Michel Estopinan
Founder and President of the HF
Michel Estopinan is originally from Cuba, and migrated to Miami in 2003 by way of Uruguay. In 2005, he continued his career as a high school teacher. Due to his sense of environmental responsibility and his compassion towards people and animals, he started to introduce these values into his daily teachings. Eventually, the need for students to do more than what limited activity in the classroom allowed, the idea for and after school club came up. The club, which primary goal was to bring humane education outside of the classroom into the entire school, evolved into an educational project called the Humane School Initiative. The Humane School Initiative’s purpose is to create safer, greener, and more compassionate schools for a humane world. This project was in 2009 one of the national award winners as best practice in character education.
In 2010, the Humane School Initiative was recognized by the Institute of Humane Education. The organization posted an interview done with Michel Estopinan about the Humane School Initiative and his work as a Humane Educator on its blog The Humane Connection. In 2012 The Humane School Initiative was also honored with the Animal HERO Awards from “Humane Educators Reaching Out”.
To support the work of the Humane School initiative and other humane education initiatives, Michel Estopinan founded the 501(c)3 non-profit organization "The Humane Foundation" in 2009. He is also his school sponsor for the Humane School Initiative Club and coordinator for the Green School Challenge and other environmental initiatives. Michel volunteers and contributes to various social justice, environmental, and animal rights organizations.
Michel Estopinan holds a Professional Educator Certificate in ESOL K-12 and Reading Endorsement issued by the Florida Department of Education. He graduated in 1997 from the University of Matanzas, Cuba. His educational credentials were evaluated by Foreign Consultants, Inc., an accredited credential evaluation services company. He was granted the qualification equivalent to a Master of Science in Education with emphasis in English Language and Literature, and Instructional Technology by regionally accredited academic colleges and universities in the United States.
In order to enhance his professional development as a humane educator, Michel Estopinan has also taken some additional courses including a two year course on Character Education by the Miami Dade Public Schools Partnership in Character Education; a four credit course on Fundamentals in Environmental Education by the University of Wisconsin; a School Safety and Sexual Minority Issues training by The Miami Dade Safe Schools Coalition; The Miami's MCCJ's Student Voices training on prejudice reduction and anti-bullying; The "Sowing Seeds in Humane Education" online clas by the Institute of Humane Education, among others.
Michel Estopinan continues to work to bring humane education to every school through The Humane School Initiative. He envisions creating one of his next projects, “The High Performance School of Humane Education” a place to put into practice innovative modern educational best practices sustained by the principles of humane education and “The Humane Honor Society”, an organization with the goal of developing leaders of a more humane world.
Co-founder, Vice President, and Grant Coordinator
Frank Fernandez
Finance Coordinator and Treasurer
Yolanda Restrepo
Secretary and Social Networks
Stephanie Feliciano
Animal Care and Protection Coordinator
Andrea Arboleda
Coordinator of Fundacion Humana en Espanol
Suzanne Rosenbaum-Geragi and Jeff Geragi
South Florida Events Coordinators
Eddy Ones
President of Hialeah High Youth Lead for a Humane World Club
and Humane School Initiative Coordinator.
FRIENDS OF THE HUMANE FOUNDATION
Zoe Weil
Author and Founder of Institute of Humane Education
James Wildman
Humane Educator for ARFF
Jennifer Menutti
Vice President of Operations at Botanical Visions, Inc.
Boyd Weidman
Works at HSUS/South Florida Wildlife Center
Jeffrey Tucker
Chair of Miami Earth Save Chapter
Other web spaces for The Humane Foundation:
Facebook Page for The Humane Foundation: https://www.facebook.com/thehumanefoundation
Facebook Page for the Humane School Initiative: https://www.facebook.com/hfhsi
Meetup Page for The Humane Foundation: http://www.meetup.com/thehumanefoundation/
HUMANEFOUNDATION YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/humanefoundation
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