Blog
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.
Posted on June 1, 2015
By Kentaro Toyama
After moving away from Seattle last December, Toyama will be back in town for book talks at Seattle Town Hall on June 22, and University Book Store on June 24. His book, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology, goes into greater detail about what he writes below.
In India’s famous Hole-in-the-Wall project, ruggedized computers were placed in slums and rural villages for neighborhood children to use. Its founder, Sugata Mitra, claimed that with no supervision, children taught themselves computer literacy, English, and even molecular biology. Back in 2005 before the project became widely known, Mitra came to speak to a group of us about the project. We were a new research team in Bangalore that I had started while at Microsoft, with a mission to explore how digital technology could serve international development.
Inspired by Mitra’s vision of “minimally invasive” education, several of my colleagues started a similar project called Kelsa+ for adults. They installed a PC with broadband in the basement of our offices, and told the low-income service staff – technicians, housekeepers, and security guards – that it was theirs to use as they wished. The expectation was that with free access to the Internet, the staff could gain something of productive value – take an online course, study English, search for better jobs. (Kelsa+ means “work plus” in the south Indian language of Kannada.) Continue Reading
Posted on May 22, 2015
By Lev Klarnet
AFP: Hoang Dinh Nam, file photo
For far too long, the international development community has seemed to ignore those who do not fit socially prescribed gender and sexual roles, leaving them to endure social and legal persecution. To holistically combat global poverty, development practitioners must address the often violent forms of repression plaguing the LGBT community.
On May 13, the University Of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies, a Global Washington member, collaborated with Crosscut and the World Affairs Council to host a panel on the global struggle for LGBT equality. Global Washington was a promotional partner for the lively discussion. Continue Reading
Posted on May 13, 2015
By Tyler Graf, Medical Teams International
Nepal is a country on edge.
For the second time in less than three weeks, people have taken to the streets to sleep. Buildings have been destroyed. People have died.
Tuesday’s 7.4-magnitude quake dashed hopes that the aftershocks were over and that Nepal could rebuild in earnest. People remain nervous about where and how to live – whether they should gamble on returning inside, or brave the elements outside.
Many of Nepal’s young people, however, are trying to make the best out of a tense situation.
At the ROKPA Children’s Home, an orphanage in Kathmandu, the kids have shown amazing resolve in the face of a difficult situation. The orphanage is run by a nonprofit organization that also runs the guesthouse that serves as Medical Teams International’s in-country base.
The orphans of ROKPA Chidren’s Home camp outside following Tuesday’s quake in Nepal.