Thirty-three students in the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service Master of Public Service degree program will conduct international public service projects in 19 different countries this summer.
Students will complete projects related to agriculture, education, economic development, criminal and social justice, and international development, among others, for organizations such as Winrock International, the United States State Department, the South African Education Project, and MassChallenge Israel.
“Having the opportunity to participate in high quality international and related work helps make the Clinton School experience special for our students,” said Clinton School Dean James L. “Skip” Rutherford. “The 2017 projects are exceptional.”
The international service component exposes the students to unique challenges around the globe and provides immediate and long-term impact for the students and their organizational partners.
Work sites and host organizations are selected collaboratively by Clinton School students and faculty.
2017 International Public Service Projects:
Darlynton Adegor – Syrian Emergency Task Force (Little Rock, Arkansas, USA) – Adegor will work with the Syrian Emergency Task Force to create a strategic plan for community engagement and collaborative partnership with stakeholders interested in the alleviation of the suffering of the Syrian people
Rebecca Agyei – Kofa Foundation (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA) – Agyei will develop and implement an evaluation plan as part of the organization’s monitoring and evaluation program. She will develop a data collection process and create measures to assess the impact of the organization’s program.
Amie Wilcox Alexander – United States Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agriculture Service (Tokyo, Japan) – Alexander will work with the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) to study agricultural commodity consumption and demand in Japan. She will research and produce commodity reports for the United States Department of Agriculture detailing market trends and demand in Japan.
Hannah Bahn – Lagim Tehi Tuma (Dalun, Ghana) – Bahn will work with Lagim Tehi Tuma (“Thinking Together” in Dagbani), an undergraduate summer action research fellowship that joins 6 students from Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges, USA, and 3 students from the University for Development Studies with the community of Dalun, in Ghana’s Northern Region. The program combines collaborative study, reflection, and introductory Dagbani language instruction with education-focused internships in an early education NGO, a community radio station, and an internet training centre.
Reggie Ballard – Moroccan Children’s Trust (Taroudant, Morocco) – Ballard will complete a summative outcomes evaluation of the Moroccan Children’s Trust student support program to provide a framework for program success and possible expansion. His work will provide a framework for program success and possible expansion.
Caitlin Campbell – U.S State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (Washington D.C, USA) – Campbell will work in the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor which works to spread democracy and respect for human rights around the world. There she will have the opportunity to meet with senior-level US and foreign government officials, draft documents for US foreign policymakers, and engage both domestic and foreign audiences in explaining the work of the US State Department and promoting US foreign policy.
Catherine Campos – Limited Resource Teacher Training (Kanungu, Uganda) – Campos will help create a recruitment strategy for LRTT in order for the organization to better tell its story and reach teachers that would benefit from the program. In order for Campos to this, she will work with the LRTT staff in implementing an impact assessment of the program.
Susanna Creed – Fundacion Arte Del Mundo (Banos de Agua Santa, Ecuador)– Creed will form a curriculum committee that will allow her to engage and collaborate with the people of Banos de Agua Santa, Ecuador to create a tailored, enriching out-of-school curriculum for the children in their community. The curriculum will be implemented and maintained through an improved sustainable volunteer program at Fundacion Arte del Mundo.
Brittney Dennis – Moroccan Children’s Trust (Taroudant, Morocco) – Dennis will conduct a needs assessment for the organization’s Women’s Empowerment program.
Caroline Dunlap – Winrock International (Senegal, Guinea, Nigeria) – Dunlap will develop an internship model for in-country young adults enrolled in agricultural programs in Nigeria, Senegal, and Guinea. Dunlap will develop a framework that will help educational institutions prepare their students to successfully complete internships, and help private sector hosts mentor and prepare them for the workforce.
Zac Hale- Landesa (Seattle, Washington, USA) – Hale will work on Landesa’s Responsible Investments in Property and Land project, developing guidance documents for land-investment stakeholders in Ghana and Tanzania.
Mollie Henegar – Awamaki (Ollantaytambo, Peru) – Henager will be working as the Program Coordinator for Awamaki’s summer Monitoring and Evaluation Program. She will oversee data collection and analysis in order to assess the program impact among the Andean women and business cooperatives that Awamaki serves.
Zackary Blake Huffman – U.S State Department (Yerevan, Armenia) – Huffman will be serving in the Pol/Econ department of the United States Embassy in Yerevan.
Lucy Kagan – U.S State Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agriculture Service (Dubai, United Arab Emirates)- Kagan will collaborate with Foreign Agricultural Service officers in the United States Embassy to conduct research and generate region-specific reports on U.S. Agricultural markets.
Megan Kurten – Limited Resource Teacher Training (Kanungu, Uganda) – LRTT is an organization that establishes a global network of teachers that collaborates on solutions to the unique challenges to education in limited resource contexts. Kurten will work on data analysis, curricula, and teaching models to evaluate the 2016 LRTT programs. This evaluation will be used to help adapt LRTT models for 2017 and 2018 to bring quality teaching to every child, regardless of income or location.
Steven Kwizera – Airforce Secondary School (Entebbe, Uganda) – Kwizera will work with the organization to research reasons why thelteachers and administrators are reluctant to use the computers and printers in the school’s computer lab to more efficiently manage tasks. Kwizera will then create and recommend a framework that encourages the use of basic technology for the teachers and administrators.
Domenick Lasora – Innpactia (Bogota, Colombia) – Lasorsa will research, create, and implement a marketing plan for the expansion of Innpactia’s online users. He will assist the organization in their expansion to Mexico and Peru.
Emily Loker – South African Education Project (Cape Town, South Africa) – Loker will be conducting interviews with high school students, parents, and teachers to further enrich SAEP’s understanding of what factors affect student success.
Chelsea Miller – Arthik Samata Mandal (Andhra Pradesh, India) – Miller will be evaluating gender empowerment programming for ASM that will allow the organization to grow its programming. Additionally, she will develop a guide for engaging US donors to further ASM’s mission.
Anthony Nickerson – Barleti Institute for Research and Development (Tirana, Albania) – Nickerson will assist the Barleti Institute implement program proposals. He will also assist the Barleti Institute in writing reports and grant proposals.
Fiona O’Leary Sloan – MassChallenge Israel (Jerusalem, Israel) – Sloan will work with MassChallenge, a nonprofit startup accelerator, on programming, curriculum, and mentorship for 40+ startups. She will also evaluate the organization’s mentorship program.
Ross Owyoung – Give and Surf (Boca Del Toro, Panama) – Owyoung will develop a curriculum for Isla Bastimentos Community Center to serve as the foundation for the community center’s educational program model. He will research best practices, use participant observation to access the current program curriculum, and collect data from the organization’s other community centers to determine the best-suited curriculum for Isla Bastimentos Community Center.
Elena Aurelia Perry – Vital Voices Global Partnership (Washington D.C, USA) – Perry will pilot an evaluation for the organization, using the photovoice methodology, by employing photography and group dialogue to explore the impact of a program for young women leaders. She will analyze the interactions among participants and create a visual representation of their social network.
Colby Qualls – Albanian Institute of Public Affairs (Tirana, Albania) – Qualls will assist the UNESCO Chair at Martin Barleti University in developing research on multiculturalism, intercultural dialogue, and human rights. He will also assist in a project that is bringing awareness to the use of Information Communication Technologies as a tool within the European classroom for pupils in need of special support.
Vinya Raj – University of Arkansas Pine Bluff (Pine Bluff, Arkansas, USA) – Raj will develop a curriculum for a statistics course for the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB), Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. This curriculum will aid UAPB in expanding its initiative in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
Natalie Ramm – Comprehensive Rural Health Project (Maharashtra, India) – Ramm will be updating the educational materials for the Comprehensive Rural Health Project’s Adolescent Girls Program. She will be surveying past and current participants and program instructors to discover what aspects of the program could be improved, and she will conduct best practices research to ensure that the program is teaching participants the most updated information about health, the environment, and social issues.
Paxton Richardson – DREAM project (Cabarete, Dominican Republic) – Richardson will develop curriculum for the organization’s scholarship program to support student success at the local university. She will conduct a needs assessment with current students, professors, and DREAM faculty members, and research evidence-based practices to craft curriculum.
Emily Smith – Limited Resource Teacher Training (Kanungu, Uganda) – Smith will be working to develop culturally appropriate data collection methods to serve the organization’s monitoring and evaluation process. She will also work on developing a plan to measure the long-term impact of the organization and target population.
Joshua Snyder – South African Education Project (Cape Town, South Africa) – Snyder will perform a comparative study on the impacts of for-profit and not-for-profit tutoring organizations in Cape Town, South Africa.
Nick Stevens – Farm to School Arkansas Children’s Research Institute (Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA) – Stevens will conduct formative research for the organization, generating profiles of immigrant populations in Arkansas and identifying barriers and facilitators to their participation in farm to school activities. This research will serve to educate the organization, and thus better enable them to support schools, growers, and communities as they implement farm to school with this target audience.
Emilie Street – Give and Surf (Boca Del Toro, Panama) – Street will assist the organization with program implementation for the opening of their new community center on Cristobal Island. She will be using participant observation, best practices research, and collecting data from the organization’s other community centers to determine the appropriate strategies for implementing a similar model in a new location.
Andrew S. Trevino – African Prisons Project (London, United Kingdom) – Treviño will assist the organization with development strategies for expanding its law college programs inside Ugandan and Kenyan prisons. He will conduct best practice research on the systems around the law colleges, how to deliver the law degree programs more effectively in the prisons, and think about standard processes, time tables, and what risk factors are involved in the program.
Brandon Trevino – Awamaki (Ollantaytambo, Peru) – Treviño will help implement an evaluation plan to serve as the foundation for the organization’s comprehensive monitoring and evaluation program. He will collect data and create measures to assess the impact of Awamaki’s programs on the lives of the rural, indigenous women who participate in them.
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