Thirty-one graduate students will travel across the world this summer to complete public service projects as part of the Master of Public Service degree program at the Clinton School.
The students will visit 19 countries on six continents and partner with government, non-government and nonprofit organizations on International Public Service Projects in areas such as women’s empowerment, environmental conservation, public health, education, mental health and economic development.
The sixth class to go through the Clinton School program since it opened in 2005, the students will continue partnerships forged from previous projects as well as develop relationships with new organizations.
Examples of organizations the students will work with include the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre in Cape Town, South Africa; Winrock International in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Heifer International in Kampala and Mbale, Uganda.
“The international project is a truly unique experience for our students,” said Clinton School Dean Skip Rutherford. “They have the opportunity not only to learn about international service, but also to complete a project that will have a positive impact on the communities they visit. We’d like to thank all of the organizations that are partnering with our students this year.”
The International Public Service Project is one of three, for-credit public service projects students complete in the two-year MPS program. They also perform group (Practicum) projects in Arkansas communities and final (Capstone) projects that culminate their Clinton School degree.
The students have worked this spring with faculty members to identify, plan and implement their projects. They are expected to engage in a project that builds on the knowledge and skills gained in the first two semesters of classroom work at the school.
Project locations and host organizations are vetted and approved by Clinton School faculty. Students and faculty will remain in constant contact throughout the summer.
While most students leave the country for their international projects, traveling abroad is voluntary. Students may also choose to work for international organizations in Arkansas or in other parts of the country.
The year’s international projects include:
Ryan Adams – McKinsey & Company (Washington D.C.) – Adams will work with the Social Sector Office at McKinsey & Company, an international business consulting firm, to assist clients as they address needs of corporate social responsibility.
Ashley Bachelder – Women’s Resource Center of Cambodia (Siem Reap, Cambodia) – Bachelder will research best practices to help the center achieve its mission of women’s empowerment through programs related to health education, mental health counseling, legal aid, literacy education and work skills training.
Taylor Ballinger – St. Christopher House (Toronto, Canada) – Ballinger will work with the St. Christopher House neighborhood center to create a staff guide for supporting volunteers with disabilities and draft a framework for programming to engage youth from West Toronto.
Alana Gattis Bell – World Organisation of the Scout Movement (Geneva, Switzerland) – Bell will collaborate on the development and implementation of the Messengers of Peace initiative, which is designed to promote healthy conflict resolution and decrease bullying in schools. Her work will include training of staff and volunteers for the program.
Shenan Boit – Lomaloma Hospital (Lomaloma Village, Fiji Islands) – Boit will work with hospital staff to design and create a digital patient information database. She will also provide computer and database skills training for medical personnel and community leaders.
Heath Carelock – The World Toilet Organization (Singapore) – Carelock will develop a business plan for the World Toilet College, which works to improve sanitation conditions worldwide through capacity building and training. He will also design an impact assessment of advocacy generated from World Toilet Day, an annual event designed to raise awareness for sanitation issues.
Kate Cawvey – Desmond Tutu Peace Centre (Cape Town, South Africa) – Cawvey will help develop a sustainable system for the center’s Schools for Peace peer mediator training program. She will create a curriculum and follow up activities, as well as a mentor mediator network, to enhance the effectiveness of the program.
Dustin Choate – Heifer Uganda (Kampala, Uganda) – Choate will work on the East African Dairy Development program for Heifer Uganda. He will conduct a study that compares the return on investment produced by Heifer’s traditional model of giving a gift animal and providing training to a model that utilizes a market-based approach to increase the profits of dairy farmers in the country.
Greg Cooper – Canadian Urban Institute/ Tigum-Aganan Watershed Management Board (Iloilo, Philippines) – Cooper will collaborate with government, academic, NGO and civilian institutions in the creation of a “State of the Watershed Report” for the Iloilo metropolitan area, an official government report about the sustainability of future urban development endeavors.
Fernando Cutz – Village Life Outreach Project (Shirati, Tanzania) – Cutz will work with the Village Life Outreach Project to develop evaluation methods and recommendation guides for the organization’s projects that distribute mosquito nets and water filters to local villages.
Nicky Hamilton – Desmond Tutu Peace Centre (Cape Town, South Africa) – As part of the Schools for Peace Programme, Hamilton will develop and implement peer mediation training in 15 schools in Cape Town. She will also design an evaluation to assess the effectiveness of the program.
Heidi Justice – MADaboutART (Knysna, South Africa) – Justice will design and implement an arts-based program for the most vulnerable youth for MADaboutART, and initiative that utilizes arts-based education and narrative therapy to increase children’s knowledge of HIV and AIDS to reduce risk-taking behavior.
Tabitha Lee – International Center for Transitional Justice (Cape Town, South Africa) – Lee will support the work of the center in its efforts to promote accountability and create just and peaceful societies by working to redress and prevent the most severe violations of human rights.
Andy Lewis – Building Tomorrow (Kampala, Uganda) – Lewis will conduct an evaluation of current instructional practices at Building Tomorrow’s primary schools. He will also design a teacher support and development system aimed at improving teaching and learning within Building Tomorrow’s academies.
Nate Looney – New South Wales Business Chamber (North Sydney, Australia) – Working in the chamber’s public policy department, Looney will gauge existing community support for economic development issues in Australia and work to build a consensus around future objectives for the business community.
Spencer Lucker – Village Life Outreach Project (Shirati, Tanzania) – Lucker will work with the newly built Roche Health Center to develop a monitoring system for a nutrition project that provides lunches to 1,000 students in the Shirati area to enable them to attend school.
Molly McGowan – Desmond Tutu Peace Centre (Cape Town, South Africa) – McGowan will partner with the center to develop a sustainable model for the Young Women’s Leadership Workshop, which focuses on complex challenges that women face in their roles as leaders in the workplace, their homes and communities.
Jasmine Medley – We Love Reading (Amman, Jordan) – Medley will work with We Love Reading, which promotes the love of reading among children, to strengthen its network of libraries. She will also be involved with the development of a reading program for 12- to 16-year-old students.
Andrew Morgan – Search for Common Ground (Dili, East Timor) – Morgan will work to develop internal best practices on reporting for the Search for Common Ground Radio for Peacebuilding initiative, which works to increase the knowledge and skills of youth radio broadcasters in covering conflicts.
Shamim Okolloh – Heifer International (Mbale, Uganda) – Okolloh will design and develop a field-based curriculum for agriculture students at Mbale High School. The curriculum will incorporate visits to local small-scale farmers who are Heifer Uganda project participants.
Marc Peters – Fremantle Headspace (Fremantle, Australia) – Peters will work to improve the quality of the organization’s school outreach program in order to promote mental health, social well-being and economic participation among Australians aged 12 to 25.
Alyssa Provencio – Clinton Guistra Sustainable Growth Initiative (Lima, Peru) – Provencio will review and analyze data on service delivery for the initiative’s Child Nutrition Project, which delivers nutrition services to more than 5,000 children and 2,000 expectant mothers. She will also document best practices and processes for the Cataracts Surgeries Project, which delivers 50,000 cataract surgeries to underserved populations.
Derrick Rainey – Creative Solutions Resource Systems (Zanzibar, Tanzania) – Rainey will work on capacity building through the development of curriculum and expansion of a student tracking system for a nonprofit arts and education organization. Additionally, he will create a music program to enhance the existing arts programming at the nonprofit.
Jessica Rice – Fundación Cruzada Argentina (Buenos Aires, Argentina) – Rice will develop strategies for program evaluation and help establish guidelines for implementing the evaluation process for an educational initiative supporting high school students in some of the most impoverished regions of Argentina.
Acadia Roher – Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management, Murray-Darling Basin Authority (Toowoomba and Canberra, Australia) – Roher will collect data and conduct a community engagement assessment so that communities can contribute to the development and implementation of a plan that will guide water conservation and usage for the entire region.
Jared Rowell – CARE International (Amman, Jordan) – Rowell will work with CARE Jordan, a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty, on strategic planning and programming for the organization’s work with Iraqi refugees. He will also be responsible for documenting the strategic planning process.
Anatoliy Shatkovskyy – Canadian Urban Institute (Kyiv, Ukraine) – Shatkovskyy will assist the institute with the implementation of its Regional Governance and Development Project that promotes regional economic development in Ukraine. He will also conduct best practices research on monitoring and evaluating national legislation for regional development.
Erin Stock – Search for Common Ground (Jakarta, Indonesia) – Stock will work with Search for Common Ground Indonesia to improve the organization’s quarterly donor reporting process. The project will look at how to most effectively gather and report the organization’s fundraising data.
Moksheda Thapa – Winrock International (Dhaka, Bangladesh) – Thapa will conduct an impact assessment of technology dissemination of Winrock’s farmer-to-farmer program. She will also provide recommendations for increasing women’s involvement in agro-enterprise and the farmers’ association.
Hilary Trudell – PCI Media Impact (Dennery, St. Lucia) – Trudell will work with PCI Media Impact to implement its My School-My Community program, an initiative that educates secondary school students through media and dialogue, empowering them to create positive social change in their community.
Stephanie Ryan Williams – The World Toilet Organization (Singapore) – Williams will work on the World Toilet Organization PERIOD Initiative, which focuses on improving the menstrual health of rural women and girls facing infection from using unsanitary menstrual cloth.
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