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By Beth Roberts, Director, Center for Women’s Land Rights, Landesa
Photo credit Landesa. Zainabu, from Kisarawe district, Tanzania, holds cassava that she dug up on her hillside farm.
Around the world, women are the backbone of agriculture.
From the rice paddies of Asia to the maize fields of sub-Saharan Africa, women are so often responsible for shouldering the labor of farming – they till, plant, water, and harvest crops that feed households and whole communities. Continue Reading
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Pat joins Paul Farmer, President Joe Biden, and other world leaders in “Driving innovation to advance cancer control equitably”
We are pleased to announce The Max Foundation CEO and co-founder, Pat Garcia-Gonzalez, has been nominated as one of three finalists for the Outstanding Contribution to Cancer Control Award, by UICC. We are honored to see The Max Foundation’s efforts recognized by the UICC.
Pat Garcia-Gonzalez shared her gratitude, saying, “This nomination means the world to me and to all whose voices we represent. At The Max Foundation we believe that all people should be able to access the treatment they need, geography should not be destiny, and everyone should be able to strive for health with dignity and hope. Continue Reading
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By Cathy Herholdt, Senior Communications Director, World Concern
Photo credit World Concern. Abuk Lino at her shop.
When COVID-19 forced businesses to close and people to stay home in Kuajok, South Sudan, families had to spend their savings to survive. When things reopened, many were unable to restart their businesses.
But for widow and mother of four, Abuk Lino, her savings group enabled her to not only feed her family during the pandemic shutdowns, but to keep her small shop going after the village market reopened. Continue Reading
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Welcome to the September 2021 issue of the Global Washington newsletter.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly 19 months since many of us, who were fortunate enough to do so, started working from home due to Covid. Unfortunately, many people lost their source of income entirely as lockdowns shut down several service sector jobs. In low and middle income countries, those in the informal economy were hit the hardest and lacked access to government assistance. It’s estimated that in 2020, the global economic impact of Covid led to 97 million additional people in extreme poverty.
However, I am inspired by those in the Global Washington network who have adapted out of necessity and created profitable, resilient sources of income. It also reflects a process of rebuilding for equity that could be a model to replicate around the world. Below are articles focused on inclusive growth for the future. The organizations and people mentioned are great examples of this through the ways they are evolving and innovating, forging pathways to be even stronger and more adaptable.
The past 19 months will be remembered as a time of massive global disruption and upheaval. Yet, 2022 promises to be the year of rebuilding and reimagining new systems for a more equitable future. On December 8 and 9, Global Washington will convene our virtual 2021 Goalmakers Conference to chart a new course in the years to come. We have some amazing speakers lined up with many interactive sessions and breakouts. I hope you can join the conversation. More information can be found here.
Kristen Dailey
Executive Director
By Joanne Lu
A year and a half on from the World Health Organization’s official declaration of a global pandemic, the world is still learning how to adjust to our new reality. On many fronts, the pandemic has made it clear that the world we lived in before is not one we want to return to – without a robust response to health emergencies, without sufficient safety nets for marginalized communities, and without justice and equity.
Few understand the need for change more than the world’s most vulnerable and the organizations working to help them. Although the pandemic has been devastating for many organizations, there are many that have also taken the opportunity to evolve, become more resilient and build the resilience of the communities they work with.
Still, it has been far from an easy task. The pandemic created in 2020 the deepest global recession since World War II, according to the International Monetary Fund. Unsurprisingly, the impact was greatest in the poorest areas of the world. By World Bank estimates, the pandemic led to 97 million more people being pushed into extreme poverty (measured as living on less than $1.90 a day) in 2020. It’s a devastating number, and it represents enormous shifts in livelihoods and pathways out of poverty for millions of families living in under-resourced areas.
Screenshot of World Bank blog.
The pandemic hit informal workers, who make up about 70 percent of the global workforce – particularly hard. These include household workers, street vendors, waste pickers and other daily wage earners. Lockdown measures not only put most of them out of work, but they were also mostly excluded from relief packages, like stimulus payments and unemployment insurance.
For organizations to adapt appropriately to the needs of the communities they serve, they must listen to their constituents and monitor the situation carefully. That’s why Global Partnerships (GP), an impact-first investment fund manager, has been diligent about staying in close communication with their social enterprise partners and the clients they serve. Through mobile-based surveying, end-clients have expressed reliance on savings as a coping strategy, but also a deterioration in their financial position and heightened food insecurity. This feedback reaffirmed GP’s commitment to supporting high-impact social enterprises that provide basic goods and services that foster economic resilience and enable people to earn a living and improve their lives.
In August, GP launched its ninth fund, the Global Partnerships Impact-First Growth Fund, LLC, which is designed to support high-impact social enterprises that are well-positioned to not only survive the pandemic but also grow and scale impact. As of its first close, the fund had $45.5 million committed, and it has the ability to scale to $100 million.
The decline in nutrition has prompted many other organizations to launch new relief initiatives. Spreeha Foundation and Spreeha Bangladesh, for example, works to help people break out of the cycle of poverty through health care, education, skills training and employment opportunities (note: Spreeha is not an investee of Global Partnerships). In the early days of their operations, Spreeha also provided one meal a day through their education program, but due to a dissipating need in the community, they ended that service. However, the pandemic reignited that need in an alarming way, prompting Spreeha to provide food and nutritional supplements.
Photo credit Spreeha. Pregnancy time counselling.
Another GlobalWA member, Awamaki, which provides opportunities for artisan weavers in Peru through sustainable tourism, had to make a sudden shift to food relief as well. This was a big change for Awamaki, which has always been focused on providing opportunities and training. But their model was upended overnight. With the help of small and large donors, Awamaki has been able to provide their partner artisans with monthly food baskets during this trying time.
Like many organizations, technology has also been critical to Awamaki’s adaptation during the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, they never designed goods for online sales. They didn’t have to, as their store in Ollantaytambo, near Cuzco, made about $80,000 a year from tourists. Without that store, they had to start selling online. They received a grant to specifically design products, particularly home goods, for online sales, and they also partnered with Amazon to host virtual shopping tours. Through a beta platform called Amazon Explore, shoppers can book virtual visits to their store.
Screenshot of Amamaki’s virtual store on Amazon.
Spreeha Foundation has also noticed local resilience. For example, even though Spreeha had to pause most of their vocational training programs because of lockdown measures, several women from their sewing training groups took the opportunity to launch their own sewing businesses during the pandemic. Others, particularly young people, have used the skills they gained through Spreeha’s training programs to move away from daily wage jobs to higher-skilled work, like cell-phone repair.
For organizations like these, the pandemic has been an opportunity to lean into the challenges and changes of these unprecedented times. The pandemic exposed many of the injustices that marginalized communities face. But it has also revealed what true resilience, sustainability and equity should look like. And perhaps, it’s given us a clearer roadmap for how to build back better.
The following Global Washington members are helping with job creation and economic development in low and middle income countries.
ACT for Congo supports humanitarian work without creating dependence. We work with organizations that are locally conceived, owned, and operated to help them build their capacity so that we become unnecessary for their success. Our role as outsiders is primarily to support locally-driven initiatives led by competent and wise leaders.
Over the past eight years we partnered with a Congolese start-up that built a vocational school now recognized as a Center of Excellence (HOLD-DRC). Our partnerships include Congo Nouveau, who provided civic education in 19 cities, and POLE Institute, who conducts vital socio-economic research in DR Congo. Our newest partnership is with AGIR-DRC who supports refugees in pathways out of internally displaced camps, provides clean water for children in schools, whose partners provide training and advocacy for domestic workers, and fuel urban gardeners and reforestation in Goma and eastern Congo.
Over 1400 women graduated from HOLD with state-issued certificates in vocations. More than 900 are employed or have their own business.
Awamaki teaches women’s artisan cooperatives in the rural Andes how to start and run their own businesses in sustainable tourism and fair trade crafts. Awamaki connects artisans to global markets and provides training in product development and business management. Their highly-skilled artisan partners create alpaca accessories, woven bags, and home goods, blending contemporary design with traditional techniques and motifs. Awamaki supports 180 artisans who are lifting their families towards prosperity.
Capria is a global venture capital firm with expertise investing in fintech, edtech, jobtech, logistics/mobility, agtech/food, and healthcare in the Global South. Capria invests in regional soonicorns — startups with enough revenues and growth rates to be unicorns soon — and also backs local and regional fund managers with capital and strategic support. Capria and its global network deliver profits with scaled impact aligned with United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Capria has offices in Seattle, Bangalore, Nairobi, Santiago and Washington D.C.
Chandler Foundation helps to build strong nations, vibrant and fair marketplaces, and flourishing communities. We imagine a world in which nations are well governed, principled businesses drive economic growth, and all people have the opportunity to flourish. Through patient, long-term, system-changing investments in trusted partners, we can help build thriving economies that work for everyone.
Because in a world where talent and creativity are unleashed, the impossible is possible.
More than 800 million people around the world live on less than $1.90 a day. Concern Worldwide believes that number can and should be zero. That’s why our mission is ending extreme poverty, whatever it takes. Our approach to ending extreme poverty is rooted in the understanding that the cycle of poverty is fueled by a combination of inequality, vulnerability, and risk. Our livelihoods programs address some of the underlying problems experienced by people trying to earn a living while also dealing with the challenges and setbacks of extreme poverty.
In 2020, we reached 4.4 million people through our livelihood programs. These programs aim to provide participants with the tools needed to ensure they are able to earn a sustainable living, learn new skills, improve the productivity and nutritional value of their crops and set up small businesses to generate more income. However, even with a job, 8% of the world’s workforce still live in extreme poverty, which is why we take a “targeted, time-bound, holistic, and sustainable” approach to breaking the cycle of poverty. For example, our Graduation Program uses a multi-pronged approach to giving families the education, training and funding they need to achieve financial independence. In other words, the program helps participants to “graduate” out of extreme poverty – once and for all.
Respect for the legal and customary rights of communities to land and natural resources is a principal objective of Earthworm Foundation’s work in global supply chains. We partner with companies making strong commitments to these rights, and then provide tools and practical training needed to see them realized. A central focus is helping ensure that land development for commodity production only occurs with the requisite Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of local people.
Supporting the economy and resilience of smallholder farmers is at the heart of our work. We began our efforts to strengthen farmer resilience in 2011, and today we work with farmers in 15 countries. We promote crop and income diversification so that farmer households have more secure livelihoods. With strategies tailored to their needs, approximately 3,000 farmers have diversified activities and their average household income increased by 20%.
We also focus on promoting safe work environments and labor rights. In 2017, Earthworm launched a labor rights and workers’ welfare program, training thousands of workers in over 60 companies. Our projects promote the welfare of children in oil palm plantation regions, ethical recruitment of migrant workers, the rights of casual and temporary workforces, and improved wages for agricultural workers.
Heifer International believes ending global hunger and poverty begins with agriculture. Operating in 21 countries across Africa, Asia and the Americas, Heifer provides farmers with technical assistance and opportunities to strengthen essential skills, including finance and business management. Farmers receive expert support to improve the quality and quantity of the goods they produce, as well as connections to markets to increase sales. As Heifer works to build sustainable food systems, it engages women and youth across value chains, ensuring they have the knowledge and tools needed to increase their incomes and support their families. Recently, Heifer published “The Future of Africa’s Agriculture: An Assessment of the Role of Youth and Technology,” a report based on a survey of 11 African countries, that identified challenges preventing youth from fully engaging in farming as a source of future jobs. In response these issues, Heifer launched the AYuTe Challenge which awards up to US$1.5 million annually to the most promising young entrepreneurs who are using technology to reimagine farming and food production across Africa. For the 2021 competition, the AYuTe Challenge selected Cold Hubs and Hello Tractor as winners, supporting them as they scale their businesses to help more farmers to overcome long-standing challenges.
Mercy Corps works in over 40 countries helping communities forge new paths to prosperity in the face of disaster, poverty, and the impacts of climate change. Mercy Corps’ approach to protecting and strengthening economic opportunity ensures crisis-affected households can maintain their businesses and wage incomes in the midst of crisis, while laying the foundation for greater market participation and inclusive economic growth in the future. Throughout the pandemic, Mercy Corps has worked closely with people living in vulnerable areas to meet their most urgent needs by providing cash while also implementing long-term solutions to ensure businesses can recover and continue to provide employment opportunities.
In Jordan, Mercy Corps channeled 13,000 JD ($19K) in emergency cash to three gig platforms to help them continue to provide essential services to gig-workers and also provided 90 workers with a cash transfer of 150 JD ($210) each to meet immediate basic needs and selected three start-ups for further technical and funding support as they demonstrated high potential to recover and grow beyond COVID-19 and continue to employ hundreds of gig workers.
Microsoft – Building Skills for the digital economy
We’re living in a changed world. As economies continue to reopen, more jobs will require digital skills. This is not just about technical jobs, but an increasing number of jobs across industries that will become ‘tech-enabled.’ Now, and in the future, all people will need to learn digital skills to pursue in-demand roles, but access to the resources to learn these skills is inequitable.
Microsoft is focused on supporting those who have been excluded from opportunity because of race, gender, geography, displacement, or other barriers that prevent them from attaining the skills needed to thrive in a changing economy.
Our programs, partnerships, and resources are designed to meet people where they are on their skilling journey. From a young person learning computer science in the classroom, to a job seeker earning technical certifications, to employers focused on building skilled, inclusive workforces, we are committed to helping people gain the foundational, role-based, and technical skills to gain jobs and livelihoods.
To achieve this, we invest in supporting communities in building equity, building nonprofit capacity and scale, and mobilizing collective action, funding, and impact by working with others to advance sustainable, scalable change.
Learn what steps we’re taking and how you can help support: aka.ms/skills
At Opportunity International, we are proud and honored to be a part of achieving this first Sustainable Development Goal, along with many of the other SDGs that are focused on improving the standard of living for families in poverty. Together with organizations and initiatives around the world, we spend each day helping amazing people break that barrier of living on $1.90/day. And, in the wake of the pandemic, we are more committed to this goal more than ever.
We invest in entrepreneurs, helping them create or sustain jobs for themselves and their neighbors. Also, we have created tailored tools for farmers, addressing many of the challenges faced by the rural, agrarian majority of those living in extreme poverty. We work to connect them to markets, give them access to inputs, and help them move from subsistence to commercial agriculture – radically transforming their farms and their futures. We realize our goal is the same as that of the U.N. as we are actively working to end poverty in all its forms everywhere.
Opportunity International’s core programs continue to enhance and expand upon our continuous work on behalf of women and girls in low- and middle-income countries. We reach out to financially excluded populations, especially less literate and rural women, to deliver knowledge and skills that help them use financial services as fuel for their journey out of poverty. Financial services are key for women to create their own livelihoods, who are often excluded from formal economic opportunities. When women can create their own economic opportunities, they become powerful agents of change and some of our greatest weapons in ending extreme poverty.
Remote Energy
Remote Energy believes that access to reliable sources of sustainable energy is a fundamental requirement for the advancement of education, healthcare and quality of life. It is also a critical step in promoting sustained, inclusive, economic growth. As solar energy (PV) grows exponentially, so does the fast growing need for a trained solar workforce. Remote Energy has responded by developing and implementing regionally appropriate, customized technical capacity building programs and developing hands-on, practical learning opportunities for solar technicians and instructors in marginalized communities worldwide.
Remote Energy’s Native American Programs partner with tribal vocational and technical schools to provide scale able, accessible PV training opportunities for Native Americans in their own communities. Programs focus on the development of hands-on skills specifically designed to give aspiring instructors and technicians the marketable skills required for employment in the fast-growing PV industry and inspire communities to move towards energy independence and sustainable development.
Remote Energy is also committed to gender equality and support the belief that women’s talents and leadership are vital to maintain a diverse, sustainable, PV industry and critical in promoting economic grow. Remote Energy’s Women’s Program is designed to develop women decision-makers, end-users, technicians, and educators and offers customized, women’s-only courses and mentoring opportunities with professional female instructors. Click Here to learn more about our upcoming, online women-only PV class.
Upaya Social Ventures fights extreme poverty from the ground up by building scalable businesses, dignified jobs, and long-term prosperity in the world’s most vulnerable communities. We identify early-stage businesses in India with the greatest potential for job creation in the most vulnerable communities. Through our investments and accelerator program, we partner with early-stage entrepreneurs to grow their businesses and create jobs that lift families out of extreme poverty. Our vision is for everyone to have the opportunity to earn a dignified living and pursue their dreams. We believe in a hand-up, not a hand-out, and that access to sustainable, dignified jobs can be the bridge from poverty to prosperity.
West African Vocational Schools (WAVS)
West African Vocational Schools is a Christian skills development organization that trains and equips youth in one of the least developed regions in the world. Each year, WAVS training centers prepare more than 200 youths for work so that they can earn a livable income and provide for their families for the rest of their lives.
World Concern prioritizes economic empowerment of families and economic development in communities we serve through diversified livelihoods, village savings groups, microfinance, vocational training for youth and adults, education, rice banks, and farmer groups.
A respected leader in Savings and Loans for Transformation (SALT) programs, World Concern improves the lives of thousands of women and men who are trained in money management and entrepreneurship through SALT groups. These groups enable members to save and borrow for business or family needs, which are repaid with interest and add to the group’s account balance.
Stable income means parents can give their children the proper nutrition they need to thrive, provide medicine when they are sick, and send them to school. Entire communities thrive when families are financially secure and able to give back.
As COVID-19 continues to ravage poor communities, World Concern has seen that members of savings groups show greater economic resilience and ability to cope with hardships than those who are not members. Instead of selling their assets to survive, SALT members have been using their savings to buy food and pay for medical expenses. Others have borrowed money to start innovative income generating activities.
To learn more, please visit https://worldconcern.org/what-we-do/economic-empowerment/
By Joanne Lu
Photo credit Spreeha. Students receive computer training.
Spreeha. It means “zeal” in Bengali – a fitting name for an organization that was born out of a passion to break the cycle of poverty in Bangladesh and beyond. Over the last decade and more, it’s been a long journey for Spreeha, listening and adapting to needs as they arise, and culminating with the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19.
Spreeha’s founder, Tazin Shahid, grew up in Dhaka, witnessing extreme poverty first-hand in the city’s many slums. When he ended up working at Microsoft, he decided he wanted to give back to his hometown. It was in one of the slums that he used to walk by everyday where he opened his first mobile health clinic.
At first, it was just Shahid and his friends who supported the clinic, but Shahid wanted to scale up. In 2012, Spreeha Foundation was officially launched in Seattle, followed shortly by Spreeha Bangladesh to implement a global program in accordance with the Bangladesh government’s rules and regulations, and in partnership with other local organizations.
Today, Spreeha Foundation has three U.S. chapters, in Seattle, Boston, and Dallas that are responsible for raising support for the program in Bangladesh as well as helping local underserved communities. Meanwhile, in Bangladesh, what started out as a health-care program now spans the cycle of poverty, with education interventions, job and life skills training, and support for economic opportunities.
As Spreeha’s CEO Ferdouse Oneza explains it, Spreeha has identified the key points in people’s lives where intervention is most effective. When a mother is pregnant and a child is born, their immediate needs are health care. Then, that child is in need of education – which is why Spreeha offers preschool and after-school programs for children. As children get older and become adults, they’re in need of skills training. These skills include leadership training for women and girls to advocate for their rights, computer skills and other life skills for young people to advance in school and work, as well as vocational skills.
“Our vision has been to empower people to break out of the cycle of poverty,” says Oneza. “We learned while working, but we also took time to deconstruct the problem to identify the root causes of poverty.”
Spreeha still operates one health center in a geographic area with 25,000 households, but their telehealth services reach three additional remote areas. In addition, their multi-use community resource center is home to their preschool and after-school programs and many training programs. There are also 15 schools through which Spreeha runs their leadership programs. Spreeha trains the teachers, and the teachers in turn guide the students.
Photo credit Spreeha. Telehealth.
One aspect of Spreeha’s after-school program is helping kids dream about what they want to become one day. These are kids whose everyday realities are entrenched in poverty and whose parents are daily wage earners. Last year, two students from the Spreeha community graduated from university. And this year, another student was admitted into medical school. This is exactly what Spreeha means when they say they’re empowering people to break out of a cycle of poverty.
Economic opportunities are the newest component of Spreeha’s programming, added just a few years ago. Since their inception, Spreeha has created jobs for local community members by hiring them as community health workers. But they wanted to go beyond that and help place people in jobs. So, based on a list of training sectors identified by the government of Bangladesh and the U.N. Development Programme as sectors with job growth, Spreeha began to support vocational training through scholarships and apprenticeships. Some of these sectors include baking, sewing, mechanical repairs. Spreeha’s computer training center, in particular, has drawn enough people that Spreeha could start charging a small fee to make the operation of the center self-sustaining.
Then, the pandemic hit. According to Oneza, 70 percent of the members of the community where Spreeha works lost their jobs. Most of them were daily wage earners, like household workers, rickshaw pullers and construction workers. Malnutrition among children increased 18 percent. More young girls were suddenly sent into early marriages. The effect was devastating.
Photo credit Spreeha. Bring School to Home program.
But Spreeha listened, watched and adapted – as they always have. They began emergency food distribution and partnered with other organizations to deliver nutrition supplements to children in the community. They also piggy-backed off the door-to-door community health services they already had and expanded that system to create a program called Bring School to Home. Teachers delivered school supplies and materials to the homes of students to keep them engaged. Doing so decreased the chances of parents sending their kids to work and never returning them to school.
Similarly, some of the life skills training for girls and adults were continued through door-to-door services in slum communities, while in more remote areas, Spreeha partnered with local organizations to conduct training outdoors.
Photo credit Spreeha. Outdoor training.
Prior to the pandemic, Spreeha already had a telehealth network, so they have leaned into that even more. And as schools have begun to reopen, Spreeha has also resumed its leadership training programs for teachers online.
In a way, Spreeha’s reliance on technology during the pandemic to deliver some of their essential services has actually helped them scale up during a crisis that forced many organizations to shut down. Thankfully, Oneza says, they’ve also been able to sustain all of their employees, many of whom are community members.
There’s also been a shift in employment opportunities in the community. Some seasonal jobs like pulling rickshaws will never go away, says Oneza. But she’s seen young people turn toward more skilled jobs and apprenticeships, like motorcycle or bicycle repairs or even cell phone repairs. And even though Spreeha had to temporarily close their sewing training center during the pandemic, Oneza says many of the women were able to start their own sewing businesses in the meantime.
The resilience of these community members and Spreeha’s own resilience over the last year and half have inspired the organization to keep growing, even beyond Bangladesh.
“The pandemic has shown us that we don’t have to sit back,” says Oneza. “We can innovate. We have been adaptive, and we have seen what can happen.”
Photo credit Spreeha.
By Tyler LePard
Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, Chief Executive Officer of Mercy Corps, has worked with farmers in Africa and with world leaders like President Barack Obama and Bill and Melinda Gates. She has grounded her career in the simple belief that, no matter where someone is born, no matter where they live, they should be able to lead a thriving and successful life.
Tjada grew up in Washington, D.C., and Stamford, Connecticut—“very much a mid-Atlantic Northeast gal.” Her parents came of age during the civil rights movement; they surrounded Tjada with Black history and raised her as part of the Black American community. Tjada’s parents taught her that what she did reflected on her community and that Tjada should work for the betterment of her community. Tjada knew from an early age that her ancestors had come to this country as enslaved people and that many people had fought for the progress that has enabled her to be where she is today.
Tjada took those values to heart and expanded her community to encompass the global diaspora and people everywhere who are suffering.
“I think I’m where I was always meant to be, but I didn’t know the contours of how I’d get here or what I’d be doing … I always felt the draw to Africa and felt the desire to give back … I knew I liked leading people. I knew I wanted to have a career that had a positive impact in people’s lives. I knew I liked the ideas behind business and how things worked. I knew I had a deep affinity for giving other people opportunities just as so many other people had paved the way for me to have the life that I have.”
Skills for social good
Her career path is impressive—she went to Harvard for college and graduate school. Tjada earned an MBA with the intention that she could apply those skills to social good at some point in her career. The organizations where Tjada thrived have all had strong shared values and a sense of cultural identity, they gave her room to learn, and allowed her to serve the greater good.
Tjada’s early career was really about learning. As an analyst for McKinsey & Company, she learned problem-solving skills. When she went to work for one of her clients in agribusiness, she learned how to mix business with social good. After business school, Tjada worked for American Express and General Electric, learning general management and how to get things done in large organizations.
Tjada’s work in agribusiness, working in Africa with smallholder farmers, was a dream job, but she didn’t think she had a future there. So when she woke up one morning listening to NPR and heard about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s investment in the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), it was a pivotal moment. She thought: “That’s exactly what I was doing in agribusiness, but Gates actually has the mandate and the funds to go make huge investments there.” She flew to Seattle for interviews two weeks later and was hired before she left the building.
“I took a huge leap of faith, and I loved every minute of it. And I’ve loved every minute since.”
Tjada spent more than a decade working to end world hunger in roles with the Gates Foundation and then with the U.S. Agency for International Development. She set up and ran Feed the Future, President Obama’s signature global hunger and food security initiative. That was a great complement to Tjada’s earlier work in agribusiness and she learned how to work with really diverse groups of people and how to motivate people without authority. “That was the most transformational experience in my career.”
Tjada’s work on food security ties in strongly with SDG 1 (ending poverty) and SDG 8 (sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all). Her entry to that sector was the result of her corporate work—thinking about markets and how to help other people to self-actualize. The freedom to be economically mobile is so important because economic needs underpin so much of people’s lives.
“I have always seen myself as looking for sustainable solutions and environments where people can make a living and thrive—really self-actualize, really pursue what they’re meant to do.”
“The most vulnerable first”
She was the Chief Operating Officer for Habitat for Humanity and then for CARE, and in October of 2020, Tjada became the CEO of Mercy Corps, an iconic international nonprofit organization. Mercy Corps, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, has a global team of 5,600 humanitarians working in more than 40 countries to alleviate suffering, poverty, and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities.
The COVID-19 pandemic has only heightened Mercy Corps’ beliefs in sustainable economic growth, markets, and systems. It has made their work more urgent than ever. But their focus on resilience—giving people the tools to self-actualize and bounce back from terrible situations—has been helpful in an ever-changing environment. COVID-19 has been the ultimate resilience test for everybody. Mercy Corps staff had to figure out how to keep working in the community while staying safe and making sure the people they work with are safe. They had to shift to digital tools in markets where that wasn’t always easy.
The World Bank is predicting that the number of people who live in extreme poverty is going up because of COVID-19. “A lot of people have lost the gains we’ve spent the last 15-20 years developing. The vulnerable groups who are served by Mercy Corps are especially impacted.” Mercy Corps works in many fragile environments that have been deeply affected by climate change, conflict, and, now, COVID-19. “Any shock makes the competition for resources greater and leads to more people being disaffected. COVID exacerbates everything. Hunger is worse because people can’t buy supplies. The global food chain is disrupted. The global community needs to think about the whole system, not just getting shots in people’s arms.”
“What we’ve seen, in the U.S. too, is that COVID takes every inequity you have in society and makes it worse. We have to structure vaccine outreach, information, and dissemination to be applicable in an inequitable place. You have to reach out for the most vulnerable first. You have to think about the communities that are most remote and hardest to reach … People who are left behind in their communities are even more left behind in emergencies. And with COVID, you can’t afford to leave anyone behind … None of us are safe until all of us are safe.”
Tjada’s team is doubling down on helping people build resilience and come together with their communities in order to thrive. They are focused on how to improve social cohesion, which refers to the strength of relationships and sense of solidarity among members of a community. Mercy Corp is figuring out how to give people access to opportunities digitally and to help keep their communities cohesive and strong.
Mercy Corps has many projects that address digital innovation, unemployment and social cohesion:
During the pandemic, Mercy Corps has pivoted and tailored many of their existing programs to meet the moment, but there have also been great opportunities to bring new partners or new platforms together to serve people.
A global citizen “trying to do the best I can”
Now that we’ve all been living through a global pandemic that has been hard for everyone, Tjada hopes that more people will feel connected to others around the world.
“The American people have now suffered this big shock. We’ve seen food lines here and we’ve seen unemployment worse than before. If there is a bright spot to come out of COVID, my hope is that we will feel more connected to other countries who are facing the same things we are and who don’t have the resources we have.”
Tjada loves that Mercy Corps is a Global Washington member and part of the Northwest ecosystem of major actors that are having a big impact in the world. She is a humble and conscious global citizen who is proud of who she is and what she’s achieved.
“I’m proud to be the CEO of Mercy Corps. I’m especially proud to be one of the few Black women to be the CEO of an INGO, and as a mother of two young children. I want to expand people’s imagination of what a CEO can look like, where they can come from, and what stage of life they need to be at. I’m hoping to attract more people from diverse backgrounds into this space. I hope people like me in positions like this won’t be rare. I feel really privileged to be able to do the work I do … I’m just focused on helping Mercy Corps have the strongest impact we can for the most people.”
September 24- 26: The Max Foundation: Max-A-Thon
September 25: World Concern’s Transform Gala
September 25-26: Spreeha Journey of Hope 2021
September 27: WAC- Beyond the Border: U.S.-Mexico Relations
September 30: Schools for Salone’s Change a Child’s Story Live Auction Gala
October 1- October 31: Take Heart You Are Not Alone Billboard Fundraising Campaign
October 2: Friend’s of WPC Nepal: 11th Annual Hope for Freedom Gala
October 2: 2021 Virtual Gala: The Rose International Fund for Children
October 7: WFF: 6th Annual Evening to Restore Dignity
October 8: TALK: A Conversation with Congressman Adam Smith on China
October 8: WAVS: Dine & Discover West Africa
October 9: Mission Africa’s 15 Year Fundraiser
October 14: WGHA Global Health Impact Awards
October 25: PeaceTrees’ 26th Anniversary Virtual Celebration
Accounting Officer // Global Partnerships
Individual Giving Manager // Days for Girls
Check out the GlobalWA Job Board for the latest openings.
October 5: Q3 Final Mile – Impact through Partnerships: Emergency Response to the 2021 Haiti Earthquake
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By Mark Horosowski, MovingWorlds
With Kate Cochran, Upaya Social Ventures
The United Nations General Assembly is this week, and quite frankly, I’m not looking forward to it. It’ll be another circuit of high level meetings and catchy headlines telling the world that we’re falling even further behind in our attempt to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (sadly, we are… and corporations aren’t doing nearly enough).
Governments will point fingers at each other and the private sector. The private sector will blame governments and consumers. Financiers like Blackrock will fund catchy PR campaigns that will distract us from the fact that they are creating the very issues they are claiming to be solving.
Pundits, “thought leaders”, and global executives will write compelling op-eds claiming that if only they were given more resources, they could solve all the problems. Then, as quickly as it came, the debates will pass and we’ll return to a state of normalcy, perhaps with just a little more frustration with our global policy makers and international institutions. Continue Reading
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By Laura Baerwolf, Director of Operations, Mona Foundation
The year 2020 will forever be associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. It brought the world to a halt in a matter of months, changed the way we live, work and play, and made clear that what impacts one impacts all. As of this writing, more than 4.4 million people have lost their lives to COVID-19, millions more have been pushed into extreme poverty, and millions of students are without access to continuing education.
“What started as a public health catastrophe became an economic crisis, a food crisis, a housing crisis, and an educational crisis … any of the gains made in the past 25 years across development indicators poverty, health, equality, and education — have been lost.”
— Melinda Gates, Co-chair, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
For Mona Foundation, a nonprofit that supports grassroots educational programs in economically disadvantaged communities around the world, 2020 began with great uncertainty and concern for the staff, students, and families of our partner organizations, many of which are based in areas where social distancing is impossible and access to healthcare is non-existent. But as we began to witness their resilience in mobilizing to face a devastating pandemic and their indomitable resolve to contribute to the social good, we were also uplifted, moved, and inspired. Our long-term partnerships, focused on building the capacity of local communities through the twin engines of education and gender equality, had prepared them to create all that was needed to sustain their trajectory towards a better future. Continue Reading
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by Meera Satpathy, Founder & Chairperson of Sukarya
Ranju is a 14-year-old rag picker who supports her family’s income by selling scrap. Her father is an alcoholic. She studied till class IV and dropped out. Her anger issues got her into frequent fights with other children. When Sukarya’s outreach team met her and told her about the Education on Wheels (EOW) project for out-of-school children, her eyes lit up. However, she was not sure if her father would agree to her attending classes. Also, her home environment was hardly conducive to studying. The team spent a few weeks counselling her family members. Today, Ranju is 18 years old and has taken her class X exams and is integrated into mainstream formal education. As part of the EOW and adolescent girls’ program she is now confident of carving out a future for herself. Her mother, who had several miscarriages and was weak and malnourished, attended Sukarya’s health camps where doctors and nutritionists helped her address her medical ailments. She is now working in domestic help and has assured Ranju that she will help her fulfill her dream of becoming a nurse.
Photo credit: Sukarya.
According to India’s National Sample Survey, as of date, more than 32 million children have never been to school. Nearly 80% of migrant children across seven Indian cities lack access to education near worksites even as 40% children from seasonal migrant households are likely to end up as child labor in the unorganized sector instead of being in school, according to the UNESCO’s 2019 Global Monitoring (GEM) report. The report also cites the lack of schooling and a structured environment as a key reason for these children being exposed to exploitation, abuse and trafficking. It is not uncommon to find many children from urban slums getting sucked into a life of crime and delinquency. Also, poverty, unemployment, and large family sizes pushes them towards acute malnutrition, anemia and other deficiencies which impact their adolescent and adult lives. Continue Reading
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By Erin Inclan, Communications Director, Amplio
“Communication is really the first and most important thing to think about when a health crisis emerges.” — Dena Morris, former president and CEO, Washington Global Health Alliance
Photo credit: UNICEF Ghana. Community health nurses played Talking Book message during antenatal clinics.
How do you reach and communicate with people with low- or zero-literacy skills who live in last-mile communities where there’s no infrastructure, electricity, or internet? How do you get your message across if they only speak a local language? This is a challenge under normal circumstances, but what happens in a pandemic?
Since 2007, Amplio has been providing an inclusive digital solution for sharing knowledge with low-literate people in rural, remote communities. Early on, our Talking Book audio device was field-tested in schools in Ghana. More often learning takes place outdoors—ideally, under a tree for shade. Today, our partners use Talking Books to address cross-cutting issues and sectors, including agriculture, health, and gender. With the Talking Book, they can deliver hours of targeted content in a community’s local language, with multiple topics and playlists. Continue Reading
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Welcome to the August 2021 issue of the Global Washington newsletter.
As the start of school for my kids approaches, I am reminded of the importance of education with good teachers and the proper infrastructure to ensure my children are safe and well taken care of during their school day, including meals, adequate staff, and appropriate learning materials. COVID has forced not only my school district but just about every school district in America to provide alternatives to education delivery – and we could. We were provided laptops, access to online lessons and learning management systems – and we already had internet access in place to manage this continuity of learning. While it had its challenges, we were privileged to have an online option.
Millions of children across the globe have not been so lucky. For them, education abruptly stopped. Schools closed. Teachers moved back to their villages. Technology, such as smartphones and laptops, were not available. The infrastructure was not in place to be able to manage such a drastic change.
Many of GlobalWA member organizations have responded to this upheaval of their educational programs through adaptation and experimentation. It is wonderful to see how many of these children now have access to some form of continued education. The August Issue Brief examines how Ashesi University provided laptops and stipends for food to allow students to keep learning from home, how Alliance for Children Everywhere supports the whole family structure to allow the space for the children to keep learning, how Opportunity International provided financial support through their EduFinance program to ensure teachers and schools could maintain their programs, and more.
Our hope is that through these examples, other global education organizations can learn and adapt. Education is the backbone of successful, thriving societies and we all have to work together to weather this pandemic.
I’m also thrilled to announce that registration for our 2021 Goalmakers Conference on December 8 and 9 is now open! The first day of this event will be virtual and the second day will be in-person in Seattle. The in-person event will be a homecoming after a long stretch of only online communication. As always, we will monitor public health guidance and make contingencies, but we are hopeful that we can gather again in-person to spark those connections vital to your work. I hope you can join us!
Kristen Dailey
Executive Director
By Joanne Lu
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was not on track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education. Being able to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030 was going to require a global concerted push. And then, with the global COVID pandemic, came the school closures and the economic aftershocks that have effectively ended the educational prospects of millions of children around the world. That is, unless we can do something about it.
Image credit: Statista
The world could limit its educational recovery response to just returning enrollment and learning to pre-pandemic levels. But many experts see the pandemic as an “opportunity to reset education.” The world was not on track to achieve SDG4 by 2030 because of glaring inequalities in the global education system. COVID-19 highlighted and exacerbated those challenges. The question is, since we have to rebuild education anyway, shouldn’t we do it in a way that’s more inclusive, more equitable and of better quality? Experts say that if we don’t, not only will we still fail to achieve SDG4, but we will be setting ourselves up for another crisis down the road when another major disruption strikes. In a world with increasing climate disasters, it seems all but inevitable.
Empty classroom in Burundi
Most wealthy countries adapted to the COVID shutdowns by moving their classrooms online. While not an ideal learning environment for many students and their families, it at least allowed most students to continue learning. But this shift also highlighted the massive digital divide between wealthy and under-resourced contexts.
In Ghana, Ashesi University has done their best to keep their students on track with online classes. But to do so, they’ve had to provide laptops to students who indicated they couldn’t otherwise access classes. They also provided monthly data bundles to all their students. Additionally, students on full scholarships, which covered meals on campus, were given stipends to support them at home, and those with tuition arrears were allowed to defer payments and continue classes without disruption. Still, a few students had to defer their classes because they live in locations with weak internet infrastructure.
These types of barriers prompted a Mona Foundation partner in India to launch a phone-based program for students in poor, remote communities. Under this program, schools loan select students a smartphone through which those students can access online classes and also facilitate learning for other students in their neighborhood. Mona believes that in order to address the root obstacles that are preventing us from achieving SDG4, we have to raise the capacity of local organizations – like the one that launched the smartphone program – to solve their own issues. Grassroots organizations, Mona believes, are the ones who can make sure that gaps in education and beyond are addressed contextually and sustainably.
Photo Credit: Study Hall Educational Foundation/Mona Foundation
This is especially important as we think about achieving inclusive and quality education for all, because if COVID has taught us anything, it’s that education is critical for the future, but it doesn’t exist in a silo. If families don’t have money, they won’t send their children to school. If children are hungry, they can’t learn. If a major crisis, say a global pandemic or natural disaster strikes, classrooms will be closed. That’s why the Alliance for Children Everywhere (ACE) takes a whole family approach to child welfare, with food relief, economic empowerment programs as well as free community-based primary and secondary schools. For children who cannot remain with their families, ACE also facilitates fostering and adoption. But the pandemic’s disruption to their schools has prompted ACE to question the conventional schooling model entirely. Instead, ACE is exploring whether learning can be more evenly dispersed between households, communities and classrooms so that future crises will not cause as big of a disruption.
In Afghanistan, Sahar Education for Afghan Girls is in the process of building a boarding school for girls so that they will have at their fingertips all the resources they need, including internet access, to complete their education. However, the pandemic slowed those plans. Then, in light of recent insecurity following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Sahar had to pause construction of the boarding school as well as its other programs that support girls’ education (Digital Literacy, Early Marriage Prevention and Men as Partners in Change). They’re hoping to resume construction and operations by the fall.
Photo credit: Sahar Education
Of course, all these initiatives take financing, which is where organizations like Opportunity International come into play. Opportunity’s Education Finance (EduFinance) program partners with financial institutions to support local private schools, teachers’ salaries and parents. This, in turn, leads to jobs and economic growth for entire villages. When the pandemic hit, EduFinance became a critical safety net for many of these schools, teachers and students. They extended grace periods for loan repayments, increased teachers’ salaries and helped digitize lessons to keep schools open.
Amid all the harm that the pandemic has wrought on education around the world, it has also forced us to reevaluate what inclusive, equitable quality education looks like. Perhaps some of the adaptations that this crisis has forced educators to make will, in the end, accelerate progress toward SDG 4. Regardless, it is clear that the pre-pandemic model was neither resilient nor effective enough. So, as the world braces for third and fourth waves of the virus, our work is cut out for us – not for a return to normal, but rather to build back better so that every child can have access to quality education by 2030.
The following Global Washington members are helping with education in middle and low income countries.
Alliance for Children Everywhere
Alliance for Children Everywhere’s mission is to bring orphaned and vulnerable children into secure families, schools, and communities. We prioritize child safety and permanency in a stable, loving family environment. That means: safety first, and family as soon as possible. Children without families face lifelong risks. We help provide physical and emotional protection for children in crisis, reintegrate children with their biological family members and find alternate homes through fostering or adoption for children without available family. Our vision is a permanent, secure, and loving family for every child. There are over one million orphaned children in Zambia. While institutions can provide them life-saving rescue, they cannot replace the love of a secure, permanent family. ACE protects families in crisis; restores orphaned children to family; and strengthens communities through economic empowerment and education.
A Child’s Notebook believes all children deserve a quality education and partners with rural communities to invest in the lives of children in Southeast Asia. With Lao People’s Demographic Republic having one of the highest poverty rates in Asia, A Child’s Notebook selected this country to improve education as first . As many as 34 percent of the primary schools lack both water supply and latrine facilities, and most schools are poorly constructed with unsafe and unhygienic condition. It is not uncommon for students to study in a building with a dirt floor, no windows, and no toilets or running water. Since 2018, A Child’s Notebook has partnered with five villages to remodel or build new schools and dormitory serving over 600 students. This approach has been successful because the communities have been active partners by providing volunteer labor, sourcing local materials, and leadership of the projects. Despite the many challenges the people of Lao PDR face, including the recent COVID-19 pandemic, these communities show an enormous commitment to education and believe it is the vehicle to improve the lives of their children, families, and community.
Ashesi is a private, non-profit liberal arts university located in Ghana. Its mission is to educate a new generation of ethical and entrepreneurial leaders in Africa; to cultivate within its students the critical thinking skills, the concern for others and the courage it will take to transform their continent. Ashesi Foundation in Seattle builds a global community for Ashesi University.
buildOn’s global mission is to break the cycle of poverty, illiteracy, and low expectations through service and education. buildOn partners with rural communities in developing countries, empowering locals to build schools, enroll out-of-school children, and educate adult learners. We work in eight countries, including Burkina Faso, Guatemala, Haiti, Malawi, Mali, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Senegal.
buildOn’s School Construction Program uses a participatory methodology to ensure each community is leading the project. buildOn contributes engineering, materials, and skilled labor. Each community provides land, local materials, and the volunteer labor it takes to build the school. Every village also promises to send girls and boys to school in equal numbers.
Once a school is completed, communities participate in two additional programs. Our Adult Literacy Classes teach women and men literacy and numeracy through the lens of health, enterprise, and relevant life skills. Our Enroll Program identifies school-age children who aren’t currently enrolled in school and works with their families to ensure they can start learning.
Since 1991, buildOn has constructed 1,993 schools worldwide, with more than 299,400 children and adults attending these schools every day.
ChildFund International serves in 24 countries to ensure that children and their families have access to educational and livelihood programs to further their education. To ensure the continuing sustainability of educational programs, ChildFund designs contextually and culturally appropriate programs with a gender equity lens that include greater participation of girls in school, aiding in the rehabilitation, construction, and equipping of community schools, assisting families with indirect costs, including books, uniforms, and educational kits containing school supplies, teacher trainings to improve the quality of teaching and learning, and working with parent-teacher associations to ensure that schools are safe and healthy learning environments for children.
Days for Girls International is an award-winning NGO that works to shatter stigma and limitations associated with menstruation for improved health, education and livelihood outcomes. To date, Days for Girls has reached more than 2.2 million women and girls in 144 countries on 6 continents with quality, sustainable menstrual care solutions and health education.
Knowledge is power, especially when it comes to menstruation. Access to timely, accurate health information is critical to shattering the stigma around menstruation and building a more equitable world. That’s why Days for Girls washable pads are always paired with comprehensive menstrual health education – for menstruators, families and entire communities. Check out our Ambassadors of Women’s Health Training and Men Who Know curriculum to learn more about the impacts of these of these life-changing programs. Visit daysforgirls.org today to get involved.
Girl Rising uses the power of storytelling to change the way the world values girls and their education. We ignite action for girls’ education and gender equity by changing attitudes and harmful gender norms through programming and campaigns reaching families, communities, corporations, governments and the general public.
Our work builds voice, agency and confidence in girls so that they can persist in their education; fosters a more inclusive learning environment that leads to improved education outcomes for girls; and changes attitudes and social norms.
In the wake of COVID-19 and its wave of shadow epidemics, our work has taken on new urgency. In addition to the 130 million girls who were missing from classrooms around the world before the pandemic, an estimated additional 11 million girls may never return to school. Girl Rising has been working closely with our local partners in 12 countries to adapt our programming and continue to reach girls in the wake of the crisis. We are supporting our partners with at-home learning resources, and in some cases emergency funds, as well as pivoting to new on-line platforms including radio programming and low-tech solutions such as WhatsApp.
Heifer International embraces education across its programs, providing a wide range of training covering animal management, financial literacy, nutrition, and much more. It works alongside communities to assess their needs and deliver appropriate support as they develop food and farming business that provide sustainable living incomes. In Orisha, India, poultry farmers have received training to use low-cost biosecurity measures to improve the health of their birds and increase resilience to the conditions created by the pandemic. Using detailed record keeping, business owners build plans for the future and grow their businesses. In Kenya, many small-scale dairy producers lack the technical knowledge they need to earn a living income. Lockdowns and movement restrictions have made in person training sessions impossible. Heifer Kenya is working to bring training to digital extension services to rural communities using technology.
The Hunger Project (THP) envisions a world where every woman, man and child leads a healthy, fulfilling life of self-reliance and dignity. Part of our multi-sectoral approach includes supporting access to education which is why a core pillar of our work is to “start with women.” The pandemic exacerbated educational challenges for adolescent girls in India, increasing high rates of child marriage, extreme poverty and familial responsibility.
With the pandemic closing schools, THP learned holistic action was most effective in reducing challenges to continued education in India. THP distributed Food and Creativity Kits that included nutritional food, basic stationary, sanitary pads and packets of information on governmental resources. These provided resources and information, fought boredom and included basic tools needed for learning and exam preparation. Thousands of girls are also engaging civically, leading online support groups, sharing governmental resources and ‘how to guides’ on negotiating the right to continued education. This work was designed to provide resources to reduce extreme poverty, which often leads to child marriage and more familial responsibilities, and increase educational motivation, even without a school setting.
THP observes that this holistic approach to COVID-19 is working as girls aren’t dropping off the radar and that school remains a viable option.
Mission Africa provides Nigerian children in remote villages with quality education primarily through two programs.
High School Diploma Program: Since 2008 the Mission Africa has awarded a six-year financial scholarship to 50 underprivileged high school students in the villages of Nigeria. The scholarship covers the full year cost of tuition, 2 school uniforms, school supplies and a backpack. The scholarship winners receive these benefits for 6 consecutive years until they graduate. Once they graduate a new 50-student scholarship cohort will be selected to receive scholarships.
Books for Africa: Since 2010, Mission Africa has donated approximately four million books to countries in Africa. In most African countries, schools must have approved libraries to be accredited for their national high school diploma exams. Mission Africa accepts donations of books from school districts, libraries, organizations and individuals for students in Africa who have no books. These books are picked up by Mission Africa volunteers, sorted by subjects, inventoried, packed and shipped in 40 feet container loads to Africa. The books are then donated to village schools and libraries.
We believe a successful life is an engaged life—and the key to staying engaged is staying curious. Our faculty inspires students to continually ask questions, to remain open-minded about outcomes, and to see connections in the world at large. In turn, students are prepared not just for college, but to live with meaning and joy—wherever life takes them. We are a diverse community of people who challenge each other to learn in a healthy, creative, and collaborative atmosphere of respect for ourselves, others and the environment.
We graduate students with historical, scientific, artistic, and global perspective, enabling them to think and act with integrity, believing they have a positive impact on the world.
In support of student and faculty well-being and continued learning during COVID-19, Northwest School faculty designed a Remote Learning Program for students 6-12. For details about the Program, please visit our Remote Learning Program page.
Opportunity International designs, delivers, and scales innovative financial solutions that help families living in extreme poverty build sustainable livelihoods and access quality education for their children. We equip families with the tools and training they need to build their businesses, improve their harvests, provide for their families, send their children to school, and break the cycle of poverty. Opportunity International’s Education Finance program (EduFinance) helps parents access the resources necessary to send their children to school and helps affordable private schools provide quality education to students.
At Rwanda Girls Initiative, they know that education is the key to gender equality. They believe that investing in girls education, especially secondary education, is one of the most powerful levers one can pull to spark systemic change. When girls receive an education, they are more likely to lead healthy, productive lives, earning higher wages and participate in decision making in their community. Girls education fosters economic development, peace, and reduces inequalities between boys and girls. Still today, there are more than 132 million girls left out of school worldwide and only 25 percent of countries have achieved gender parity in upper secondary education.
As an all-girls boarding school in Rwanda, they have removed the most significant barriers to education for their students. Rwanda Girls Initiative is one of the most socio-economically diverse schools in Africa, with 100% of their students receiving some amount of financial aid. Their teachers and staff support an environment of academic excellence, problem solving, leadership and service; ensuring that graduates will become tomorrow’s leaders. To date Rwanda Girls Initiative has graduated 705 students; future scientists, entrepreneurs, advocates and thought leaders, who will bring insights and solutions to the biggest global challenges we face.
For 20 years, Sahar’s mission has been to provide safe spaces for girls to receive a quality education. Sahar partners with the Ministry of Education and Afghan-based organizations to build public schools and implement educational programs for girls, empowering and inspiring children and their families to build peaceful, thriving communities. Each academic year, 25,000 girls attend the thirteen public schools built by Sahar. The organization also provides a range of programs including: early marriage prevention, teacher training, digital literacy, and building gender allies to improve the achievement gap between girls and boys. In order to address this disparity, Sahar developed and implemented the Early Marriage Prevention program in 2015. Since its founding, 1,473 students have graduated from the program. In this program, girls are introduced to the importance of continuing their education, leadership skills and professional development.
As U.S. troops withdraw from Afghanistan, Sahar’s Board of Directors and staff have reaffirmed an enduring commitment to providing education in northern Afghanistan.
Sukarya’s “Education on Wheels” project mainstreams out-of-school children into the formal school system. The brightly coloured mobile bus is a familiar feature in Gurgaon and Delhi’s slums. COVID-19 hit children hard. They lost their routine of attending classes. Sukarya’s team was quick to introduce them to digital learning so they could later transition to physical classes.
The primary concern was to reduce drop-outs. Students were enrolled in EOW after lot of discussion with parents and seeing them opt out would reverse gains made by the project. A strategy using virtual study space with handholding support, counselling and tele-conversations was initiated.
Online classes saw student leaders engaging with those unfamiliar with Android phones. Activities enhancing interactivity and self-worth like recitation, storytelling, play acting and craft were taken up. Online monitors sensitized classmates on COVID protocols, nutritious food, turning watchdogs and reporting cases needing attention so that Sukarya could provide relief. These zoomed enthusiasm and got students to join online classes.
Food shortage and acute hunger was a big concern. Sukarya distributed food and hygiene kits in these homes regularly. EOW has resumed visits and is ensuring minimum damage to children’s academic progress and overall wellbeing.
Sukarya USA in Seattle supports the cause of Sukarya for educating and empowering marginalized children and adolescent girls in India.
Save the Children and the Education Crisis of a Lifetime
Save the Children, the global leader in providing education to children in emergencies, is driving hard to combat the largest education crisis a generation of children worldwide is experiencing – the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the staggering 1.6 billion students who were out of school in 2020, millions have yet to return to classrooms as COVID-19 variants surge in countries. Child marriages and teen pregnancies are up, as more girls can’t go to school. Families who’ve fallen deeper into destitution are taking children out of school and forcing them to work. Our research points to over 112 billion days of lost learning in the past year. COVID-19’s immense disruption to learning will reverberate for generations to come.
Safe Back to School is our commitment to support distance learning and safely return 150 million marginalized girls and boys to school. We will make education systems more resilient and advocate to influence decisions on policy, legal, system or public investment to meet children’s right to an education.
Reversing COVID-19’s damage to learning is our top global education priority through 2024. We are uniquely suited for the challenge – we work in over 100 countries and have delivered quality education to over 273 million children in the last decade, which is more than any other global development organization. You can learn more about Safe Back to School here.
Schools for Salone expands access to quality education in Sierra Leone by building schools, training teachers, and empowering girls to stay in school.
Our organization was created in response to the destruction caused by civil war in Sierra Leone. Countless schools were reduced to rubble, leaving a generation of people without education and employment skills. Because Sierra Leone is one of the poorest nations in the world, it is even more difficult for communities to overcome barriers to education that continually arise – leaving children, their families, and their communities in a cycle of need.
We work with local partners to significantly increase the number of educated children in Sierra Leone by aiding and assisting communities to build schools and improve existing school infrastructure; by preparing teachers through a comprehensive teacher development strategy, and by conducting reproductive health education to keep girls in school and support their healthy growth and development.
Despite the challenges brought about by the COVID pandemic, we continue to make substantial progress in our goals of improving education opportunities for girls and women in Cambodia. With our superb on-the-ground partners, along with more than 20 grassroots local NGOs in and around Siem Reap, we are able to carry on with substantial support – all focused on continuing to educate the most vulnerable kids in Cambodia. This has taken on a variety of forms – all driven by the most pressing needs identified by the local communities and our partner NGOs. Specifically, over the past 18 months we have supported:
Nobody ever expected this pandemic to create such havoc in the educational sector. Nevertheless, thanks to our dedicated in-country staff and partner NGOs our work has continued to make an important difference in the lives of thousands of marginalized kids.
The Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools program is a school-based program for pre-K through university offered in more than 180 schools throughout Washington. Globally, the program is offered in 193 countries.
Unified Champion Schools is aimed at promoting social inclusion through intentionally planned and implemented activities affecting systems-wide change. With sports as the foundation, the three-component model offers a unique combination of effective activities that equip young people with tools and training to create sports, classroom and school climates of acceptance. These are school climates where students with disabilities feel welcome and are routinely included in and feel a part of all activities, opportunities and functions.
This is accomplished by implementing inclusive sports, inclusive youth leadership opportunities, and whole-school engagement. The program is designed to be woven into the fabric of the school, enhancing current efforts and providing rich opportunities that lead to meaningful change in creating a socially inclusive school that supports and engages all learners.
Recently, Special Olympics launched a new Unified program in support of refugees: Special Olympics Refugee Program Video
By Joanne Lu
FaithWorks classroom. Photo credit: Alliance for Children Everywhere.
The story of Alliance for Children Everywhere (ACE) is one of evolution, learning, and adaptation. The organization as it exists today barely resembles the one that Virginia “Jennie” Woods founded in Arizona more than five decades ago. Yet, at the heart of it, ACE has always been – and always will be – a champion for the world’s most vulnerable children.
In 1969, Jennie Woods was moved to act when she saw a need for emergency rescue and childcare for orphaned and vulnerable children on Apache and Navajo reservations in Arizona. At the time, institutional care (e.g. orphanages, children’s homes, etc.) was the prevailing model for orphan care, so that’s what Jennie and her team provided. Out of that response, ACE was born.
Eventually, their faith-based ministry expanded to Guatemala and Peru. But by then, things had begun to shift within ACE. They started to lean more on local community leaders to implement and guide their programming.
Then, in the early 1990s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic hit Zambia hard, leaving the country with an unemployment rate of 70 percent and the highest per capita rate of orphans in the world. The country’s two existing structures for orphan support were quickly overwhelmed. In response, the Zambian government broadcast a global appeal for help from people and organizations with child welfare experience.
Family preservation. Photo credit: Alliance for Children Everywhere.
ACE once again sprang into action, lending support to local churches, leaders, the government, and community organizations. With its team of local social workers and staff, ACE launched two crisis nurseries for orphaned and abandoned children. And they also watched, listened and learned. They realized that many children who were coming to their crisis nurseries actually had living family. This is true for 80 percent of children in orphanages worldwide. For reasons like poverty, these families feel compelled to turn their children over to orphanages rather than try to keep them at home. Again and again, mothers told ACE partners and staff, “I would keep my baby at home if I could feed him.”
In response, ACE began to work toward that very goal. Realizing that family care, not institutional care, is the best environment for children, they launched programs to support the family unit, including food relief and economic empowerment programs for parents and caregivers. Those programs include skills training, savings groups, and seed capital for launching small businesses.
For children in need of immediate temporary care, including those who have been referred by the government due to issues like abuse or neglect, the crisis nurseries are still available. However, ACE’s goal is always to reunite the children with their families. If reintegration into their own families is not an option, then ACE facilitates fostering and adoption within Zambia – including outside of tribal lines. When ACE first began its work in Zambia, adoption outside of tribal lines was a relatively taboo subject. But with the help of local church leaders and social workers, ACE has been able to help normalize fostering and adoptions beyond one’s own tribe.
“We’re able to communicate that together, from our various tribes, our various backgrounds, we all belong within God’s family, and so do these children,” says Stephanie Johnson, ACE’s Director of Development and Communications.
It was also through conversations with local leaders that ACE realized they needed to take their prevention efforts one step further – to include education. Food relief and economic empowerment were well and good, but education would be the key to building up the next generation of parents and caregivers, and strengthening communities.
FaithWorks classroom. Photo credit: Alliance for Children Everywhere.
In 2001, ACE opened its first free community-based school. Today, ACE serves around 2,500 kids a year through its seven FaithWorks primary schools throughout Lusaka, as well as a secondary school. The primary schools are hosted in local church buildings and are open to all children in those neighborhoods whose parents cannot afford government schools. Some of the children are also single or double orphans, and for a number of the children, the school’s free lunch is their only daily meal. In light of these circumstances, the teachers are also trained to provide emotional and social support to guide their students through their life challenges and help them reach their goals.
For one student, Francis N’guni, that goal was to reinvest his education into the next generation of children in his community. Today, Francis is a head teacher at a FaithWorks school. Not only is he providing his neighbors’ children with a quality education, but he’s also mentoring them through the same challenges that he himself experienced as a child and student.
Of course, the pandemic has brought massive disruptions not only to ACE’s community schools, but also their other programs. That’s why they are holding discussions in real time about ways their work and schools can become more resilient to crises. For example, they’re exploring whether households and other community members can participate more in schooling so that in the event of another disaster, the disruption to children’s education will be minimal.
Moving forward, they’re also excited about expanding their influence beyond Zambia, but without a physical presence. ACE no longer works domestically, and its programs in Guatemala and Peru have long been handed off to local organizations. So, when it comes to programming, ACE is firmly rooted in Zambia. However, their decades-long evolution has taught them valuable lessons about child welfare, particularly how to move from institutional care to a holistic family support model. As it turns out, other organizations around the world are eager to learn from them. That’s why in 2020, ACE launched a consulting arm, called ACE Transition Partners, to guide institutions toward family-based care for tens of thousands of children in Africa and beyond.
It’s fitting, because after all, ACE is an alliance for children everywhere.
Atul Tandon Went From the Streets of Delhi to Wall Street. Now He’s a Banker for the Poor.
By Tyler LePard
Photo Credit: Opportunity International
There are moments in your life that cause you to reassess everything. They offer a chance to step away from your daily routine, stop thinking about your never-ending To Do list, and ponder the big question of what you really want to do with your life.
Atul Tandon was 39-years-old and running one of the world’s largest international banking efforts when he was faced with news of a serious health crisis. He had grown up on the streets of Delhi and ended up on Wall Street. But this moment caused him to pause and ask himself what would bring him the most joy. His answer? Help people have a better life. Atul decided he wanted to use the skills he learned through his career in financial services—how to see and unlock the potential in each one of us—to help people thrive, especially the ones who have been left out, like the people he grew up with.
A major career shift from international banking to humanitarian work wasn’t a hard decision for Atul. The hard part was to change his thinking around what counts as success. “It’s hard to go from an organizational culture and a career focused on the bottom line to a career and focus of life that was focused on people. It’s far more than the bottom line.” Atul shifted his thinking from the return on investment on dollars to matters of both the head and the heart.
Atul’s career change brought him full circle to where his life began.
A #2 pencil may seem like an insignificant object to many of us. For Atul as a child, it was so much more. He grew up in a family of limited means in India and his mother was determined to see him and his brother do well. This meant sacrificing to make sure they could attend school and get an education.
“I had this tremendous gift of my mother who loved me and who, at the same time, expected a lot of me,” Atul shared. “We didn’t have much, so my one gift a year was a box of #2 pencils and a sharpener. That was a constant reminder of my mom’s presence in my life, what she was giving in my life, and what those pencils could help me achieve. Even today when I see a #2 pencil, I get choked up.”
Atul finished school, got a Master of Business Administration, and built a successful career with Citibank, first in India and then in the United States. He learned how to manage enterprises and people and how to take ideas from their inception to tremendous impact. In India, Atul introduced services such as ATMs, credit cards, mortgages, consumer loans, and remote banking for the first time in the region. Those things may seem ordinary now, but in the 1980’s these were life-changing tools for millions of people.
Now, Atul is committed to addressing the question of “How do you lift up people at the bottom of the pyramid so they earn more income to invest back in themselves and their families, educate their children, and live thriving lives? … Most of humanity is at the bottom of the pyramid. Of the 7 billion people on the planet, about 3.5 billion are working adults and two billion are in the informal economy. They typically earn less than $3.50 a day and don’t have a defined means of income. That’s the human condition.”
Atul in Nicaragua. Photo Credit: Opportunity International.
These days, Atul calls himself a banker to the poor. “Now I have the great opportunity to go back to my friends who are bankers to the rich and say ‘Ok, what are we going to do together?’” He believes that both sides of financial services, serving the rich on one side and the poor on the other, are important. “We must treat everyone as if they have enormous potential. Talking about equality isn’t enough. The training I got at Citibank is what made me successful in the humanitarian sector.”
When asked what the thread throughout his career is, Atul said, “I’m a builder of people and of institutions. I’ve had the great fortune to build some of the world’s greatest financial institutions, nonprofits, and now to address extreme poverty. How do you build people and organize them into institutions to do more, with excellence on one side and a drive for real impact on the other. The most important thing is the people—both those who are impacted and the people who are doing the work so they thrive while doing it.”
Over 16 years, Atul joined World Vision, led United Way Worldwide, and then founded and served as the CEO of the Tandon Institute. In 2016, he joined Opportunity International as Chief Executive Officer and now he can’t imagine doing anything else. “I’m excited to be leading an organization singularly focused on helping families financially and helping children get an education.” Opportunity International is a global nonprofit organization that creates opportunities for entrepreneurs to build their businesses, children to go to school, farmers to feed their communities, and families to end the cycle of generational poverty. “If you can give people the financial resources, skills, and support they need, each person is perfectly capable of earning a living and getting out of poverty.”
“It’s important for mission-driven organizations like ours, whose purpose is to see poor households do better, to know enough about the financial sector, how to use banks and financial services, and package services for the poor so that they have positive outcomes,” said Atul. Opportunity International staff have learned to identify what the poor need, translate what the private sector has to offer, and help people find and use the services that will work best for them. If those services don’t exist, Opportunity International and their partners build them. “For 50 years we’ve been in the business of innovating financial solutions to serve the poor and deliver them at scale. We’ve built trust groups, banks for the poor, insurance programs, lending for the poor, education financing, and agriculture financing. We keep our focus on the poor, understanding what they need, and figuring out how to build them up so they have assets and income. We also learn how to use technology to bring down the costs of delivery and develop better services and solutions.”
Education is a pathway out of poverty, as Atul, #2 pencils in hand, found in his own life. “I’m here because I had access to good quality education. My parents and the Indian government gave me that opportunity.” Opportunity’s Education Finance (EduFinance) program partners with financial institutions to help independent local schools provide affordable, quality education. At the same time, it helps parents access the resources necessary to send their children to school. By connecting private sector finance to education providers in low- and middle-income countries, they are tackling the global education crisis and helping more children attend better schools. With help from the U.S. government and others, Atul aims to double the number of children in schools around the world.
Opportunity International also works with educators to increase education quality. They have developed training programs with schools and teachers in 25 different disciplines. Atul’s team helps them learn things like how to set up restrooms for girls that are secure and how to recruit and train teachers.
As Atul said, “This work fits well with the public sector. In most of the developing world, the government itself doesn’t have the financial capacity to provide a quality education to the population.” In Uganda, one of the places Opportunity International works, almost half of the population is under the age of 15, representing one of the youngest populations in the world. Only 53 percent of children in Uganda complete primary education. Forty-one percent of the people there live in poverty (on less than $1.90 a day).
Atul at United Nations. Photo Credit: Opportunity International.
Atul and his team believe that we can end extreme poverty in our lifetime. Helping households earn a better living and children earning an education are the key to achieving this. “When you bring those two things together you create lasting granular change at the bottom of the pyramid and the tide rises up for everybody. We have the means today—the financial, the economical, and the social networks, to accomplish both of those things.”
“I look forward to the day when all of us can go to bed on a full stomach,” Atul said. “We are called to love the least amongst us. I have the opportunity to work with a lot of good samaritans. They do the work. We provide the kindling. All of us can celebrate together.”
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National Museum and Center for Service
National Museum and Center for Service is a center for people to gather and be inspired to provide a hand up for their communities. Nmcfs.org
August 19: Life Science Washington Annual Summer Social
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By Jennifer Butte-Dahl, Senior Director and North America Lead for APCO Impact, APCO Worldwide
Photo credit Jennifer Butte-Dahl
My youngest daughter – the fearless, smiley, increasingly opinionated one – turned two this month. The moment got me thinking, as birthdays tend to do, about progress and goals and the passage of time. How is she already two? What values do I want her to embrace? Am I being intentional about how I help to instill those values and draw her attention to the most important things in life?
That night I wrote her a letter. It was a long one, filled with my ideas on what truly matters in this world, the skills and curiosities I hope to nurture in her on this journey, and the commitments I am making to her about the mom I am going to try my best to be. The letter is a tradition I began with my oldest daughter. It’s a promise. It is also a guide and touchstone for me throughout their lives that will keep me focused on what is most important. Continue Reading
