived and worked at the URDT campus for two years while serving in the Peace Corps (2017-2019). “I have an engineering background, and everything is problem-solving, problem-solving, problem-solving. So, coming to URDT and seeing the creative process at work has been really enlightening. Traditional relief efforts used in rural development don’t work. The communities take 1 step forward then 2 steps backward. It’s an oscillating approach. By using the creative approach, you get rid of the oscillation so people can create the lives they truly want.”
Tatra Musheshe
Congratulations on being recognized for inclusion by Marquis Who’s Who! Tatra is a Uganda Lawyer living in the USA. She volunteered at the URDT Community Radio in 2000 and AFPF since 2019. She is now the Executive Director. Having experienced both worlds is relatable and helps her serve the rural communites in Uganda better. Tatra is a lawyer and a human rights activist. She recently earned her Master of Laws (LLM) at Northeastern University, in Boston, MA. While in the USA, Tatra has volunteered for the Volunteers Lawyers Project assisting domestic violence victims, and with MetroWest Jewish Family Services assisting families to find affordable housing. As a winning scholar to attend the University of Washington School of Law’s IP Institute in Seattle, USA, Tatra represented Africa to brainstorm intellectual property issues with esteemed legal professionals worldwide. Driven by a passion for change, Tatra has continued to devise her work in reaching that goal. She served as a volunteer for Kagadi-Kibaale Community Radio (2009) at URDT, hosting the girl-child education programs. Tatra has always looked forward to returning to the Institute to promote its vision of girl-child education. She looks forward to bringing her lawyering, mediation, advocacy, and administrative skills to AFPF to advocate for personalized economic and sustainable development in rural Uganda – an interest close to her heart. She subsequently co-founded the first institute – the Intellectual Property Rights Institute (IPRI-AFRICA) to promote specialization in law and human rights where she was appointed to draft the National Committee Mandate on Genocide together with George Mason University, the UN, and the Uganda Government. Tatra has a bachelor's Degree in Law from Makerere University, Uganda, and successfully passed the Bar in Uganda that qualifies her as a Ugandan Attorney. As a publisher: She has supported higher education programs in Uganda, by publishing law books for Postgraduate law graduates at LDC and Makerere Pre-entry exam books. As a team leader that led the team to the war-torn area terrorized by rebel Kony in Northern Uganda in collaboration with NUREP and the Prime Minister's office-Uganda, I witnessed atrocities and a violation of human rights to girls and young women. They were defiled, raped, infected with HIV, and those who tried to escape had their limbs, ears, and lips mutilated. Being able to conduct workshops for both the public and private sector in Northern Uganda, devising strategy on how to resettle women and children, I am proud to say that our case study regions were successfully resettled in IDP camps to restore peace and ensure the basic human rights of the people are restored. My whole existence has been to make those who suffer worthwhile and AFPF is part of that quest.