Highlights
Photo Credit: Paul Agaba
Positive, lasting change depends not on donors but on the strength of local institutions—governance structures, civil society organizations, media outlets, and schools and universities. IREX supports these institutions and the professionals who staff them to become even more effective in their work and better positioned to help themselves.
Strengthening local institutions
- The Bolivian Politic Commission of the COLECTIVO LGBT, under the leadership of Luis Melgarejo, is initiating discussions about legalization of same sex unions in Bolivia. As a Community Solutions leader, Melgarejo gained greater understanding of the challenges and methods for grassroots organizing in Massachusetts and is implementing them at the Commission.
- Residents of Fish Town Liberia celebrated their revived community radio station, restored connection to the rest of the country and renewed belief in their ability to help themselves. With technical assistance and support from IREX, the community reopened the radio station, implemented new management and activities to build local government and community support.
- Over 400 unemployed youth in Kazakhstan are securing loans for innovative business models through a local microcredit organization supported by grants and mentoring from the BOTA Foundation. IREX is building the independent, non-profit BOTA Foundation by providing senior technical expertise to ensure that over $100 million effectively reaches the poorest of poor in Kazakhstan.
Our approach:
- Working with community leaders and other program alumni to launch their own NGOs, establish responsive community development projects, and transfer their knowledge to other local organizations.
- Bolstering key media and information institutions such as community radio, television, multimedia platforms, and community information centers to provide a sustainable approach to informing and engaging communities.
- Helping local NGOs develop program and financial management capacity, enhance their monitoring and evaluation skills, and secure new and more sustainable support and funding.
Photo Credit: Javier Arcenillas
Literacy is essential for lifelong learning, educational success, economic growth, and healthy lifestyles. IREX focuses on teacher training and schools support as one means to improve literacy and extend the cascading benefits of basic education.
Improving literacy and education
- Kindergarteners in Muntinlupa City, Philippines learned to read through a service learning project developed by International Leaders in Education Program master teacher Rowena Hibanada. She worked with high school students to read to and mentor early grade students. She reports “improved reading skills, leadership and higher self-esteem and improved academic performance among the kindergarteners as well as the high schoolers.”
- Violent incidents decreased by 25% at Deogracias School in Risaralda, Colombia as a result of the efforts by teacher Guillermo Lopez Ossa. Following training on peace education through the Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program, Ossa received a small grant to implement a school-wide “Culture of Peace” project using games, drama and art to help students cultivate self-discipline and become agents of change and creativity.
- Over 4,500 Senegalese girls are now one step closer to better education and better jobs thanks to Mohamadou Sylla and the girls’ technical and vocational English language teachers he trained. Sylla showed his peers how to use the Internet to gather and plan lessons, introduced student-centered teaching methods, and addressed the specific educational needs of the female students.
Our approach:
- Training master teachers in student-centered teaching methods, interactive technology for the classroom, curriculum development and lesson planning. Teachers implement techniques in their classes and deliver in-service training for other educators across the schools and school systems.
- Supporting non-traditional venues and means for literacy education through libraries and radio stations.
- Creating opportunities for girls to stay in school longer and broaden the skills they develop.
Photo Credit: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
IREX gives people the tools to communicate, learn, and engage with others within their communities and across the globe. Using appropriate technology and increasing access to information provides a wider reach to communities and individuals promoting positive social change.
Leveraging the power of technology
- Victims of human rights abuse and violence in Syria now have a powerful tool for documenting and raising awareness of these crimes through the Syrian Justice and Accountability Center (SJAC). The interactive map, data and analysis on the SJAC website compile on the ground reporting of incidences and capture a historical record of victims' experiences. This information is critical for future reconciliation efforts and transitional justice.
- Women farmers in Uganda are using mobile technology and IT training centers to get up-to-date information on produce prices, links to markets and access to information to improve production. Moses Owiny created the project based on best practices for agriculture development, using the skills gained through the online Community Leadership Institute.
- Four Moldovan youth helped recycle four tons of paper through their social media pilot project. Using a Facebook page and a blog to promote awareness of paper waste pollution, the youth worked with government, businesses and citizens in their campaign to collect and donate recycled paper.
Our approach:
- Supporting libraries to become modern community learning centers equipped with public access computers and training librarians to use technology in innovative ways.
- Training on using social media tools with traditional social activism methods to enable civic groups to generate viral campaigns on domestic issues. Helping citizen journalists use multimedia platforms to serve as community watchdogs.
- Working with media outlets and journalists to expand their digital media presence to engage audiences, improve their newsgathering, and reach underserved communities.
Photo Credit: Hasan Ibraheem
The rising global youth population presents great potential for dynamic economic growth and social change but it also challenges governments and communities to educate, employ, and provide youth-friendly services. It is critical to foster leadership and self-efficacy in young people while ensuring they have a voice in their own future.
Expanding youth voice and economic opportunity
- Youth groups in Rwanda launched small income-generating agriculture and husbandry projects as a means to simultaneously decrease poverty and increase stability and peace in their communities. Applying training in leadership, project management, and conflict mitigation, participants in Youth for Change advanced reconciliation efforts through their own economic activities, theater performances and community dialogue.
- Sonja and Sanja are young minority Serb journalists forging successful careers in Kosovo despite the 45% unemployment rate in the country. With journalism training, mentoring and support to local TV stations, IREX programs help develop the sustainability of the media sector, ensure minority voices are heard, and provide employment opportunities for young aspiring professionals.
- In Malawi, out-of-school, marginalized, and at-risk youth receive vocational training and employment services through an NGO led by Rex Mlotha. As a Community Solutions leader, Mlotha is engaging at-risk and homeless youth in the US, supporting their transition from the streets to the workplace. He’s gaining insights and tactics to bring back to his work in Malawi.
Our approach:
- Providing youth with diverse platforms and amplifying youth voice through social media and social activism, citizen journalism, and conflict resolution training.
- Providing career, entrepreneurial, and life skills; establishing career centers, and offering internship programs to help youth develop marketable skills, envision a career path, and secure meaningful employment.
- Facilitating and fostering effective youth-adult relationships; strengthening an enabling environment for meaningful youth participation.
Photo Credit: Tyler Peterson
To compete and collaborate in the global market, US communities need to develop and maintain strong international connections. IREX program participants and partnerships facilitate these connections for businesses, communities, and schools.
Bringing global resources to American communities
- David Bosso, one of the National Teacher of the Year finalists, is challenging his students to rise to the demands of a quickly evolving world. Working with a master teacher in Ghana, he created lesson plans to inspire his students in the US to explore complex real-world issues such as the impact of oil on Ghana’s economy.
- The Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium benefited from the expertise contributed by Taibur Rahman, a community solutions leader from Bangledesh. Rahman shared his knowledge of flooding in coastal communities to help produce a Community Resiliency Index, a measure of communities’ abilities to adapt to environmental changes and disasters.
- Students at Minnesota State University-Moorhead got an unexpected “Journey to Pakistan,“ thanks to Global UGRAD Pakistan student, Zahra. She was the University’s first international host on their student radio station. In between descriptions of her homeland, Zahra played music by Pakistani artists interspersed with popular American music.
Our approach:
- Through professional internships and volunteering, IREX participants contribute thousands of hours to US businesses, nonprofits, and governmental organizations each year. They conduct market research and assist clients in developing business plans and loan packages. They shape NGO strategic plans and facilitate foreign investment.
- US teachers gain valuable skills and perspectives to globalize their classrooms and curricula, connecting virtually with schools around the world, and engaging school administrators.
- Partnerships between US and overseas media allow them to share best practices in adapting to a rapidly changing media marketplace. New technologies allow citizens to be both producers and consumers of news and provide for greater engagement between journalists and the communities they cover.
Photo Credit: ImageLink Photography
With more than 300 participants, Beyond Access is starting a new conversation within the development community about the role of libraries in powering development.
Using libraries to power development
As new technology spreads into every corner of the world, information becomes a key tool in all fields of development. Whether it’s a family trying to find health information for their child or a young entrepreneur looking to start a new business, reliable access to information powers the ability of citizens to improve their lives and communities.
That is why IREX is leading a global effort called Beyond Access, to draw attention to the need for access to information and the role that public libraries can play in delivering that information sustainably. This activity builds upon IREX’s Global Libraries activities in Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine.
In October 2012, IREX and Beyond Access partners, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, hosted Local Alternatives for Global Development: Rediscovering Libraries in Washington DC. It was the first major conference to bring together community development experts, government officials, and library innovators from more than 35 countries.
Starting off with a conversation between USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah, Ricardo Lagos, 33rd President of Chile and Susan Glasser, Editor-in-Chief of Foreign Policy, the event brought into focus the need to work with existing institutions like libraries to meet today’s development challenges by engaging local partners.
Over the next year, IREX and its partners will collaborate with several countries to create new projects and activities around innovative ideas that engage libraries in development.
Stories
Photo Credit: Nicole Mechem
“I saw from my own experience that if former child soldiers could be supported, they are still useful human beings and good citizens. I would like to give an opportunity for each of them. They can also still succeed in life.”
Ricky Anywar
NGO leader Uganda
Former child soldiers in Uganda are putting down weapons and picking up tools to learn new skills and get a new lease on life thanks to Community Solutions leader Ricky Richard Anywar.
As the Founder and Executive Director of Friends of Orphans (FRO) in Uganda Anywar, a former child soldier himself, works to reintegrate marginalized youth into their home communities, train internally displaced persons in managing and resolving disputes, support individuals living with HIV/AIDS, and increase food production in local areas. FRO works with communities to create employment opportunities. Local schools and businesses first receive free goods and services from the youth trainees in carpentry, brick-laying, catering, auto repair. After the trainees graduate, they are given the opportunity to purchase from and hire the program graduates.
Through IREX’s online Community Leadership Institute, Anywar learned new communications, networking and fundraising techniques. With these new skills Anywar garnered support for several peacebuilding and youth livelihoods programs and establishing a community radio station. FRO’s youth livelihoods program trained 200 youth in crop and animal husbandry and sustainable farming to farm for profit rather than for subsistence. Anywar plans to expand the programs across the Pader District of Northern Uganda.
Photo Credit: Lisa Inks
“IREX has enabled us to do quality journalism—breaking, exclusive stories. Our mission is to keep following the story, the legal, political and moral accountability of government where, too often, other outlets simply fail.“
Shorena Shaverdashvili
Journalist Georgia
Citizens in the country of Georgia are increasingly looking to journalists like Shorena Shaverdashvili for trustworthy news and information.
The Georgian journalist runs Liberali, an independent, in-depth news magazine supported by IREX's G-MEDIA program. In recent years the tense political climate has prevented businesses from advertising—for fear of being associated with government opposition. That Shaverdashvili has kept Liberali alive despite these marketing challenges, attests to her resiliency and passion for a freer press.
Shaverdashvili and her small team work tirelessly to cover subjects like human rights violations and abuses of power for a steadily growing audience that reaches 100,000 a month. Her efforts to report on a prison abuse scandal and the parliamentary elections have paid off; the public demanded investigations and that the police treat detainees humanely. Online traffic also hit a new milestone—30,000 readers per day.
“As soon as a big story is out people come to Liberali because they know the news will be checked, that it's a credible source,“ Shaverdashvili says.
Beyond publishing in print and online at liberali.ge, Shaverdashvili uses social media to help push her reporting to the major TV and news outlets. She was among the first to report on the suspicious death of Soso Kimeridze, a 47-year-old who died while in police custody. As a result, the public once again demanded changes. For Georgians, the impact is great. Shaverdashvili hopes to keep delivering the details critical to a functioning democracy.
Photo Credit: Amy Ahearn
“I don't think about the huge number of students that we have. Only in the studio do I realize that I'm teaching to all of my state. People from very small communities and really, really far ones are connected through the TV and the Internet. It's almost unbelievable sometimes.“
Claudia Borges
Teacher Brazil
Over 34,000 students living in 1,000 remote communities in the Amazon rainforest have access to modern learning thanks to capable teachers like Claudia Borges and new education technologies. The Centro de Midias (Media Center) connects Borges and other teachers in a television studio in the city of Manaus to students throughout the state.
Each classroom throughout the State is equipped with a television, webcam, microphone, and a satellite. From the studio, the teachers present information, assign work, and even provide feedback. In the classroom, a general instructor from the community ensures that the students understand the material and follow instructions. The students present completed tasks via the webcam and microphone.
Borges currently teaches English to over 5,900 students. During the International Leaders in Education Program, she explored strategies to integrate student-centered learning, lesson planning, and technology tools into the classroom. It would be easy to assume that instruction via television would be teacher-centric, but Borges points out that, “the main teaching strategy that we use is collaborative learning because the students are highly motivated to work in groups. Also, from the groups we can develop discussion about the topics [of the lesson].“
“I'm a very lucky person because I can do what I really love, but with different resources that we don't usually have at schools. The challenge to prepare these classes is something that motivates me every day.“