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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.
Posted on February 15, 2022
We are pleased to welcome Ewang’an Olosho Le Suswa, as one of our new partners in East Africa. Founded in 2019, Ewang’an is located in the Maasai village of Suswa in Kenya. Formed by a cluster of self-help groups in the community, their goals are to advocate for community rights, alleviate poverty, and strengthen self-reliance. We first learned of Ewang’an through Wendo Azhed of Dandelion Africa (one of our pod advisors), who has served as a mentor for their work with boys.
Pangea’s funding will support the Boy Child Mentorship project. Ewang’an leaders recognize the importance of empowering girls, yet they also see a growing need to address the specific problems faced by boys in the village. Problems such as mental health issues, poor school performance, school dropout which can lead to child labor, substance abuse, criminal activity, and early marriages have been on the rise. These issues not only affect the individual boy child but impact the health, safety, and prosperity of the entire community.
Through the Boy Child Mentorship project, Ewang’an is building outreach with schools and churches in its goal to mentor boys in completing their schooling, developing healthy life skills, and transitioning to meaningful employment. Pangea’s grant, along with their own fund-raising efforts such as table banking, buying and selling cows, and selling items in local markets, will be used to fund the project. Group activities and sports are the methods that will be used to engage the boys and provide opportunities for mentorship and support.
Posted on January 19, 2022
We warmly welcome SEF as one of our newest partners in East Africa. SEF is a registered youth-led organization based in Kampala, Uganda that primarily serves refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, and South Sudan. The co-founders, Jules Meyele and Jeremiah Lukeka, are themselves refugees.
Through our discussions with Jules and Jeremiah (via Zoom), we learned of the great challenges these refugees experience when they arrive in Uganda. After traumatic experiences in their home country, adjusting to a completely new and different culture can be very difficult. These refugees must deal with language barriers, unemployment, difficult access to formal school, and discrimination from the local communities.
SEF’s programs and services are tailored to promote youth development and leadership. They provide education, community building, and integration activities to support refugee youth to strengthen the skills they need, not only to survive in the face of trauma, stress, displacement, and deprivation, but to become self-reliant and potential leaders in their community.
Pangea’s grant, SEF’s first outside funding in their 6-year history, will be used to expand “Women at the Wheels.” This project is a successful vocational training program that focuses on tailoring and craft skills, along with basic business and entrepreneurship curricula. Women completing the program can use their newly acquired skills to make a living and become more self-sustaining.
We are excited to begin this new partnership and look forward to learning more about SEF and the communities that they serve.
Posted on January 14, 2022
2021 was a year of continued evolution of COVID, which exposed and exacerbated many weaknesses in our global society including gender inequality, supply chains, and vaccine inequities. Additionally, there have been many crises including the Haiti earthquake, the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, refugees fleeing violence in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, and the famine in Yemen, to name but a few.
Our global community has been responding, some with much success, to these and many ongoing issues. Below is a summary of our 2021 Issue Campaigns, events, spotlights, and features we have been reporting on culminating with an amazing Goalmakers Annual Conference. We hope you find these informative and useful for your ongoing mission work.
2021 ISSUE CAMPAIGNS
- February: Climate Justice (SDG 13): Climate change has a greater impact on people living in low- and middle-income countries with few monetary resources, poor health conditions, insecure land rights, and fragile infrastructure. The climate impacts we are already seeing include severe droughts, growing food insecurity, wider disease transmission, and rising seas that threaten the very existence of many coastal cities and island nations. As is often the case, those who are most affected by a crisis have a great deal of insight and knowledge to create effective solutions. While Indigenous communities are often at greater risk from environmental degradation and climate effects, their long history of living from and caring for the land provides a unique perspective and an integrated set of solutions that can make sustainability a reality and help turn the tide on the climate crisis. Our February Issue Brief, Organization Profile on Landesa, Goalmaker Spotlight on James Mulbah from the Earthworm Foundation, and guest blog from Agros talks to the above points and issues. Additionally, we co-hosted an event with the Posner Center for International Development on “Climate Justice and Indigenous Rights”.
Image credit: Nia Tero.
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