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Contributor Guidelines

Submitting guest blogs is open to Global Washington’s members of the Atlas level and above. We value a diversity of opinions on a broad range of subjects of interest to the global health and development community.

Blog article submissions should be 500-1500 words. Photos, graphs, videos, and other art that supports the main themes are strongly encouraged.

You may not be the best writer, and that’s okay. We can help you shape and edit your contribution. The most important thing is that it furthers an important conversation in your field, and that it is relatively jargon-free. Anyone without a background in global development should still be able to engage with your ideas.

If you include statistics or reference current research, please hyperlink your sources in the text, wherever possible.

Have an idea of what you’d like to write about? Let’s continue the conversation! Email comms@globalWA.org and put “Blog Idea” in the subject line.


Where Solidarity Reigns Supreme

In a community that prizes unity, Passing on the Gift inspires unbreakable bonds.

Written by Alyssa Cogan and Oumar Diouk
Photographs by Alyssa Cogan and Sylvain Cherkoui
Originally published as part of Heifer International’s Strength in Sisterhood digital collection.

View of members celebrating

Members of the Saloum Corn Producers Association in Senegal mid-celebration, before a Passing on the Gift ceremony begins.

Women file into the shade of a white canopy one after another, their colorful stream of vibrant dresses and moussour headwraps a welcome contradiction to the parched, beige landscape behind them.

Undaunted by the wind kicking up angry plumes of dust, they clap and dance to a boombox that’s working overtime, laughing and nudging each other to assume position at the front of the group, in the spotlight.

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To Invest in Women’s Economic Empowerment, Finance Solutions From the Ground Up

By Ayman Soliman, Global Advocacy Program Officer with Landesa

Woman holding produce

S4HL Colombia – With coalitions in nine countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the S4HL Campaign is catalyzing a global movement for women’s land rights at the grassroots level. Here, a member of S4HL Colombia holds produce from her garden. Photo: Landesa

In her rural village in the Chitoor district in Andhra Pradesh, India, Shakti beams with pride in front of a plot of land. “Namma bhoomi,”- “This is our land,” says Shakti.

With the income from her land, Shakti can provide three meals a day for her children and pay the school fees for their education. Shakti also has a new status in her village and her home – a profound change from the days she was a landless laborer, earning about $1 a day. For Shakti, control over land was the impetus for that change.

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Co-creating with “Las mamás” in Perú

By Jenni Ahern, Program Director, Future of Fish Peru
Republished with permission from Future of Fish

The moms group photo

You may hear the terms “participatory development”, “co-design” or “co-create” a lot these days as Community and International Development theory continues to evolve. This theory evolves and adapts to human beings and community identified needs, where the most crucial piece of participatory community development is trust building. Trust in process and in people, are the two necessary ingredients for success.

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