Sixty-four motivated community leaders from 21 countries arrived in the US recently to kick off the 2011 Community Solutions Program. Community Solutions [52]is a professional development program for the best and brightest global community leaders striving for change in their communities.
Leaders focus their work in one of the following areas: Transparency & Accountability, Tolerance/Conflict Resolution, Environmental Issues, and Women’s Issues. Below are just a few examples of the outstanding group of Community Solutions leaders participating in the program this year:
- Luis Melgarejo directs the program Artistic LGBT Group, which brings local artists and intellectuals into the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community of Bolivia for advocacy. Sam Muhumuza works with the Development Foundation for Rural Areas to mitigate the violence and conflict that often result from land disputes and has an interest in protecting the rights of the LGBT community in Uganda. Both Melgarejo and Muhumuza are working with the Family Equality Council [53] through their Community Solutions fellowship. Read more about them in The Bay Area Reporter [54].
- As Founder of SMART Methods for Public Policy in Romania, Radu Oprea engages citizens in providing valuable, sustainable, and feasible solutions to public problems. Oprea founded an online forum that promotes local government accountability and citizen participation in the formulation of public policy through dialogue. Through the Community Solutions fellowship he is working with Common Cause Georgia [55] in Atlanta, GA. Read more about Oprea’s experience in the Community Solutions Program on his blog [56].
Community Solutions is a program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, and implemented by IREX.
Bios of all of the Community Solutions Program leaders can be found here [57].