September 16, 2020

Bill Gates Sr. holding the Global Hero award, presented by Global Washington on December 10, 2015.

My deepest condolences go out to the Gates family this week and in the days to come. Bill Gates Sr. was instrumental in the founding of Global Washington nearly 14 years ago. In fact, our founding Board Chair, Bill Clapp, met with him around a dinner table, together with Akhtar Badshah, who was then leading Microsoft Philanthropies, to muse about the growing significance of global development expertise in the Seattle area. Centering and promoting global health and development became the mission of Global Washington thanks to the support of visionaries such as Bill Gates Sr. Ours is just a small part of the enormous legacy he leaves behind in our community and around the world.

Save the Children conducts largest global survey of children and families during COVID crisis

FAIRFIELD, Conn. (Sept. 9, 2020)—The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on the education of children from poorer backgrounds and is widening the gap between rich and poor and boys and girls, a new global survey by Save the Children revealed today. In the six months since the pandemic was announced, the most vulnerable children have disproportionately missed out on access to education, healthcare, and food and suffered the greatest protection risks.

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Welcome to the September 2020 issue of the Global Washington newsletter.

IN THIS ISSUE

• Letter from our Executive Director
• Issue Brief: How a Rights-Based Approach Protects Children During COVID-19
• Organization Profile: Covenant House Meets Vulnerability with Care
• Goalmaker: Mark Dasco, Director of Program Delivery Support for ChildFund International
• From Our Blog: “Years don’t wait for them”: 5 Things to Do Now to Protect Children’s Rights During Covid-19
• Welcome New Members
• GlobalWA Member Events
• Career Center
• GlobalWA Events

Letter from our Executive Director

Every society depends on its children growing up to be healthy, productive, and considerate adults. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified just over three decades ago, enshrined the rights that children have, not only to be protected from all forms of violence, but also for the right to realize their potential. It shouldn’t matter where they are born or what gender or circumstances they are born into.

Multiple targets in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) also uphold this commitment to children’s rights. SDG 16 Target 2, for example, sets out to “end abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children” by 2030, while SDG 8, Target 7 commits to ending child labor “in all its forms” by 2025.

In this month’s newsletter we examine a rights-based approach to ensuring that children all around the world are able to survive and thrive. You’ll learn how Covenant House is adapting its interventions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to continue supporting children and youth who have overcome homelessness and trafficking in six countries, including the U.S. Additionally, you’ll meet Mark Dasco, the director of program delivery support for ChildFund International, and this month’s Goalmaker. Mark has spent his career defending and advocating for children’s rights.

If this is a topic you care about, I hope you’ll join me for a virtual event on Friday, Sept. 25 on the alarming increase of child labor and other rights abuses during the ongoing pandemic. I’ll be joined by senior leaders of ChildFund International, Human Rights Watch, and Amplio.

Kristen Dailey
Executive Director

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Issue Brief

How a Rights-Based Approach Protects Children During COVID-19

By Joanne Lu

Photo credit: ChildFund International.

Children may be at lower risk of death or severe illness from COVID-19. Nevertheless, the pandemic is threatening to reverse decades of progress made in protecting their rights globally. Because of the socio-economic fallout of the pandemic, billions of children are now at high risk of being forced into the labor market, as well as experiencing sexual exploitation, teenage pregnancy, early marriage, and domestic violence, and falling behind or dropping out of school.

Last year, the world celebrated 30 years since the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child – “the most rapidly and widely ratified international human rights treaty in history,” according to the UN. The treaty, which emphasized children’s rights to survival, development to their full potential, and protection against abuse, neglect and exploitation, paved the way for children to be recognized as “human beings with a distinct set of rights, instead of as passive objects of care and charity.” Although the U.S. has never ratified the treaty – and, in fact, is the only country not to do so – the UN says that the “unprecedented acceptance of the Convention clearly shows a wide global commitment to advancing children’s rights.”

That global commitment is also reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), particularly SDG 16 Target 2, which aims to “end abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children” by 2030. SDG 8 Target 7 also set a goal to end child labor “in all its forms” by 2025.

Over the last two decades, child labor worldwide has dropped by nearly 40 percent, according to the UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO). Instead of working, tens of millions of children are in school, building better futures for themselves and their communities. And just last month, “the world reached an important milestone…in the fight to end child labor,” as Human Rights Watch put it, when all 187 member countries of the ILO committed to eliminate hazardous work that endangers children by ratifying ILO Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor.

Still, even before the pandemic, the ILO estimates 152 million children were engaged in child labor, and according to UNICEF, up to one billion children were subjected to physical, sexual or emotional violence or neglect in the past year. Then, COVID-19 hit, causing the worst global recession in decades and shuttering classrooms for 91 percent of the world’s students.

In times of economic hardship and insecurity – like the widespread job losses brought on by the pandemic, as well as parental illness and death – rates of child labor, trafficking and child marriage are likely to increase. According to Human Rights Watch, children who are out of school are also “far more likely to join the workforce, and the longer they stay out of school, the less likely they are to return.”

In this digital age, many schools have been able to switch to online and home learning, but it has been far from the perfect solution. According to a new report by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), when schools closed because of the pandemic, remote learning wasn’t an option for at least 463 million children, because they didn’t have access to the necessary technology and tools. But the report notes that the situation may have been even worse, because even with access, many children may not be able to learn at home because of competing factors, like chores, being forced to work, a poor environment for learning and a lack of support in navigating online or broadcast schooling.

In July, World Vision published a report, which found that due to “plummeting” household incomes and other “COVID-19 aftershocks,” 8 million children have been pushed into child labor and begging. The report includes a call to action to policymakers and other actors to scale up child-sensitive social protection programs, such as food, cash and voucher assistance, to help families meet immediate food, nutrition and income needs, and thereby reducing children’s exposure to violence, exploitation, begging, early marriage, forced labor and the likelihood that they will drop out of school. World Vision has also rolled out emergency cash programming to reach more than 4.4 people, including 2.2 million children, in more than 35 countries.

In addition to financial assistance, Human Rights Watch says that in order to prevent child labor, it’s also important to support decent employment for adults, ensure free primary and secondary education for children, and find innovative ways, including remote reporting, to monitor child labor.

Times of financial crisis also tend to increase rates of early marriage, as marrying off a daughter means one less mouth to feed, a way to repay debts or, in communities where a groom pays a “bride price” to a girl’s family, a source of income. In communities where a bride’s family pays the groom a dowry, a young, uneducated bride is usually much cheaper. In an effort to prevent child marriages during this crisis, Girl Rising’s partners in Kenya have created networks with community leaders who are keeping tabs on girls within their communities to ensure that the girls are not being married off and can return to schools when they reopen.

The UN has also reported that amid the stress, isolation and confinement of the pandemic, there’s been a global surge in domestic violence, with calls to helplines doubling and tripling in some countries. Combined with financial insecurity, Covenant House International says this trend means they’re expecting an uptick in youth homelessness. The organization, which offers housing and support for homeless, runaway and trafficked youth, has stepped up its services to make sure that vulnerable youth have a safe place to stay, especially because kids facing homelessness are particularly vulnerable to being trafficked.

But the pandemic has also changed the way that kids are being trafficked and exploited. Because kids are spending more time online for school and other activities while they’re home, criminal groups dedicated to sexual exploitation have intensified their use of online communication and exploitation. The European Commission reports that demand for child pornography has increased by up to 30 percent in some EU countries during lockdown. According to ChildFund International, exploiters are luring children to engage in online sexual exploitation and abuse by saying it’s a way for them to help support their family financially. But in many cases, victims’ own caregivers are the ones facilitating the exploitation because of financial insecurity. ChildFund International has been working with policymakers on this problem for years, but to combat the recent wave, the organization is reaching out directly to parents through webinars and celebrity-laden social media campaigns to teach them how to protect their children online.

But for millions of children living in refugee or internally displaced persons camps, or detained in the justice system, immigration detention or other institutions, their vulnerabilities, even to COVID-19 itself and other diseases, are heightened. During this time, the work of Kids In Need of Defense has not slowed, as they continue to advocate for the protection of unaccompanied refugee and immigrant children and provide pro bono legal representation for them.

In many ways, children are the most vulnerable amid this pandemic and its socio-economic fallout. But the solutions don’t have to be complicated, so long as we regard children as whole human beings with all the rights that entails. It’s more important now than ever that the international community continues to monitor issues like child labor, trafficking, early marriage and sexual exploitation and abuse. Additionally, if we provide children and their families with the financial support they need to get through this crisis, as well as safe, innovative ways to stay in school, kids may have the chance to show us they’re even more resilient than we know.

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The following GlobalWA members are working to uphold and defend the rights of children globally.

ChildFund International
Worldwide, 570 million children live in extreme poverty, vulnerable to many factors that threaten their well-being. Children need protection, support and care at each stage of childhood to stay safe, healthy, learning and on track to achieve their potential. ChildFund works with local partner organizations, governments, corporations and individuals to help create the safe environments children need to thrive. As more children are spending unsupervised time online for remote learning and social connection, ChildFund is increasingly focused on prevention and responses to online sexual exploitation and abuse of children. The organization has been training parents on how to protect their children from online predators, as well as working with technology companies, governments, civil society, and the media.

Covenant House International
Covenant House has transformed the lives of more than a million homeless, runaway, and trafficked young people in 31 cities across six countries: the U.S., Canada, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua. Covenant House uses a “continuum of care” model that includes mental health care, substance use treatment and prevention, education and job readiness programs, legal aid services, pre- and post-natal support for young mothers, and transitional and supportive apartment living programs. During the COVID-19 crisis Covenant House has been keeping its sites open 24-7, and repurposed physical space to accommodate sick or symptomatic youth, so even if they test positive, they still have a safe place to stay.

Friends of WPC Nepal
There has been a rise in human trafficking in Nepal, as people are desperate to make ends meet during the pandemic. Friends of WPC Nepal funds a safe home in Hetauda, Nepal, for 28 children who are at-risk or survived trafficking, and sends them to private school. The organization also provides scholarships for 58 children in the Hetauda community, as education combats the risk of trafficking and provides a better future. Friends of WPC Nepal also conducts a Trafficking Awareness and Child Rights program that reaches rural villages in Nepal where trafficking is prevalent. This program educates children and families on how to recognize deceptive promises from traffickers and to report it to community leaders and authorities. This program even led to the takedown of a well-established trafficking network.

Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)
Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) is the leading national organization advocating for the rights of unaccompanied migrant and refugee children in the U.S. In 2008, KIND was founded by the Microsoft Corporation and UNHCR Special Envoy, Angelina Jolie, to address the gap in legal services for unaccompanied minors. Through strategic partnerships, KIND provides pro bono legal representation for refugee and migrant children across the country. Over the past decade, KIND has expanded its services to develop a holistic strategy for addressing the needs of these children and the systemic causes of forced migration. This includes mental and social services, advocating for new law and policy in the U.S. and countries of origin, and educating policymakers and the broader public about these issues. To date, KIND has been referred to more than 20,000 children since 2009, has had over 50,000 training participants on how to represent children alone, and fostered over 644 legal partners.

Girl Rising
Millions of girls around the world are kept out of school, married as children, abused, trafficked and discriminated against. Simply because they are girls. Girl Rising uses the power of storytelling to change the way the world values girls and their education. When girls are valued and educated they become women who are healthier, have fewer children, earn more, stand up for their rights and educate their sons and daughters equally. Families thrive. Communities, nations and the world are healthier, safer, and more prosperous.

Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch investigates and reports on abuses happening in all corners of the world and directs its advocacy towards governments, armed groups and businesses, pushing them to change or enforce their laws, policies and practices. After having interviewed students, parents, and teachers in 55 countries about their experiences during the pandemic, Human Rights Watch warns that “[g]irls, children with disabilities, children living in poverty, and others are often at greater risk.” As leaders work towards a safe reopening of in-person schooling, here are five things Human Rights Watch recommends doing right away: First, schools that offer remote learning should reach out to students missing from online classes, try to help them re-engage, and provide remedial education. Second, illegal and arbitrary policies that were already keeping children out of school should be lifted. Third, school buildings must be protected, and fourth, affordable, reliable, and accessible internet service must be secured for all students. Finally, any technology recommended for online learning must protect children’s privacy rights.

Save the Children
Unprecedented in scale, COVID-19 is a global crisis that poses immediate threats to children’s rights to survival, development, learning, protection, and to be heard. Unless mitigated, the pandemic risks undermining progress made on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and puts an entire generation of children at risk of not fulfilling their potential. From the beginning, Save the Children has been working on the ground to ensure that children are protected. This includes providing learning materials for children out of school, working to protect children from violence, and training and supporting health workers in some of the most challenging places in the world. In September, Save the Children launched Protect a Generation, the largest ever global survey of its kind since the pandemic was declared. Covering 46 countries, with 31,683 parents and caregivers and 13,477 children (11-17 years old) participating, the survey revealed that the pandemic has had an especially devastating impact on the education of children from poorer backgrounds and is widening the gap between rich and poor and boys and girls. Two-thirds of the children had no contact with teachers during lockdown; 93 percent of households that lost over half of their income reported difficulties in accessing health services; and violence at home doubled during school closures.

UNICEF
Children continue to be disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic that has disrupted everything that we know is critical for children’s social, physical, mental and emotional development, learning and well-being. As a result of COVID-19, nearly 1.19 billion students in 150 countries have been affected by school closures; 80 million children in at least 68 countries may be at risk of diphtheria, measles and polio due to a decline in immunizations; and 369 million children have missed out on school meals. UNICEF contributes to both outbreak control and mitigation of the collateral impacts of the pandemic, including interruptions to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), health, nutrition, education, protection and essential social services for children, women and vulnerable populations. The organization is also striving to ensure children are protected at home and in the transition to online environments. To learn more, visit UNICEF’s page on protecting children’s rights: https://www.unicef.org/topics/childrens-rights

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Organization Profile

Covenant House Meets Vulnerability with Care

By Amber Cortes

Ana, a former resident of La Alianza in Guatemala, has successfully reintegrated with her family and is now practicing traditional weaving to earn income. Photo: Covenant House.

Covenant House is one of the oldest and largest charities in America dedicated to helping children and youth overcome homelessness and trafficking.  Though its roots are in Catholic social justice teaching, Covenant House serves all young people regardless of their backgrounds, religions, and beliefs.

Its constituency is huge—just last year Covenant House reached almost 74,000 youth in the U.S. and globally. The organization operates in 31 cities across six countries: the U.S., Canada, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua.

And in fact, Covenant House has had an international presence for the past 40 years of its almost 50-year history—its second site was built in 1981 in Guatemala, as a response to the vast number of children left orphaned and homeless there during the civil war.

“We’ve actually been international from the very start,” says Chris Megargee, the Seattle-based Latin American Ambassador for Covenant House International. “And it’s kind of unique in that Covenant House is both a domestic and international NGO—there’s not a lot of organizations that fit that bill.” 

Covenant House’s commitment to meeting the immediate, basic needs of youth experiencing homelessness in the U.S. includes both drop-in and residential centers.

“When a kid walks through our doors, we’re providing them food, a shower, clean clothes, medical attention, and a safe place to sleep,” explains Megargee. “But we are far more than just a homeless shelter. There’s a broad suite of programs that extends far beyond those immediate needs.”

These programs are part of what Covenant House calls the “continuum of care” model—an array of services, including mental health care, substance use treatment and prevention, education and job readiness programs, legal aid services, pre- and post-natal support for young mothers, and transitional and supportive apartment living programs. These services are provided on site by multi-disciplinary teams of doctors, lawyers, social workers, teachers, and addiction treatment specialists.

“We have a robust lineup of experts to address those broad needs along that continuum of care,” says Megargee.

Megargee describes the programs and services that Covenant House provides as being “very much trauma-informed,” and meant to operate as a bridge from homelessness to hope.

“Because the young people that we’re serving are coming from significant trauma—the trauma that led them to be on the streets, and then the trauma of their harsh life on the streets.” 

When it comes to confronting homelessness abroad, Latin America presents distinct challenges for the organization, in a dramatically different socio-economic and political context—one with high levels of poverty, widespread violence, as well as gangs, trafficking, and migration.

Another big difference between Covenant House’s work in Latin America versus the United States is the average ages of youth. In the U.S., the age range of the youth Covenant House serves is between 18 to 22 years old. But in Latin America, the age range is younger—from 12 to 17 years old.

And most Latin American countries, Megargee points out, lack the kinds of social safety nets that exist in North America, like equivalent foster care systems. In the U.S., Covenant House’s focus is on preparing kids for independent living, while in Latin America, the focus is on family reintegration. This includes working with unaccompanied migrant youth who have either started on the migrant trail on their own and turned back because of the danger, or have been separated from family along the way.

Or even deported back by the U.S. In San Pedro Sula, Honduras, a town that borders Guatemala where deportees are dropped off by the busloads, Covenant House works with youth to return them to safe family members and situations. A family reintegration team then keeps track of their progress for two years afterwards to continue supporting them.

A “Zona Libre de Disriminación” (Discrimination-Free Zone) sign welcomes guest arriving at the main entrance of Casa Alianza Nicaragua—a declaration of commitment to creating a safe and supportive space for LGBTQ youth. Photo: Covenant House.

Covenant House operates as “Casa Alianza” in Nicaragua, Mexico and Honduras, and simply, “La Alianza” in Guatemala.

“We refer to them as our Casas,” explains Megargee.

Every night across all four Casas about 350 youth spend the night. And over the course of the year, the full breadth of Covenant House programs in Latin America reaches almost 8,000 youth.

“One thing that we always highlight with the work of the Casas is the level of literal heroism of the staff there,” says Megargee. “Because they’re often serving youth escaping from dangerous situations—gang threats, violence and trafficking—they’re doing their work in a context that puts them at great personal risk.”

For example, in Guatemala, Covenant House staff are working with youth to prosecute their abusers. They also created safe houses specifically for survivors of human trafficking to reside and heal. La Alianza in Guatemala is the only Covenant House site that serves only girls, most of whom have been victims of trafficking or sexual abuse.

In 2012, in Guatemala, La Alianza played a role in the creation of a new government office at the national level dedicated to fighting human trafficking, and was active in passing a national migratory code with a human rights lens, rather than just a security lens.

“Built into that code is recognizing that the issue of trafficking and the reality of migration go hand in hand,” says Megargee.

Since trafficking is big in border areas and towns along the migrant trail,

Covenant House also created a presence in Coatepeque, Guatemala, where it opened a drop-in center located in a very high-risk transit zone, frequented by traffickers and the unaccompanied migrants that they prey upon.

“It’s part of our way of trying to disrupt that machinery of victimization and abuse that happens in trafficking,” Megargee says, adding that each step forward helps “chip away” at the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal 16.2—ending abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against children.

On the advocacy level, Covenant House is busy chipping away as well—making shifts on that systemic level, through public education and prevention programs.

“Covenant House started in 1972 as a drop-in center in New York City,” says Megargee. “And now, we’re a movement.”

On the ground, street outreach teams connect with youth to build trust and get them off the streets. Covenant House staff also work with schools, communities, civic organizations, and government agencies to provide information and training on the risks of homelessness and how to spot signs of trafficking.

Despite some of the differences that cause unique situations in Latin America, like trafficking and migration, Megargee sees a common thread among homeless youth everywhere.

“If we think about the vulnerability of youth who are experiencing homelessness, and youth who are on the migrant trail, it’s a similar kind of vulnerability,” says Megargee.

And this kind of vulnerability has only become heightened in the age of COVID—especially for youth experiencing homelessness. Lack of food, health care, and the rough life of the streets leaves this population more susceptible to the novel coronavirus.

“That’s already their norm. And now the stress and anxiety induced by this pandemic on top of that is just unimaginable,” says Megargee.

In addition, jobs have been lost, college classes cancelled, and with the closure of schools, meal production across all Covenant House sites has gone up significantly.

“We’ve been serving 75% more meals because a lot of youth were getting food at school, or if they did have a job, they eat on the job.” Megargee says.

For Covenant House, a frontline organization responding to the crisis, this has meant keeping its sites open 24-7 throughout the pandemic. The organization has also repurposed physical space to accommodate sick or symptomatic youth—administrative spaces and offices have become wellness rooms or quarantine isolation spaces, so even if youth test positive, they can still stay at the site.

Luckily, out of the 2,000 youth sleeping at Covenant House every night across all the sites, only 75 youth to date have actually tested positive, and zero in Latin America—currently the global epicenter for COVID-19 cases right now.

But as is the case throughout the world, the headway that many NGOs and agencies have been making towards the Global Goals is now in jeopardy.

“And thinking back to the Sustainable Development Goals, it’s been this success story about global poverty, the numbers have been going steadily down,” says Megargee.

“But we’re losing ground now because of the pandemic, and certainly that’s the case in Latin America.”

The rise in poverty and hunger puts youth in dangerous situations where they can be preyed upon by traffickers. In fact, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported that the pandemic creates new opportunities to exploit vulnerable, economically disaffected youth.

But Megargee hopes that by recognizing the intersectionality among all 17 of the SDGs, progress can still be made—but only if everybody works together.

“Obviously, when we think about the SDGs, we’re thinking about scale, as well.  When you look at that wording—’to end abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children’—what you realize is that the root causes need to be addressed.”

Confronting poverty and gender inequity, creating access to economic and educational opportunities, promoting good health and well-being—for any one of them to succeed, Megargee says, all of them need to be lifted up.

“And I think that’s the sentiment shared by my colleagues is that there are amazing agencies and NGOs at work on their respective slices of the SDG pie, if you will.”

“So, I have hope,” he adds. “I know we’ll make progress towards the goal. If not, we’ll just move the goalposts and keep working.”

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Goalmaker

Mark Dasco, Director of Program Delivery Support for ChildFund International

By Joanne Lu

Mark Dasco says that growing up in a poor family in a “far-flung village” in the Philippines taught him first-hand the realities of deprivation, exclusion, and vulnerabilities, but it also showed him just how resilient children and communities can be. But just because they are resilient doesn’t mean they should have to be.

Dasco is now the Director of Program Delivery Support for ChildFund International, and he works with Country Office teams around the world to implement strong core programs that address children’s experiences of deprivation, exclusion and vulnerability. But throughout his decades-long career, he’s remained grounded in his home country, where his career began and where he continues to live.

As a child, Dasco says his parents always pushed him to study, because they saw education as the key to success and getting out of poverty. So when he started his career, he decided to become a high school teacher. He spent three years teaching English literature, world literature, Philippine literature, and world history. But after a couple years, a friend convinced him to apply for a position with a child sponsorship organization. He thought his main responsibility would be translating children’s letters to their sponsors into English. But to his surprise, when he got the job, he was assigned to a remote village to facilitate child-centered community development. There, he helped marginalized families organize and mobilize to promote their rights, demand the basic services they deserved, and participate in and benefit from development programs.

“I realized that this job was still teaching and empowering people, but this time it was beyond the four walls of the classroom,” says Dasco.

Around this time, the UN also signed its landmark Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history, which guarantees children’s rights to education, healthcare, play, and protection from violence. Dasco describes this as a pivotal moment in his career because he was among the first cadre of staff in the organization he was with at the time to become trained advocates of child rights. This experience was Dasco’s first introduction to rights-driven, community-led development work, where initiatives are not done out of pity for children and their communities, but because it’s their right. And development workers aren’t saviors bringing in solutions, but rather facilitators, helping communities drive their own development. These became values that Dasco has integrated into his approach to and practice of development work throughout his 25-year career.

Dasco first found his way to ChildFund International as a business development consultant in Timor Leste. After a few months, he became a program manager. But three months in, the 2006 East Timor conflict erupted, sparking violence and unrest throughout the country and turning his role into that of an emergency response team leader, including helping to create safe spaces for children to participate in psychosocial activities that provide them a much-needed routine and sense of normalcy.

When he finished his stint in Timor Leste, Dasco returned to the Philippines to work as a regional funding manager in the Asia-Pacific region for another organization. But it wasn’t long before he realized that he missed working closely with communities like he did with ChildFund. In his position, he felt detached from the work and its results. So when he saw another opening at ChildFund, he immediately applied and has been with the organization for nearly 12 years.

Even though in his various director positions, he doesn’t always get to work directly with children, Dasco finds real fulfillment in being able to improve the systems around children, because “development doesn’t always trickle down to children,” he says. Children don’t always directly feel the impact, get to participate in it or benefit from it, so he’s made it his life mission to change that.

For example, he says that at ChildFund, they always incorporate the voices and experiences of children into their programming. In Ecuador, for instance, teens are producing their own radio programs to discuss issues and concerns in the community. And in the Philippines a group of children with disabilities are taking the lead on their own community planning, community-based child protection initiatives, identifying issues and problems that impact them and suggesting solutions. Dasco says ChildFund is careful to always use child-friendly methodologies that are based on children’s capacity and developmental levels, that won’t jeopardize their safety, and that will build up their confidence to become their own advocates.

During the pandemic, much of Dasco and ChildFund’s attention has been on prevention and response to online sexual exploitation and abuse of children (OSEAC), as more children are spending unsupervised time online for remote learning and social connection. ChildFund has been hosting webinars and social media campaigns with technology partners that teach parents how to protect their children from online predators. In the Philippines, ChildFund has launched the #ShutdownOSEC campaign on social media with the country’s leading civil society network, where children urge the government to prioritize OSEAC and take stronger actions to address it. In Mexico, ChildFund established a relationship with the Mexican Center for Electronic Crimes against Minors (CENADEM), the government entity responsible for investigating online sexual exploitation and abuse of children. In Ecuador and Kenya, ChildFund is looking to build on its work through a series of initiatives to address increased risks of OSEAC due to COVID-19. The organization will conduct national assessments to identify gaps in OSEAC policies and knowledge, as well as gain an understanding of its prevalence in each country. Because the nature of OSEAC is continuously evolving, ChildFund plans to advocate for governments globally (including the U.S. government) to begin collecting data on OSEAC and its prevalence. Further, ChildFund has joined with technology companies, international alliances such as WePROTECT Global Alliance, civil society, and the media to address this problem.

Dasco was also recently appointed to the Philippines’ Council for the Welfare of Children Board, where he will continue to raise the issue of online sexual exploitation and abuse and advocate for addressing policy gaps, as well as increase the capacity of law enforcement to respond to it.

Currently, Dasco is also leading a task force that hopes to identify alternative program delivery tools that are “low-touch, high-tech, high impact” and, of course, safe for children. Although this task force is inspired by current limitations on interacting face-to-face with communities during a pandemic, it’s also a way for ChildFund to innovate by leveraging technology and partnerships to expand its reach to more children and families.

Dasco and the ChildFund team are looking forward to developing their new global strategy for the next 10 years. “We’re calling it our big, hairy and audacious goal,” Dasco says with a smile. “We’d like to reach 100 million children by 2030.”

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From Our Blog

“Years don’t wait for them”: 5 Things to Do Now to Protect Children’s Rights During Covid-19

By Zama Neff

“It does not make me happy that my children are no longer going to school,” the mother of two preschool-age children in North Kivu, a conflict-affected region in the Democratic Republic of Congo, told us. “Years don’t wait for them. They have already lost a lot. . . . What will become of our uneducated children?”

Children around the world face an unprecedented threat to their human rights. Pandemic-related school closures have affected 1.5 billion students, placing children at immediate risk of labor exploitation, hunger, recruitment into armed groups, and, especially for girls, child marriage, and sexual violence. Two decades of gains in reducing child labor and increasing school enrollment are under threat. Read more.

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Welcome New Members

Please welcome our newest Global Washington members. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with their work and consider opportunities for support and collaboration!

Child Foundation

Child Foundation is an international charity organization that helps children living in poverty remain in school. The children sponsored through Child Foundation programs are high achievers, and many of them are orphans or children living in emergency situations. By enhancing the quality of life for children in need, as well as their respective families, Child Foundation actively helps them gain access to education. https://www.childfoundation.org/

CORE Group

CORE is the only player in its field that convenes the practitioners and public health professionals in global community health to share knowledge, evidence, and best practices, and then translates these into the real world with a direct impact, creating new standards in clinical and public health as it advances dialogue at the country and global levels. https://coregroup.org/

GAPPS – Global alliance to prevent prematurity and stillbirth

GAPPS seeks to improve birth outcomes worldwide by reducing the burden of premature birth and stillbirths. GAPPS is working to close the knowledge gap in understanding the causes of preterm birth and stillbirth and collaborating to implement evidence-based interventions to improve birth outcomes. https://www.gapps.org/

Save the Children

Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. Since its founding more than 100 years ago, the organization has changed the lives of more than 1 billion children. In the United States and around the world, Save the Children gives children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. The organization does whatever it takes for children – every day and in times of crisis – transforming their lives and the future we share. https://www.savethechildren.org/

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Member Events

September 12: Friends of WPC Nepal – Hope For Freedom Gala 2020

September 18: Spreeha’s Journey of Hope – Virtual Fundraiser

October 19: PeaceTrees Vietnam: Celebrating 25 Years of Friendship in Vietnam

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Career Center

Bilingual Receptionist // Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP)

Marketing and Communications Manager // Splash

Check out the GlobalWA Job Board for the latest openings.

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GlobalWA Events

September 16: Final Mile Event: Kicking off a US chapter of the International Association of Professional Health Logisticians (IAPHL) and the COVID-19 work of Restart Partners

September 25: Child Labor Increasing Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

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By Zama Neff

Children in a favela in Rio de Janeiro watch as a volunteer disinfects public areas during the Covid-19 pandemic, Brazil, April 20, 2020. © 2020 by Mauro Pimental/AFP via Getty Images

“It does not make me happy that my children are no longer going to school,” the mother of two preschool-age children in North Kivu, a conflict-affected region in the Democratic Republic of Congo, told us. “Years don’t wait for them. They have already lost a lot. . . . What will become of our uneducated children?”

Children around the world face an unprecedented threat to their human rights. Pandemic-related school closures have affected 1.5 billion students, placing children at immediate risk of labor exploitation, hunger, recruitment into armed groups, and, especially for girls, child marriage, and sexual violence. Two decades of gains in reducing child labor and increasing school enrollment are under threat. Continue Reading

Patients receive medical care, including COVID-19 testing, at an Americares and VIDA Perú mobile clinic in Lima, Peru, on Aug. 29. Photo by Angela Ponce/Americares.

Stamford, Conn. – Sept. 2, 2020 – Americares is providing surge medical support in Peruvian health facilities overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The health-focused relief and development organization is dispatching medical personnel, all of which are locally based and have experience working within the health system, to health centers in Lambayeque, Lima and Piura to meet the increase in demand for care and provide the struggling health system with some relief as the coronavirus pushes health center capacity to the brink.

“As COVID-19 cases rise in Peru and health facilities continue to struggle with an unprecedented demand for services, our medical personnel will provide critically needed manpower,” said Americares Vice President of Emergency Programs Kate Dischino. “Our support will help ensure hospitals and clinics can continue treating patients and access the supplies needed to keep health workers safe.” Continue Reading

McKenna brings proven leadership in humanitarian relief and international development

PORTLAND, OR — The Board of Directors of Mercy Corps today named Tjada D’Oyen McKenna as the global organization’s Chief Executive Officer. McKenna will assume leadership at Mercy Corps on October 15, 2020.

“Mercy Corps is rightly recognized around the globe for innovative, bold responses to the world’s toughest challenges,” says McKenna. “It’s an honor to join this organization and in particular this remarkable global team of nearly 6,000 innovative leaders.” Continue Reading

Welcome to the August 2020 issue of the Global Washington newsletter.

IN THIS ISSUE

• Letter from our Executive Director
• Issue Brief: Educators Experiment with Online and Offline Solutions to Distance Learning Around the World
• Organization Profile: More than 20 Years After Founding a School for Former Child Soldiers in Rural Uganda, Pilgrim Africa Continues to Respond to Children’s Needs During Global Pandemic
• Goalmaker: For Judithe Registre of Girl Rising, Stories Shape the Future
• Welcome New Members
• GlobalWA Member Events
• Career Center
• GlobalWA Events

Letter from our Executive Director

I have two children in Seattle Public Schools, so like many families across the U.S., I am filled with mixed emotions about online learning, rather than in-person classrooms. However, I am grateful that we have an online option and that the school district is working to donate computers to students who need them.  For most children in low- and middle-income countries, online learning via computer is not a viable solution. Fortunately, several Global Washington members are working with local governments and schools to come up with creative alternatives, such as delivering educational curriculum to cell phones, as well as using radio and TV broadcasting.

As a parent, I also know that schools provide so much more than just education for children. Again, several Global Washington members are shifting their operations to address the immediate needs of the COVID-19 crisis and are delivering care packages to students’ homes, including feminine hygiene products, soap, and protective masks. Members are also reaching out to female students in particular to assess their safety because reports have shown an increase in domestic violence during the pandemic.

Education is a foundational element of many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including economic development, gender equity, and global health. I’m inspired by Global Washington members who have stepped up to this current challenge, ensuring that COVID-19 does not erase all the progress we’ve made in supporting education in developing countries.

In this month’s newsletter, you can read more about this issue. You’ll learn how Pilgrim Africa is keeping students in Uganda safe and making sure they have what they need to continue learning at home. You will also meet an inspiring Goalmaker, Judithe Registre, who is the VP of Programs at Girl Rising, and a firm believer in the power of stories to shape the future. Please also join me on August 21 for an online conversation with Girl Rising, Rwanda Girls Initiative, and Sahar.

Kristen Dailey
Executive Director

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Issue Brief

Educators Experiment with Online and Offline Solutions to Distance Learning Around the World

By Joanne Lu

Even with schools closed around the world, learning continues. Girl Rising partner Metis Collective developed a Home Learning Guide, which is being put to good use in Kenya. Photo by Metis Collective.

COVID-19 has caused the biggest disruption in history to education systems around the world, according to the UN. Globally, 94 percent of students have been impacted by school closures – 99 percent in low- and lower-middle income countries – and experts are warning that global education has been pushed back to levels not seen since the 1980s.

Although the start of the school year is upon us, many countries, districts and institutions are still grappling with the best way to re-open schools amid a global pandemic. It is simultaneously critical that schools do their part to suppress transmission of the virus and continue to provide an education, which is not only a fundamental human right but also a key driver of long-term progress for every country. Educated youth are every country’s future potential for growth, and without them, it is impossible to achieve any of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Right now, the UN estimates that 23.8 million children and youth may drop out or not have access to school next year because of the pandemic’s economic impact. Additionally, for many children around the world, school is where they receive their most nutritious daily meal. School closures have also affected the ability of many parents to work and has increased the risk of violence at home, particularly for women and girls.

Amid this historic disruption, many experts, policy makers, schools, organizations and companies are turning to tech and digital solutions to ensure the pandemic doesn’t cause us to fall too far behind. Some institutions, like Northeastern University Seattle have gone completely virtual since March, offering only online classes. Others, like Seattle Pacific University and Seattle University, are adopting a hybrid format, with online and limited in-person classes so that students can benefit from both formats.

Globally, ministries of education and organizations are rolling out online curricula to keep children, particularly those in low- and lower-middle income countries, from dropping out. The pandemic’s impact on poverty means that dropping-out now may result in millions of children never returning to school, according to Save the Children. ChildFund International’s $56 million plan to help 6.3 million children and their family members remain healthy, educated and safe during the pandemic includes online tutoring sessions and activities. The organization is also staying “vigilant and prepared” to address the increased risk of online sexual abuse as more kids are exposed to the internet.

However, especially in low- and lower-income countries, not everyone has access to devices, the internet or even electricity. In India, for example, Girl Rising reports that only 11 percent of all Indians own a computer, and only 8 percent of all households have both a computer and an internet connection. This means that the existing digital divide – the gap between those who have access to computers and the internet, and those who don’t – could exacerbate education inequalities, as only students with more resources are able to keep up with their studies, while the rest fall further behind or drop out. That’s why ChildFund International is also offering activities and lessons by radio and distributing home-learning kits with materials and guidelines for how to use them.

It’s also important to note that the digital divide – and the pandemic’s impact on education as a whole – disproportionately affects women and girls. According to a 2018 report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 327 million fewer women than men worldwide have a smartphone and can access the mobile internet. In addition, for girls in many countries, school is where they are safe from violence, where they have access to menstrual hygiene products and a where they can create a future for themselves that lowers their chances of becoming victims of child marriage and adolescent pregnancy. A UN study found that in Sierra Leone, teenage pregnancy increased by 65 percent during the Ebola crisis, as girls were forced to stay out of school and became more vulnerable to sexual exploitation, assault and rape.

Girl Rising works with local partners around the world to provide curricula and tools that empower girls and change attitudes and social norms regarding gender in entire communities. While schools are closed, the organization and its partners are continuing their messaging and education through various means, as well as providing essential supplies like food and sanitary towels. In Guatemala, for example, they’ve adapted the Girl Rising curriculum online, but girls are also helping to produce radio programs to share what they’re going through during this time. Girl Rising’s Kenya partner, Sunflower Global, has developed and is distributing monthly and weekly at-home learning packets to keep students on track with their studies. Meanwhile, in India, Girl Rising is partnering with five state governments to create art curricula for social and emotional learning that can be delivered over basic cell phones.

While so much learning has been moved online, to radio and to mobile formats, it’s still important to make sure that when schools reopen, there are good schools for children to attend. That’s why buildOn has continued to build schools in communities around the world. They’ve reduced the number of community members on worksites to allow for appropriate social distancing, but the work continues.

The UN also says it’s essential to continue investing in teachers as they navigate the changing landscape of education during this time. Pilgrim Africa, which runs a boarding school called Beacon of Hope in Uganda, has managed to pay its teachers their full salaries while the school has been closed. In turn, the teachers are continuing to check on the wellbeing of their students, especially the girls, at home and are providing books and other learning materials. Beacon of Hope has also managed to provide its older students with tablets and online learning tools so that they’ll still be able to take their qualifying exams for university.

Closing the digital divide could not only leave fewer students behind during this pandemic, but it could also create new opportunities for education and work moving forward. For example, in June, Microsoft launched an initiative that will equip 25 million people around the world with the digital skills they need to work in a COVID-19 economy, as well as in an increasingly digital world.

According to a UN report, if all countries in a human development group (low, medium, high or very high development) are able to have the same internet access rate as the top country in their respective group, the rate of out-of-school students this year would drop from 20 percent to 12 percent. And, closing the gap in internet access for low- and middle-income countries wouldn’t be expensive at all: It would only cost 1 percent of the amount of money the world has committed so far to respond to the pandemic. Not only would it increase student’s access to online learning, but it would also allow more people to work from home and access tele-health services.

Until the digital divide is closed, technology and digital solutions cannot be the world’s sole response to education during a global pandemic. But as long as we continue to find ways to reach kids who don’t have access to online learning and simultaneously work to close the digital divide, the world could come out the other side of this crisis with more equitable access to education and a more resilient economy.

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The following Global Washington members are finding creative ways to continue supporting education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ashesi University Foundation

Ashesi University remains committed to educating a new generation of ethical and entrepreneurial leaders in Africa. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ashesi successfully navigated a temporary campus closure and transition to online learning. Accounting for students’ diverse needs, Ashesi has provided travel support to international and local students; stipends for unexpected student costs; data packages in partnership with telecom partners; laptop acquisition and delivery; resources for online learning; and counseling for individual students. Starting August 31st the first semester of the 2020/2021 academic year will operate entirely online and all university activities will be conducted remotely. The connections and experiences shared at Ashesi will not be easily replicated online, but the university is excited about the chance to strengthen the spirit of innovative action that defines it and to pursue ideas that may have seemed far away in the past. The decisions made now have the potential to redefine the Ashesi experience and will impact many generations of students to come. Read more about the Ashesi community response to COVID-19  and learn about the university’s current funding priorities.

ChildFund

ChildFund works in 24 countries throughout Asia, Africa and the Americas – including the United States – to create connections that drive lasting, positive change for children wherever they are. Its programs address the underlying conditions that prevent any child from achieving their full potential. In the Americas, ChildFund has been focused on making sure young people have an opportunity to continue their educations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization has produced guides on educational and recreational activities for home use, developed trainings for parents and teachers, hosted virtual training sessions, and developed radio shows with educational content. ChildFund is also supporting schools’ capacity to prevent the spread of the virus. In addition, ChildFund is providing cash-based aid, food, hygiene, and recreation kits to families with young children.

Girl Rising

Girl Rising envisions a world in which girls thrive with dignity and vast possibilities. The organization’s mission is to advance the rights of girls and promote gender equality around the world. At the heart of its work are stories. Girl Rising staff include filmmakers, journalists and international development professionals who have seen the power of stories to transform attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.  They want girls everywhere to be able to go to school, stay in school and have a future of their own choosing. As the world collectively faces COVID-19, the future of millions of girls and their education is uncertain. With in-person learning curtailed, the organization and its partners are distributing educational materials and sharing stories through alternative channels, including cell phones, radio programs, and at-home learning guides.

buildOn

For more than two decades, buildOn has mobilized rural communities to build schools in some of the poorest countries on earth. With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, buildOn has continued construction of schools, though the number of community members on worksites has been reduced to enable sufficient physical distancing. To date, buildOn has built 1,323 schools.

Fanikia Foundation  

By supporting the cost of boarding at public schools, Fanikia Foundation ensures that disadvantaged girls have access to quality education in rural Tanzania. As in much of the world, schools across Tanzania were closed due to COVID-19, and most students, especially in rural areas, were unable to access remote schooling due to the lack of equipment for both teachers and students. For almost fourteen weeks students in Tanzania missed school at the beginning of the year. As a result, they will need to stay in school longer to compensate for the time they missed. The students that Fanikia supports are now back at their boarding schools and continuing their studies. The global pandemic has caused food to become scarce in parts of Tanzania, especially in rural areas, which in turn has led to an increase in food prices. Fanikia hopes that the situation will not negatively affect the girls’ studies.

Global Visionaries

In Guatemala, the first case of COVID-19 was detected on March 13. Youth in Guatemala were already struggling to access education due to various limitations and a lack of structure in the educational system; the pandemic further aggravated these challenges once the government closed the schools as part of the emergency response. Global Visionaries understands and prioritizes people-centered and inclusive educational programs, and considers them essential for engaging young leaders to create a just, sustainable, democratic and peaceful society. Global Visionaries’ youth education and leadership program continues to engage Guatemalan youth through the Zoom platform, with internet accessibility provided to students in need. The program focuses on recovering historical memory (because traditional education in Guatemala does not adequately address the true history), as well as learning about planet earth, analyzing current government decisions, and understanding how to use one’s voice to make positive changes in society. Global Visionaries has also made space for students to be in community (online) with each other and explore their own frustrations and hardships brought on during this difficult time of isolation. Additionally, staff have been connecting with students individually to address their needs or concerns, such as home safety concerns and mental health.

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch works around the clock to protect the rights of people who face the greatest risks during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly children. More than 1.5 billion students are out of school, and widespread job losses and economic insecurity will likely lead to increased rates of child labor, sexual exploitation, abuse, and child marriage. Building on its deep expertise documenting and campaigning for access to education for all children, Human Rights Watch is working to ensure that distance education is provided for all children, with special efforts to reach girls, children with disabilities, and others less likely to access current programs. Human Rights Watch is pressing for greater protections for children’s data and privacy online and expanding access to the internet. And it is urging governments to support children in returning to schools when they re-open, reaching out especially to children forced into hazardous work, child marriage, early pregnancy, or who were displaced.

Manos Unidas International

Manos Unidas International provides professional development training, program support, and financial support for organizations serving children and youth in Latin America. In Peru, the government closed all schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Manos Unidas has shifted to a virtual environment for its students and families – currently offered free of charge due to economic hardships in the Cusco community. Manos Unidas teachers designed online lesson plans according to the needs of each student group and the available technology – from Zoom to WhatsApp video calls to Google Meet. Each teacher works with 6-8 students, ranging in ages from 4-20 years old. For example, the early childhood autism classroom receives three individual phone calls a week for 30 minutes, and the teacher follows a sequence of learning materials with the families. She instructs the families on how to implement and teach the skill then does a follow-up call two days later. Manos Unidas teachers are also focused on teaching functional skills for independence, such as chores around the house. Older youth are meeting as a group and have been working on pre-recorded classroom sessions. The virtual program will continue on a weekly basis into next year. In addition, a pre-recorded virtual education library will be set up for teachers to share resources.

Mona Foundation

The COVID-19 pandemic has indiscriminately impacted our entire planet and has changed the way we live, work and play. To that is now added a global cry for elimination of systemic racism, and renewed calls for equal justice under law. The pandemic has also brought to light the universal truth that what impacts one, impacts all, and that education is the key driver to eradicating poverty, prejudice, violence and other social ills that afflict our communities, including this disease.  But for education to be transformative, it needs to be transformed – teaching lessons of equality, ethics and service alongside math, sciences, and humanities. The field experience of the Mona Foundation’s 19 partner projects in 12 countries in the past few months has confirmed yet again that this view of education is the key lever in creating and sustaining positive change and building healthy, prosperous and just communities for all. The scope of their current activities is considerable and complex. Every partner has transitioned its educational programs online, while also saving lives – providing COVID-19 prevention kits (masks and soap), delivering food, and preventing violence against women. Read the Mona Foundation blog for more information.

Pilgrim Africa

Pilgrim Africa’s mission is to challenge despair, love boldly, and help African people create a future of prosperity and health. In 2005 the organization founded a rural boarding school in Uganda, called Beacon of Hope, for former child soldiers and other children recovering from war. It became one of the first schools outside of the country’s capital, Kampala, to focus on STEAM education: science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. In 2014, the last child soldiers graduated, but the school has continued to open its doors to rural students who would otherwise not have access to high quality education. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Beacon of Hope has managed to pay its teachers their full salaries, even while the school has been closed. In turn, the teachers check in on their students at home, and provide books and other learning materials so that they can continue their studies. The school is also providing older students with tablets and online learning tools so that they will be prepared for their qualifying exams for university.

Rwanda Girls Initiative

Rwanda Girls Initiative’s mission is to educate and empower girls in Rwanda to reach their highest potential. The organization strives to cultivate inspired leaders with a love of learning and a sense of economic empowerment to strengthen their communities and foster Rwanda’s growth. The Gashora Girls Academy of Science and Technology (GGAST) was opened in 2011 as an innovative and socio-economically diverse model upper-secondary school, designed to provide a “whole girl” education. GGAST provides a rigorous college prep academic program, combined with leadership training and extra-curricular activities that fill girls with confidence that they can pursue their dreams of university education and fulfilling and impactful vocations. After schools around Rwanda were closed in March due to COVID-19, the academy began providing its curriculum online, working with students in different parts of the country to resolve challenges with their internet access. GGAST is exploring ways to support the wider community, having received multiple requests from other students to join its distance learning program. One way has been to provide lessons online through a newly launched YouTube channel. In addition the 42-acre teaching farm that provided food to students and teachers at GGAST is now providing food to the most vulnerable people in the wider community.

Sahar

As with many organizations, Sahar’s work has been complicated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In March, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education closed schools and because many of Sahar’s programs operate within Afghan public schools, this meant suspending in-person programming. Through a partner, Sahar has continued its programs remotely via WhatsApp. Sahar’s Men as Partners in Change Program and Early Marriage Prevention Program now deliver training and COVID-19 response information online. In addition to adopting a remote model of programming, Sahar has also distributed care packages with COVID-19 necessities like hand sanitizer and face masks. Looking forward Sahar sees addressing gender equality as fundamental to recovering from the pandemic. In Afghanistan, many girls likely will not return to school in the fall. There are growing concerns that many girls will face early marriage due to their families’ financial struggles. Furthermore gender-based violence globally has increased, as women have been forced into lockdown with their abusers. Sahar sees gender as a challenge of COVID-19 response, as well as an opportunity. Girls are an invaluable resource to their families, communities, and countries. By promoting the right of girls to receive an education (even and especially within a pandemic), Sahar is promoting the development of a peaceful and resilient Afghanistan.

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Organization Profile

More than 20 Years After Founding a School for Former Child Soldiers in Rural Uganda, Pilgrim Africa Continues to Respond to Children’s Needs During Global Pandemic

By Joanne Lu

(Pre-COVID-19) Students work on their lessons outside Beacon of Hope, a secondary school in Soroti, Uganda. The school was originally founded by Pilgrim Africa for former child soldiers.
Photo: Pilgrim Africa.

Calvin Echodu was a reporter in Uganda in the mid-1990s when he decided he had to do more to help. Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group was sweeping through northern Uganda, brutalizing civilians, abducting children to become child soldiers and sex slaves and forcing families to flee their homes and become refugees in their own country.

Echodu and some friends solicited help from churches so that he could bring relief supplies to displaced families in camps every time he went to report in the north. Thus, Pilgrim Africa was unofficially born in 1998. In 2001 it was officially registered as a non-governmental organization, continuing to carry out relief work in northern Uganda, especially providing trauma support for abducted children and former child soldiers.

From its very inception, Pilgrim Africa has responded to the needs on the ground. As those needs have changed, so has Pilgrim Africa, constantly evolving to meet the needs expressed by community members. For example, as the war in northern Uganda settled down, Pilgrim Africa transitioned from relief work to helping more than 1,000 families resettle back into their villages that many of them hadn’t seen in a decade because of the war. And in 2005, they founded a secondary school in Soroti, called Beacon of Hope, for children recovering from the war.

Initially, Beacon of Hope was founded as a remedial boarding school for former child soldiers, abductees or victims of rape camps. According to Echodu, who directly oversees the school’s operations, a considerable number of children, who were directly victimized by the war, were too far behind in their schooling to jump back into regular secondary schools. But they were also too old for primary school. So, with the support of donors, Beacon of Hope offered these students free, quality education, with an agreement that the students would complete extra coursework to catch up with their peers.

Echodu says that in the first four to five years, Beacon of Hope served about 2,000 students. In addition to providing a quality education and a safe place to live and grow, they made sure to provide trauma support to both their students and the community, with social workers, counselors, and a medical facility inside the school.

(Pre-COVID-19) Students at Pilgrim Africa’s Beacon of Hope school in rural Uganda share a laugh outside of classes. Photo: Pilgrim Africa.

In 2014, the last child soldiers graduated, but by then Beacon of Hope had opened its doors to other students, continuing to offer free boarding education to students who otherwise would not have access to schooling of that quality. In particular, girls always make up about half of the student body. The school provides career guidance and counselors specifically for girls, to address their needs through a gender lens, empower them, guide them and ensure they are in a safe environment to reach their full potential.

Beacon of Hope was also one of the first schools outside of the country’s capital, Kampala, to focus on STEAM education: science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. Echodu says that because Uganda is a young country in terms of industry and development, STEAM education sets up both their students and the country for future success. “We train kids in that direction so they will be innovators and provide the solutions, jobs and development that the country needs,” says Echodu.

Echodu says they’ve already seen some of that success in action. As of the end of last year, Beacon of Hope has educated more than 5,400 students since its founding, many of whom have gone on to serve their community and country. Some have become teachers and engineers, and several have gone on to become medical doctors, including a few who work at the local hospital. Last year, the school’s robotics team won two gold medals at an international competition.

But running a school like Beacon of Hope hasn’t been without its significant challenges, says Echodu. First, there has always been the academic challenge, as many of the students come from poor academic backgrounds – and traumatic ones, too. It’s up to Beacon of Hope’s talented teaching staff (all of whom are Ugandan) to make each of their students academically competitive.

Second, he says, running a STEAM school in a rural part of the country has presented its fair share of obstacles, as well. For example, especially in their early days, they ran into problems with getting consistent and affordable access to electricity, adequate internet connectivity, logistics and infrastructure.

Third, there’s always the challenge of funding. Up until two years ago, says Echodu, Beacon of Hope was able to raise enough support to provide full scholarships to all of its students. What that meant, in exchange, was that they had to accept fewer students because of funding constraints. These days they accept paying students; the high quality education they offer is in great demand.  Moving forward, they want to accept more students, increase their staff and adopt a more sustainable funding model, including encouraging successful alumni to participate in fundraising.

(Pre-COVID-19) Students walking to their classes at Beacon of Hope school in rural Uganda. Photo: Pilgrim Africa.

This year, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought its own set of challenges. Echodu says that Beacon of Hope is one of the few institutions that has been able to continue paying its teachers their full salaries – although, how long they’ll be able to keep that up depends on fundraising. With the help of a $23,000 grant from The Allen Family Foundation, they’ve also been able to purchase tablets and internet access for all 80 of their A-level candidate students (those preparing for university) so they can participate in online classes. The Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill, Boston, has also been a visionary supporter during the pandemic, providing a $28,000 grant for COVID-19 relief, faculty expansion, and other improvements to the Beacon of Hope library and IT lab. Meanwhile, teachers are checking up on the other students, especially girls, and making sure that they have access to books and other educational materials. “It has been a challenging period,” says Echodu.

Thankfully, not everything has been put on hold by the pandemic. The school is still on track to purchase the property it had been leasing, and Pilgrim Africa has been able to continue some of its malaria programming, which it began in 2008. In addition, the organization has created a website and provided personal protective equipment to the national task force responding to the pandemic, as well as food and aid to families in lockdown. As it was from the beginning, Pilgrim Africa is responding to the needs on the ground.

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Goalmaker

For Judithe Registre of Girl Rising, Stories Shape the Future

By Amber Cortes

Photo courtesy of Girl Rising.

I have this funny way of introducing myself,” says Judithe Registre, Vice President of Programs at Girl Rising. “I describe myself as Haitian-born, American-made, and globally-centered.”

As a child growing up in Haiti, she dreamed big.

“I was one of those people who kind of always knew, walking from school along the dusty Streets of Haiti, that I would travel the world!”

For Registre, that global journey started when she immigrated to the US at the age of 12, continued when she completed her post-graduate work in South Africa and began a career in international development. It has since brought her all over Africa and to over a dozen countries including Egypt, El Salvador, India, Indonesia, Nepal, and Vietnam.

It’s also no surprise to Registre that she now works for Girl Rising, an organization that’s harnessing the power of storytelling to change the way the world values girls and their education —because she’s been fighting for girls’ rights since she was eight years old.

“I joke about the idea that I’ve always been a feminist long before I understood what the word feminism was,” she explains.

It all started one day in school when Registre and the other girls in her class were taught to learn how to wash—“with one exception, the boys didn’t have to do that. And I remember being very confused about being asked to go learn how to wash my clothes when the boys didn’t have to.”

“And I became, I don’t want to say adamant as much as I needed answers. And it wasn’t enough to say well, that’s just the way it is.”

The moment turned out to be a defining one for Registre’s life and work.

“It started to actually help me to really look at the world and the role that people were playing in it—how did they come to play this role? Did they accept it? Did they sign up for it? And then feeling like we have the freedom or the choice to play a different role.”

In her higher academic work, Registre chose to study philosophy—a decision that surprised many around her. But for Registre, philosophy was a lens to understand the world more broadly—a tool combining economics, political science and anthropology that served as a framework to begin asking questions about the world.

As Registre began asking questions from a feminist perspective, she became more acutely aware of how educating girls at a young age empowers them to rise above their circumstances and shape their own future.

“Because those vulnerabilities start when they are a girl. And if you wait to invest in women and not in girls, you’ll be fighting a battle for generations to come around this issue of gender inequity.”

To that end, Girl Rising seeks to plant the seeds that can put a girl on a “lifelong path” to continued learning—even if their circumstances become limited by say, an arranged early marriage. But for Girl Rising, it’s not enough for girls just to be educated. At the end of the day, says Registre, it’s about affirming their basic humanity, like the struggle currently playing out globally as U.S. protests from the Black Lives Matter Movement gain international attention and momentum.

“If you look at women, or the Black experience, the experience of Indigenous people—just the experience of being excluded in any society, it is a historical struggle for existence, the right to live and the right to be considered as a person.”

Registre recognizes that in a world where racism and the forces of inequity are everywhere, this struggle takes time, resources, and attention. “So, how do we build a world that values girls at the core of the humanity when the entire infrastructure, the ecosystem, the wallpaper, the oxygen in the air, reinforces the idea that you are not human? This is the challenge.”

The COVID crisis has, of course, exacerbated this challenge, bringing disruptions at a global, community, and household level. The rug has been pulled from under our feet, and particularly vulnerable communities—those with “social pre-existing conditions,” as Registre puts it, include women and girls.

Even with schools closed around the world, learning continues. Girl Rising partner Metis Collective developed a Home Learning Guide, which is being put to good use in Kenya. Photo by Metis Collective, and provided by Girl Rising.

Progress being made towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for education like in Kenya, where girls were increasing in school completion and enrollment rates, threatens to be rolled back with the closure of schools. Not long ago, female genital mutilation (FGM) and early marriage were on the decline. But now, domestic violence and child abuse are increasing.

In addition, Registre adds, the burden of the care economy is still very gendered, and responsibilities like tending the house or caring for the sick falls on women and girls, who occupied these roles before the pandemic.

But Girl Rising is thinking two steps ahead and keeping girls close to education even during a pandemic by supporting community-created solutions in the 11 countries where they deliver on-the-ground programming. For example, they’re working with local mentors and teachers in Guatemala to redesign their programs to offer affordable and accessible educational radio programming in Guatemala.

They’re also returning to the core of what they do—elevating the humanity of girls by empowering them to tell their own stories—in their own voices. In June Girl Rising launched the My Story Storytelling Challenge. The challenge is open to all, and the goal is to amplify the voices and experience of people in communities who are impacted by COVID-19, and inspired to help. It is important, says Registre, to be documenting this current historical moment as it happens, and not just as an afterthought.

The project already features several stories, from a dance school in Nigeria, to high school students in South Africa organizing to protest gender-based violence. Registre says the point is to highlight the hopes and aspirations of young people—since they’re the ones who will be shaping the discourse and solutions to the impacts of the pandemic for years to come.

“The ideas of hope and optimism used to be elusive things. But in this curious moment, this strange new climate, we need dreamers, we need optimists. We need those who are hopeful because they will put the creative energy in to stay the course.”

Registre is a firm believer in the power of stories: “When we talk about the software for the human operating system,” she says, “I think that software is story.” The stories we tell ourselves form who we are—and give power to those who get to tell them—like in religion, nation-building, and even the story of America, which is changing and unfolding even now into a much more complex story than many people learned in history class.

All her life, Registre’s always heard stories that conflicted with the reality she knew and understood to be her own—like Haiti’s reputation as the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, ravaged by earthquakes and AIDS, or Congo being dubbed the ‘Rape Capitol of the World.’ That’s why she thinks it’s crucial for people to shape their own stories of who they are and what their lived experience is.

“When we talk about racism and gender inequity, I started to realize how things are shaped for us, how it becomes this frame that we package an entire population of people in, not really displaying the humanity of who those people are.”

Story equity is the practice of stepping back, of listening, and of questioning your role as a storyteller who is “a voice for the voiceless,” and instead shifting that power dynamic to being a story facilitator—to finding ways to empower and support those who need to tell their own stories.

“And I always used to sort of ask that question when I was in the ground working in Congo: If I were this person, would this story show and display me in all my dignity? Would this be a story that I tell about myself?”

Narrative justice is the result of true story equity—”the creation of a cultural awakening that seeks to shift representation, voice, and agency,” as Registre writes here.

When it comes to the international development sector, it’s so easy to fall into the role of a well-meaning advocate, wanting to tell the story of a marginalized person or community.

“I think we tend to be default operators of systems because we never stopped to reflect and say, ‘What was this designed to do? Does it still serve its purpose?”

“We need to be thinkers and designers of new systems,” Registre insists. “We need to rethink international development to really ask ourselves, what is our role in the world? And what should we do to serve in that respect in our work. And what does that look like? Our engagement in the true meaning of partnership is that power is understood to be shared after all, right? “

Despite the threat of COVID-19 impacts, Registre keeps optimistic—in fact, she thinks the current challenge will force us to change in ways that are more sustainable in the long run, and this long-overdue shift is happening much faster than expected due to the pandemic.

“There’s this kind of acceleration to change that is fast-tracking us to reconsider and redefine and reimagine. We’re entering a completely different stage in our historical development as a human society globally, and the COVID-19 reality is helping us to see this.”

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Welcome New Members

Please welcome our newest Global Washington members. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with their work and consider opportunities for support and collaboration!

Friends of WPC Nepal

Friends of WPC Nepal is a fundraising organization that seeks to prevent human trafficking as well as protect and empower at-risk women and children in Nepal through awareness programs, education scholarships, job training and the Safe Home. Our strategy is focused on prevention, protection, and empowerment. We work in partnership with our sister organization, Women’s Protection Center Nepal, which is strategically based in Hetauda near India where many victims are forced to work in brothels, households and circuses. friendsofwpcnepal.org

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Member Events

August 13: Construction for Change Virtual Benefit

August 18: World Affairs Council: Europe in the Age of COVID-19: Public Health, Social Solidarity, and the Role of Government in a New International Environment – Virtual Program

August 21: Global Visionaries: Guatemalan Cook-along

August/September: Global Leadership Forum is still accepting applications for Fall 2020. Contact Kim Rakow Bernier for more information, rakow.bernier@gmail.com or (206) 250-6383,

September 2-3: Priority deadline to register for the Social Innovation Accelerator Program (AST 2020) through the UW Evans School of Public Policy & Governance

September 12: Friends of WPC Nepal: Hope For Freedom Gala 2020

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Career Center

Marketing and Communications Manager // Splash

Program Lead – Capacity Development and Inclusion // Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)

Impact & Learning Associate // Days for Girls

Check out the GlobalWA Job Board for the latest openings.

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GlobalWA Events

August 21: Education and COVID-19 in the Global South

September 16: Final Mile Event: Kicking off a US chapter of the International Association of Professional Health Logisticians (IAPHL) and the COVID-19 work of Restart Partners

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Stamford, Conn. – Aug. 11, 2020 – Americares is sending nearly 60 tons of medicine and supplies to hospitals and medical facilities in Lebanon where an explosion in Beirut’s port last week left 150 people dead and injured at least 5,000 others.

Americares is sending a series of shipments, valued at nearly $900,000 to partner organization Anera, which supports over 450 health facilities and social service organizations throughout the country. Most of the medicines and supplies, including IV fluids and anesthesia medicine, are destined for hospitals and clinics treating survivors of the massive explosion. The blast comes on the heels of a political and economic crisis, a mounting refugee crisis, increasing poverty and a worsening COVID-19 outbreak in the country. Continue Reading

Welcome to the July 2020 issue of the Global Washington newsletter.

IN THIS ISSUE

• • • Letter from our Executive Director
    • Issue Brief: Navigating the Economic Fallout of Covid-19 and Building Back Better
    • Organization Profile: Collaboration Enables Impact Investing Firm Capria to Support Thriving Entrepreneurial Ecosystems, Even Amid a Global Pandemic
    • Goalmaker: Sasha Muench, Mercy Corps Country Director, Palestine
    • From Our Blog: Responding to COVID-19 with Financial Inclusion Solutions
    • Welcome New Members
    • GlobalWA Member Events
    • Career Center

Letter from our Executive Director

Recently, a colleague asked what I am optimistic about during these troubled times, and I couldn’t find an answer. The immediate and long-term impacts of COVID-19 are devastating and have widespread global implications. In addition to an unparalleled health crisis, the resulting economic downturn and loss of livelihoods has been severe.

As a result of the pandemic, an estimated 71 million people around the world will fall into extreme poverty, defined as living below $1.90 a day, undoing years of progress on this front. Those most vulnerable are low-income families in developing countries. In certain regions, the loss of income and inability to buy food represents a far greater threat than exposure to the virus.

Despite feeling the weight of this moment and the enormity of the challenges ahead, I am honored to lead a network of 160 incredible organizations that are responding head on to the challenges COVID-19 poses to people in the Global South. Our members are working every day to strengthen the safety net for families in need and bolstering recovery efforts. Seeing the speed and breadth of their collective responses, I can honestly say that I have hope for the future. I encourage you to read more about our members’ work, and let me know what makes you feel inspired and hopeful.

Over the past few months, we reported on the global health implications of COVID-19, as well as the impact on refugees, food security challenges, and the importance of sustainable clean water access. In this issue, you will learn more about the economic implications of this pandemic and how our members are supporting markets and communities through these overlapping challenges.

When we seek to understand solutions rather than focus only on the enormity of the problems, we can regain our optimism. Global Washington will continue to amplify the solutions our members are implementing and showcase what is working around the globe as we fight this pandemic together.

Kristen Dailey
Executive Director

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Issue Brief

Navigating the Economic Fallout of Covid-19 and Building Back Better

By Joanne Lu

Women from a community in Quezon City, Philippines line up to enter a market as the local government strictly imposes social distancing in public places. They also received flyers from IDEALS and Oxfam containing relevant information about COVID-19 and essential tips on how to cope with the enhanced community quarantine. Credit: Ideals

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global health crisis. But now it appears that by some measures it will be an even greater and more lasting economic crisis, particularly for the poor in developing countries.

Since 1990, nearly 50 million people have climbed out of poverty every year. It’s one of the greatest achievements of the millennium. But now, the pandemic has plunged the global economy into the deepest recession since World War II, according to a recent report by the World Bank. And an estimated 71 million will likely be pushed back into poverty for the first time since 1998, a new UN report warns. According to the World Bank, this is the first global recession to be triggered solely by a pandemic.

So far, economic projections have shown worse outcomes for advanced economies than developing countries, because the pandemic surged in wealthier regions first, causing lockdowns that suspended and shuttered businesses. But from the beginning, economists have warned that there remains a great deal of uncertainty around the pandemic and its impacts. And, lower-income countries are likely to suffer severe and more lasting impacts because many already have less health-care infrastructure, weak social safety nets, large informal economies, a higher dependence on trade and more people living at or around the extreme poverty line. Now that the pandemic is beginning to surge in countries across South America, South Asia and even Africa, economists and development experts are intensifying their calls for global support and innovative interventions. With lockdown measures in place and business activity disrupted, people who were dependent on meager daily wages are facing hunger and exploitation. And as 90 percent of students worldwide have been kept out of classrooms by school closures, developing countries’ future growth potential is also being severely undermined.

Even before the pandemic, many emerging and developing countries struggled to provide adequate social protections for their citizens due to a lack of resources rooted in problems such as over-indebtedness and poor governance. Now, perhaps more than ever, social safety nets are crucial for keeping households afloat, which is why many humanitarian and development organizations, like Oxfam America and Mercy Corps, have scaled up their food assistance, cash transfers and voucher programs.

Oxfam is also advocating for an “Emergency Rescue Package for All” that would cancel trillions of dollars in debt for developing countries and would increase the funds available to them by at least a trillion. With more funding, countries could expand their social protection programs, including unemployment insurance. But developing countries are facing a serious hurdle with important interventions like unemployment insurance: a huge number of people work in the informal economy, or “off-the-books.” According to the UN’s International Labor Organization (ILO), more than 2 billion people globally make their living in the informal economy; 93 percent of them are in emerging and developing countries. In Africa, nearly 86 percent of employment is informal. This means that governments are having trouble targeting their economic aid when a large portion of small businesses and workers do not file taxes or even have access to formal banking. In a recent report, Mercy Corps wrote that “informality continues to be a significant factor determining individuals’ ability to adapt.” The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals 2020 report estimates that just in the first month of the pandemic, workers in the informal economy saw their incomes drop 60 percent.

Given the need to rapidly deploy economic assistance across the board – including to informal workers, many of whom are the poorest of the poor – some governments and organizations have turned to digital payments, mobile money, and community-based virtual currency to help families receive aid and purchase essential items, like food and soap, without using cash while social distancing. The Mifos X open source banking platform by Mifos Initiative, for example, allows governments to quickly and affordably open cloud-based bank accounts. Individuals, many of whom were “underbanked,” can then receive cash and benefit payments through these accounts, and businesses can access credit and reschedule loans. In addition, Google and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently also announced Mojaloop, a free, open-source payment platform that connects many different banking and payment systems across a country. Although the need for financial inclusion is time-sensitive during the current crisis, these digital solutions will help developing countries continue to grow over the long run.

An unprecedented characteristic of the COVID-19 economic crisis is how widespread the impact has been. Because advanced economies have also been battered by the pandemic, they’re less able to help sustain emerging and developing economies through trade. Migrant workers in wealthier countries are also experiencing a loss in wages, meaning they’re unable to send as much money home to their families. For developing countries, these remittances are an essential source of income. The World Bank is predicting a 20 percent drop in remittances this year, the sharpest decline in recent history. In Africa, a hit to tourism is also “decimating” the livelihoods of middle-class workers, who were driving the continent’s economic growth, according to a recent article in the New York Times.

As Microsoft President, Brad Smith, recently wrote in a blog post, “the pandemic has shined a harsh light on what was already a widening skills gap around the world – a gap that will need to be closed with even greater urgency to accelerate economic recovery.” Microsoft’s answer to this problem is a new “global skills initiative” that will help 25 million people around the world gain digital skills by the end of the year. The initiative will identify in-demand jobs and the skills needed to fill them, provide free educational content to develop those skills, and provide low-cost certifications and free job-seeking tools. But digital skills aren’t the only path forward. Einstein Rising, a business accelerator for social entrepreneurs in Africa, has launched online “Skills for Change” workshops that teach practical, income-generating skills, such as how to make liquid soap and petroleum jelly for dry skin.

But perhaps more than anything, the pandemic is highlighting just how important it is to develop strong partnerships in our interconnected world. The most vulnerable among us will not be able to survive the impacts of the pandemic without global support; at the same time, the pandemic has made it clear that no one is truly safe and secure unless all of us are. Organizations like Global Partnerships, Upaya Social Ventures and 3rd Creek Foundation are leaning into their partnerships with social enterprises and other organizations in order to help keep everyone – investors, organizations, businesses and households – afloat in these trying times.

Without a doubt, the COVID-19 pandemic is an economic shock of historic proportions that will reverse much of the progress the world has made toward eradicating poverty. However, with innovative solutions and global cooperation, this crisis also presents the world with an opportunity to build back better if we extend the interventions being implemented now into a post-pandemic society. With stronger social safety nets for everyone, financial inclusion through technology and new skills for a changing global economy, perhaps a more equitable society awaits.

The following GlobalWA members are working to address the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in developing countries.

Awamaki

Awamaki is a small non-profit that connects Andean artisan weavers with global markets to create economic opportunities and improve social well-being in rural Peru. Peru has had the longest lockdown in the world, with borders closed and tourism, transportation, and commerce shuttered for over three months. Awamaki’s partner artisans and their families rely almost entirely on tourism for their incomes and as a result, their villages have been severely affected by the lockdown. Awamaki is fundraising for emergency food relief so the artisans can feed their families while there is no work. The organization is also supporting 160 artisan women and their families with food donations. Additionally, Awamaki is looking for creative new opportunities, including supporting the artisans in making face masks to prevent transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19. Additionally, they have been hosting weaving demonstrations on Zoom, a new way to bring income to their families.

3rd Creek Foundation

Through grants and impact investing, 3rd Creek Foundation supports early stage programs that create sustained economic improvement and dignity for the ultra-poor. The foundation’s recent fundraising campaign, #raise20run20, will support its partner organizations including non-profit organizations that run entrepreneurial training programs as well as small businesses that employ the ultra-poor with dignified jobs.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has made critical investments in speeding up development of new tools to address the COVID-19 pandemic, including advanced diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines. In addition, the foundation has highlighted the disproportionate impact the pandemic is having on women’s health and economic well-being. Recommended policy actions include ensuring women are essential recipients of financial aid and emergency cash transfers, directing stimulus dollars toward women-owned businesses, increasing women’s access to cell phones in order to manage their money digitally, encouraging flexible work arrangements, and including diverse experts and leaders in decision-making.

Capria

Capria is a global impact investment firm managing multiple funds that accelerate the flow of capital to deliver superior returns in emerging markets. Capria holds COVID-19 workshops with its fund managers twice a week to share knowledge and learn from the experience of its partners across the network. The company has found investments in essential products and services to bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers to be a resilient strategy because they serve critical needs even during times of uncertainty.

Dalberg

Dalberg has been actively supporting its clients globally on how to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has involved helping large foundations pivot their strategies and grant-making; assessing vaccine discovery efforts for improved access in the developing world; designing bridge finance facilities; and, increasingly, adapting to the “new normal.” A survey Dalberg conducted on leaders at various global philanthropic organizations provides insight into their shifting priorities around the current pandemic. Another report Dalberg co-authored with World Wildlife Fund details the root causes of the COVID-19 crisis and recommends ways to mitigate future pandemics.

Global Partnerships

Global Partnerships is an impact-first investor dedicated to expanding opportunity for people living in poverty. The organization makes loans and early stage investments in social enterprises that deliver market-based products and services that empower people to earn a living and improve their lives. GP supports its partners in meeting the needs of the most vulnerable during the pandemic. For example, BRAC International, a global microfinance network in Liberia, Tanzania, and Uganda has begun conducting telephone outreach to clients, disseminating health guidance through radio broadcasts, deploying a rapid income and food security assessment to better understand client needs, and proactively linking its clients to non-profit and government resources. Another, Acceso El Salvador, is an agricultural enterprise that purchases goods from smallholder farmers and fishers. Acceso has immediately adapted its technical assistance to focus on pandemic-safe practices while providing farmers with frequent updates on which produce is in high demand. A third partner, Friendship Bridge in Guatemala, responded to the drop in revenue for their female artisan clients by working with them to produce and sell face masks to meet the growing global need.

Foster School of Business (University of Washington)

For over a decade, the Foster School of Business has worked with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), “a trade union that promotes the rights of self-employed female workers and aims to organize them for full employment and self-reliance,” according to a former UW Global Business Center Global Consulting Project participant. The partnership brings MBAs together with small business owners in rural India, where students complete projects for the organization as part of their course. SEWA members have produced over half a million face masks (as of April) in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Landesa

As a global leader in land rights, Landesa is positioned to assist its partners in government and civil society in responding to COVID-19. The organization is leveraging its networks in Asia and Africa to provide resources and expertise for local partners on the front lines of this global health crisis. In Liberia, Landesa is using its nationally broadcast radio program to educate the public on health, hygiene and social-distancing measures to prevent transmission of the virus. In Tanzania, Landesa is adapting a mobile application, “Law On Your Palm,” which connects rural women with access to legal services, to be used to share information about COVID-19. And in Myanmar, Landesa is helping to equip the Forest Department with protective masks and gloves for use by department staff carrying out essential fieldwork.

Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps works in more than 40 countries in the Americas, Africa, Middle East and Asia, providing assistance to communities facing crises of all types, including vulnerable people whose circumstances are being made worse by the pandemic. Mercy Corps is responding to the urgent needs, while also investing in long-term solutions that build resilience to future crises. To support the most vulnerable families, Mercy Corps is providing emergency cash assistance so they can cover essential expenses such as food, water and rent. Cash also jumpstarts the local markets and businesses, enabling them and the larger economy to recover. Additionally, Mercy Corps helps small businesses adapt and recover after a crisis, as they are often both the engines of the economy and the most vulnerable to economic disruptions. Through technical support, grants and mentorship, the agency helps businesses get back on their feet, increase their chance of long-term success, and become better prepared for future disasters. A key aspect of Mercy Corps’ work is helping individuals and business owners access financial services and increase financial literacy, so that they have the tools and skills to save for the future, borrow to invest in their businesses, and manage risks no matter the crisis.

Moving Worlds

In partnership with SAP, leading impact investors, and social enterprise thought-leaders, the MovingWorlds Sustainable Growth of Revenue for International Development (S-GRID) program helps social enterprises, and the individuals within them, to create sustainable revenue streams by partnering with the corporate sector and connecting into global value chains. As we begin to rebuild our post-COVID world, there is an unprecedented opportunity to go beyond the status quo to build more just, equitable, and sustainable global systems.

Oxfam America

Oxfam America estimates that half a billion people could be pushed back into poverty by the COVID-19 pandemic.  During a time of extreme global inequality, this could set back the fight against poverty by a decade, and as much as 30 years in some regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, The Middle East and North Africa. To address the immediate need for economic support, Oxfam is providing cash and in-kind food assistance to those who need it in more than 15 countries around the world, including for refugees, displaced people, and vulnerable families, including in South Sudan and Central African Republic. In the Dominican Republic, for example, Oxfam is working to transfer cash to 4,000 families (benefiting some 20,000 people) to buy basic goods. Oxfam is also partnering with small-scale food producers to amplify their voices in the call for global action on the looming food crises. Oxfam understands that addressing COVID-19’s economic impacts requires a multi-sectoral response and the cooperation of local and international organizations, corporations and governments. At the global level, Oxfam has called for the international community to fully fund the UN’s humanitarian appeal and cancel debts so that poor countries are able to focus on critical needs.  Oxfam has also called for an emergency rescue package for all that provides cash grants to those who have lost income and creates at least a trillion dollars in international reserves to dramatically increase resources available to countries.

Pangea

Pangea has supported its community partners around the world by offering additional flexibility in their grant timelines and supporting organizations as they have shifted their programs toward COVID-19 response. Child Empowerment Program in Uganda, for example, has been producing thousands of masks, sewn by graduates of its tailoring program who received training at CEP’s vocational school (with previous funding from Pangea). They will distribute the masks free of charge to health workers and women who are still struggling to sell vegetables in the market to support their families.

Rise Beyond the Reef

Rise Beyond the Reef bridges the divide between rural remote indigenous Fijian communities and the outside world, promoting women as leaders of their communities on the frontlines of climate justice. The organization has been working with its partners in Fiji to distribute protective COVID-19 kits with washable masks, gloves and disease awareness infographic flyers. Additionally, Rise Beyond the Reef has helped distribute basic food rations to remote partner communities and marginalized areas inside Fiji’s restricted areas to prevent them from traveling to town centers for shopping. And finally, the organization has distributed raised seedlings to partner communities to help boost food security.

Spreeha Foundation

Spreeha strives to break the cycle of poverty for underprivileged people by providing healthcare, education, and skills training. COVID-19 has forced the foundation to temporarily close education and training services in order to ramp up its healthcare response, including telehealth. Spreeha is also working closely with the government of Bangladesh in providing health awareness messaging and door-to-door coronavirus screening services.

Upaya

Upaya Social Ventures fights extreme poverty with dignified jobs and believes job preservation and job creation are crucial to the COVID-19 recovery. To date, Upaya has invested in 21 early-stage businesses that provide jobs for over 17,000 people in the poorest regions of India. To understand how the pandemic is impacting those vulnerable communities, Upaya surveyed a sample of job holders by phone and found that the majority of those surveyed were able to earn money during the lockdown, thanks to their connection with Upaya portfolio companies. To combat the devastating effects of the pandemic, Upaya launched a three-wave strategy in April, starting with helping their existing portfolio companies survive the economic downturn by facilitating access to relief programs and virtual peer learning sessions. The team has since begun deploying revenue-based financing to the companies in its portfolio to provide the liquidity needed to maintain operations and preserve jobs. Upaya has also promoted the direct-support campaigns run by its portfolio companies to assist people who lost their ability to earn during lockdown. Looking toward the recovery, Upaya is building a pipeline of promising new companies and has adapted its annual Accelerator Program into a series of virtual workshops. Upaya has also implemented a streamlined investment process to rapidly extend investments to fill the small business financing gap that has been worsened by the pandemic. The team intends to invest in at least six new companies this year that are creating dignified jobs to fuel the COVID-19 recovery.

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Organization Profile

Collaboration Enables Impact Investing Firm Capria to Support Thriving Entrepreneurial Ecosystems, Even Amid a Global Pandemic

By Penny Carothers

Susana Garcia-Robles speaking alongside Mexican fund managers on impact investment strategies.
Photo courtesy of Capria.

Early in her career Capria’s Susana Garcia-Robles was on the forefront of developing the private equity and venture capital markets in Latin America and the Caribbean while working with the Inter-American Development Bank. She recalls skeptical governments asking—so often she lost count—“[Is] innovation, entrepreneurship, and venture capital relevant to a region mired in poverty? Aren’t they just entertainment for rich young people?”

It wasn’t just governments that were confused by the role of impact capital in development. When the term “impact investing” was coined in 2007 to describe the goal of turning a profit while creating positive and measurable social and environmental impact, early investors lacked consensus on both methods and expectations. Some clarity came in 2009 when Jessica Freireich and Katherine Fulton of the Monitor Institute described the difference between “financial-first investors” and “impact-first investors.” (Long story short: it appeared that achieving both at the same time was not quite possible).

Today, investors of all stripes participate in an ecosystem that has grown significantly even at this early stage of its development. The 2020 Annual Investor Impact Survey put out by the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) estimated the size of the market to be $715 billion in assets worldwide, invested by more than 1,700 organizations. Impact investors now challenge the perceived incompatibility between social and financial gain, though consensus is by no means universal.

“If you don’t get returns, economies don’t grow.”

Capria partnered with its anchor investor, International Finance Corp., to be among the first to embrace IFC’s Operating Principles for Impact Management. Photo courtesy of Capria.

Founded in 2015, Capria has always rejected the assertion that investors must choose between social or environmental goals and financial returns. Capria’s successes in this area are a strong argument that it is possible to meet the dual goals of impact investing without compromising on either side. With a global network of funds representing $400 million in assets under management, Capria invests in early-stage venture capital, private equity, and other debt and equity funds in 37 countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia through local fund managers and in some cases through direct investments. Their methods are built on lessons learned by investing in both developed and emerging economies. Capria’s leadership has deep experience in US-based technology companies, as well as through an early stage venture capital fund, Unitus Ventures.

“In a nutshell, we’re not an impact-first investor,” says Garcia-Robles, Capria’s Venture Partner. “Financial and social/environmental returns are at the same level of importance. How do we do that? Our ‘secret sauce’ is our collaboration.”

Capria leads the largest network of fund managers in what they term a pragmatic and collaborative approach that draws deeply on best practices in venture capital, impact measurement, and environmental and social governance (ESG) management. Capria’s cohort of fund managers span 22 countries and have a range of industry experience. When fund managers join the Capria Network they access professional peers as well as proprietary tools available through Capria Quantum, a system that includes templates, agreements, assessment tools, and resources of all kinds to increase fund managers’ knowledge and effectiveness.

Capria’s 7th investment cycle culminated at the Seattle Impact Hall and included managers from Brazil, 3 countries in Africa, Singapore, and India. Photo courtesy of Capria.

Capria uses this model of a capacity-building network because it believes that the most successful early-growth investing must be led by local fund managers and teams that know their own markets and opportunities. As Garcia-Robles says, “[This model] is very effective because you’re empowering local teams who in turn empower local entrepreneurs.” Fund managers often take board seats on the companies they invest in, and any knowledge Capria shares with their fund managers can then be used to strengthen their portfolio of companies.

Using this model, Capria envisions “thriving entrepreneurial ecosystems” in dozens of new markets in order to realize its long-term goal of deploying $1 billion in capital to impact 100 million lives.

Crisis management and COVID-19

Capria’s approach has served the firm well during the current pandemic. Susana Garcia-Robles, who serves as Capria’s crisis manager, said, “When Covid hit, we had to move fast…. [Capria’s] vision comes through having been through many crises. We know that behind any crisis there also are new opportunities if you are realistic and pragmatic about going after them.”

After an intensive two-week period of information gathering and assessment at the very start of the pandemic, Capria began to create more tools to add to Quantum. These included a crisis preparedness tool, which was vetted and shared widely outside the Capria network, as well as a financial matrix that fund managers could use to analyze a business’s position and runway for exiting the crisis.

Capria has doubled down on the principles key to its model since the beginning. Twice a month Capria holds COVID-19 workshop meetings with its fund managers. Topics have ranged from lessons learned from past crises, to how to pitch investors during a pandemic, to legal aspects of the pandemic. All build on the shared knowledge and experience of the partners across the network.

Unexpected losers and not-so-obvious winners

In the beginning, the knee-jerk reaction to the crisis was the belief that every digital business would pull out of the crisis and every traditional business would not. When Capria’s network looked more closely at their portfolios and deal pipelines they saw that this was inaccurate. To highlight crisis management best practices, Capria held a workshop to showcase “unexpected losers and not-so-obvious winners,” including an app-based ride service in India that lost 70% of its revenue in the early weeks of lockdown only to recover by looking for drivers to deliver to people in their homes, and to serve new B2B logistics needs. Lesson learned? The app-based ride service was resilient because its founder was decisive and creative, not solely because of technology.

Capria also found in analyzing its portfolio that an orientation toward investments in essential products and services to bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers, such as minorities, women, and refugees, has proven resilient because they serve critical needs even during times of uncertainty. Capria’s goals to “go beyond job creation and give low-income families access to goods and services that would otherwise not exist” has proven to be smart business in both good times and bad.

Susana Garcia-Robles (second from left) gathering with Co-Create LATAM.
Photo: Susana Garcia-Robles.

Other practices are pandemic-proof as well, such as their commitment to female fund managers and companies. Capria looks for women fund managers because as Garcia-Robles says, “[women] want to make just as much money as men, but…they also want to see if they can better the community and take care of the environment through their results and companies.” In fact, fund management teams with female managers invest in as much as 70% more female-led businesses compared to all-male teams. Capria also maps a company’s impact onto the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), creating “migrants to impact,” or companies that have begun to recognize their social impact when they consider their business’s contributions to the SDGs.

The long game

As the impact investing industry matures and Capria’s role in it continues, the tension—real or not—between social and financial gain will play out on an increasingly larger stage. We may be seeing, as Capria co-founder Will Poole said recently, “a cultural shift away from traditional notions of capitalism where profits trump all.” Time will certainly tell.

In the meantime, Susana and the Capria team are focused on ensuring that their funds, companies, and fund managers are around for the long haul. “Everyone has COVID fatigue but we really have to make sure our teams…are being creative and innovative and if you will, even energized by this. This has to be looked at as a new challenge, totally unexpected that the whole humanity is facing. And we’re going to come out better, knowing many new things.”

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Goalmaker

Sasha Muench, Mercy Corps Country Director, Palestine

By Andie Long

Sasha Muench, a twenty-year veteran of the international humanitarian and development agency Mercy Corps, had seen more of the world before she was a teenager than most people do in a lifetime.

“For the formative years of my life, I was a nomad,” she says.

Both of Muench’s parents were development workers, trained in urban planning, and she and her sister grew up travelling across Africa and East Asia. She’s thankful her parents didn’t shield her and her sister from the realities of the places where they lived. “We did a lot of travelling, but always on a budget, very local. So I saw a lot of the world, and the grittiness of the world and the inequities.”

Together with their parents, she and her sister moved about every five years, a rhythm of life she continues to seek out today.

When Muench turned twelve, the family moved to the small town of Sequim in Washington state. “It was total culture shock,” she recalls. Muench knew that when she grew up, she wanted to return to the nomadic life.

‘Sometimes a loan isn’t enough’

As she was contemplating her future career, Muench said her father advised her: “‘don’t become an urban planner, it’s a useless degree. Go become an economist because they actually know how to solve problems.’ But then, “I became an economist,” she said, “and I thought, I’m not sure economists know how to solve problems either!”

The first major challenge in her career was supporting economic recovery after the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the time, she says, there was a recognition that sometimes what people needed most was a loan to get back on their feet. As the work evolved, however, Muench and others came to see that often a loan wasn’t enough. In addition, she said, “you need connections, you need capacity, you need to know your markets.”

From there, Muench gravitated towards business development, and eventually she began working with institutions that could support individual business owners.

It was after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, when Muench was working in Indonesia, that she had an epiphany: “if we actually worked with the financial institutions to help the businesses recover, we could set up a long-term system that would help both of them.”

This thinking culminated in one of the most audacious programs of her career – the formation and launch of a wholesale microfinance bank in Indonesia. Together with a handful of socially-minded investors, including the Gates Foundation, Bank Andara was established to offer a range of banking products and services to hundreds of microfinance institutions, serving tens of thousands of retail clients in the island nation. Though Muench says Mercy Corps sold its share in the bank several years ago, Bank Andara continues to be one of the humanitarian agency’s top microfinance partners in the region.

‘Working ourselves out of a job’

As with Bank Andara, Muench approaches every humanitarian challenge with one thing in mind – sustainable change.

“I don’t want to be doing this work forever, and I don’t want to keep repeating the same things,” she says. “I think in the humanitarian industry as a whole, we should be working ourselves out of a job. And to do that we need to look at these broader systems.”

To do this, Muench leans heavily on her economics training. “What I like about markets in crisis,” she says, “is it’s using a lot of the principles around how economics works, and incentives, and how communities work, and applies it to moments of big change to see if we can lay the groundwork for long-term opportunity.”

“A chicken is not a job.”

While many development agencies tout gifts of livestock to poor families as a way to increase their incomes, particularly around the holiday season, Muench is known within Mercy Corps for her sassy retort – “a chicken is not a job!”

That said, Muench does think chickens are a great example of how taking a systems approach can create sustainable change.

“If you look at the poultry sector there are a lot of jobs, there are a lot of opportunities in there – from growing chickens, to processing them, to selling them, maintaining hygiene standards… If you actually work on that system, then it can create sustainable livelihoods for many people, and keep people alive, and healthy and fed. We shouldn’t be going around handing out chickens for the rest of our lives. We should be making the poultry system work so that people can live decent lives within that system.”

Muench insists there is an instinct in the industry to want to be the hero. But the more challenging and long-lasting approach, she says, is figuring out a way to help people solve their own problems.

“At the very least, because I am not here permanently, if I solve a problem, who’s going to solve it next time? So the best thing is if I can help somebody who’s going to be here forever, figure out the solution, and then they can keep adapting and changing so that people can get better. And if we don’t think about that, we can inadvertently do harm.”

Ultimately, it comes back to economics, she says. “When people are starving, we want to go in and give food. But then if we import a lot of food, what do we do with those farmers who suddenly can’t sell their crops because everybody’s got free food? Or the shopkeeper who can’t sell bread because everybody got free bread. But if we go and either give people cash so people can go buy the bread, or at least buy the bread from the shopkeeper and distribute it, then we’ve helped local business, we’ve helped people continue to maintain their business, and employ people, and helped the local economy grow.”

Opportunities in Palestine

Six months ago, Muench took a new position as Mercy Corps Country Director in Palestine, and moved to Jerusalem, along with her “cranky cat,” Izzy.

Though the role is one she admits she never anticipated wanting, she immediately found herself fascinated by the challenge. “There’s so much need here,” she says, “but it’s not a place that attracts a lot of philanthropy because of the politics.” That said, there is a great deal of opportunity: “If you look at the potential for economic growth in Palestine, it has a lot of the components it needs.”

One of the programs Mercy Corps runs in Palestine is Gaza Sky Geeks, a tech accelerator that supports entrepreneurial youth in earning a decent living through online freelancing and coding.

Not long after Muench arrived to take up her new role, COVID-19 hit. Most of the businesses Mercy Corps was working with in the West Bank had to close down, while the Gaza Sky Geeks continued operations, more or less as usual.

Mercy Corps currently has 50 staff in Palestine, most of whom are from the region. A majority are in Gaza, and the rest work in Jerusalem and Ramallah. Because of the technical savvy of the Gaza Sky Geeks staff and participants, they were able to shift to remote work fairly quickly, Muench said. They even managed to run a three-day online hackathon with 1,000 participants, called “Hack the Crisis Palestine,” which invited tech entrepreneurs to come up with solutions to the new COVID-19 reality.  One group of entrepreneurs developed an app to support people’s mental health needs, enabling professionals to put their services online so people could find and use them.

What’s next?

Maybe it’s the COVID lockdown talking, but despite her nomadic ways, Muench has lately found herself hankering for the Pacific Northwest.

“I know this is probably really ironic for people stuck at home in Seattle and on the Peninsula, but as a Washingtonian who can’t come home right now, I want everybody to appreciate it,” she says. “All I want to do is go to the Dungeness River Center and stand on that bridge looking over the Dungeness River among the fir trees and look at the fish and just be home.”

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From Our Blog

Responding to COVID-19 with Financial Inclusion Solutions

By Ed Cable, President
Mifos Initiative

A gathering of Mifos partners. Photo: Mifos

Governments everywhere are seeking to soften the blow to small and microbusinesses from the COVID-19 pandemic, and to provide transfer payments to the most vulnerable individuals. At Mifos, we’re intent on bringing open source technologies for financial inclusion to meet this moment. Continue Reading

By Ed Cable, President
Mifos Initiative

A gathering of Mifos partners. Photo: Mifos

Governments everywhere are seeking to soften the blow to small and microbusinesses from the COVID-19 pandemic, and to provide transfer payments to the most vulnerable individuals. At Mifos, we’re intent on bringing open source technologies for financial inclusion to meet this moment. Continue Reading