This summer, 43 students in the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service Master of Public Service degree program will conduct International Public Service Projects. The students will travel to 28 different countries on six continents.
The Clinton School has now placed students in 89 countries since 2006 – 46 percent of the State Department’s 195 recognized independent states. This includes Namibia, France, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, three countries that are new IPSP host locations in 2018.
The Clinton School will be working with 22 new partner organizations this summer, including The Asia Foundation, American Bar Association, and Women Political Leaders Global Forum. There will be 12 returning partners, including Winrock International, Vital Voices, MassChallenge Israel, and Landesa.
“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 2018 projects are exceptional.”
The international service component exposes the students to unique challenges around the globe. The IPSP provides immediate and long-term impacts for the students and their organizational partners.
Work sites and host organizations are selected collaboratively by Clinton School students and faculty.
2018 International Public Service Projects
Salina Adolph – American Bar Association Commission on Immigration (Washington, D.C.) – Adolph will create a comprehensive report of resources and support for immigrants in the United States who are victims of the fraudulent practice of immigration law, and this report will identify the gaps and needs of the issue based on the availability of resources in various jurisdictions. This project will begin the process to provide national coordination for immigration lawyers and advocates who seek to assist immigrants who are victims of the unauthorized practice of immigration law.
Katie Barnes – Peacework Vietnam/Teach for Vietnam (Hồ Chí Minh City and Tay Ninh Province, Vietnam) – Barnes will be assisting Nicole Hellthaler with teacher training during the Teach for Vietnam Summer Institute. Additionally, the two will join Nicole Kanu on a civic engagement program implementation for high school students.
Megan Burrow – Arthik Samanta Mandal (Vijayawada, India) – Burrow will be evaluating the organization’s education programs. She will also be conducting workshops at schools in the region.
Mark Cameron – Awamaki (Ollantaytambo, Peru) – Cameron will serve as Awamaki’s Coordinator of Monitoring and Evaluation. His role will include organizing and carrying out surveys and focus groups, as well as developing and implementing workshops for Awamaki’s women’s economic empowerment project.
Joshua DeBruyn – European Community Organizing Network (Romania, Hungary, Slovakia) – DeBruyn will be working to increase access to money for community organizing in central and eastern Europe through research, outreach, and concerted action.
Rachel Cole – Arkansas Teacher Corps (Arkansas) – Cole will create and facilitate cultural competence and critical consciousness for pre-service teachers. She will also develop a monitoring and evaluation plan for the program to understand the impact of the training.
Connor Donovan – CESi Engineering School, Angoulême – (Angoulême, France) – Donovan will be working with CESi staff and local business professionals to help plan for the creation of a technopole in the city of Angoulême. He will conduct research to identify useful resources and services that the technopole should offer individuals and businesses seeking to develop new technologies and get them to market.
Dylan Edgell – Awamaki (Ollantaytambo, Peru) – Edgell will join Awamaki’s monitoring and evaluation team to measure their economic and social impact on both the Quechua and larger Ollantaytambo community. He will also work with Awamaki’s sales team to analyze sales data and provide recommendations for the organization.
Connor Flocks – MassChallenge (Jerusalem, Israel) – Flocks will work with MassChallenge, a nonprofit startup accelerator, on programming, curriculum, and mentorship for 52 startups. He will also evaluate the success of the accelerator’s program in meeting the needs of the companies.
Marina Giannirakis – The Asia Foundation (Hanoi, Vietnam) – Giannirakis will work with the Asia Foundation’s Gender and Social Development Office to assist and finalize communication and development materials for various projects. She will assist in the development of an evaluation report for the project “Protection of the Rights of Overseas Migrant Workers,” will assist the team with a new mobile banking project, and will assist in the finalization of a research report on women-led small and medium enterprises in Vietnam.
Starre Haas – Vote Run Lead (New York, N.Y.) – Haas will serve as the lead project manager for the Rural Women’s Initiative which will conduct political training for women that reside in rural communities. Vote Run Lead has trained over 26,000 women to run for office.
Nicole Hellthaler – Peacework Vietnam/Teach for Vietnam (Hồ Chí Minh City and Tay Ninh Province, Vietnam) – Hellthaler will observe and train teachers at their Summer Institute to prepare them for classes in the fall. She will also help to develop a new program, “Design For Change,” which is intended to increase civic engagement among students.
Mariella Hernandez – Give & Surf (Bocas del Toro, Panama) – Hernandez will conduct a needs assessment to determine the health and nutritional inadequacies that impact the local population of Bocas del Toro. Based on this, she will create a program plan and develop and implement educational workshops to address these issues.
John Jackson – Novulis (Ecuador) – Jackson will be working with Novulis and Agora Water to develop a safer community water system to address heightened levels of minerals including fluoride and fecal coliforms in the current local water supply. John will be coordinating with Novulis, Agora Water, local communities and government entities to generate funding, and address the issues presented from the affected communities regarding this issue.
Julie Joy – Canvasback (Marshall Islands) – Joy will complete an evaluation of the Community Lifestyle (Diabetes) Program to serve as a guiding document as the organization continues to improve its monitoring and evaluation capacity and processes.
Nicole Kanu – Peacework Vietnam/Teach for Vietnam (Hồ Chí Minh City and Tay Ninh Province, Vietnam) – Kanu will be conducting an organizational needs assessment for the Teach for Vietnam program, along with researching participant recruitment strategies. In conjunction with the marketing team, Kanu’s assessment will work to restructure their current marketing plan and work to increase participant recruitment.
Eric Kouadio – Limited Resource Teacher Training (Kanunga, Uganda) – Kouadio will support the collection and analysis of data across 12 different cultures in Limited Resource Teacher Training’s service areas. He will also develop and review the organization’s monitoring and evaluation tools.
Jason Lochmann – Mercy Health (Huancabamba, Peru and Fort Smith, Ark.) – Lochmann will help expand the organization’s medical mission by assessing community health needs in Huancabamba, Peru. He will translate and analyze the data to inform Mercy’s program development in the Piura Region.
Wes Manus – Winrock International (Bangladesh and Nepal) – Manus will provide a final evaluation for the past five years of Winrock International’s efforts of promoting sustainable economic growth, food security and agricultural development in southeast Asia through USAID’s Farmer-to-Farmer program. Manus’ work will determine the efficacy of past intervention and help to guide future international development efforts in the region.
Patrick McBride – Journeys Within Our Community (Siem Reap, Cambodia) – McBride will be creating and conducting an evaluation of JWOC’s Scholarship Program, which has just completed its 10th year. Additionally, he will be assisting the organization in creating a skills database and conducting a social network mapping analysis of the program’s alumni.
Christine McCall – Wesley College (Mwanza, Tanzania) – McCall will research best practices for servant leadership programs and develop a curriculum for Wesley College’s Servant Leadership Center.
John Mensah – Canopy NWA (Fayetteville, Ark.) – Mensah will design a research methodology that combines both quantitative and qualitative methods, to furnish Canopy NWA with a well-rounded, holistic understanding of the community’s perceptions. Canopy is a refugee resettlement program specific to northwest Arkansas.
Crystal Mercer – The Nubuke Foundation (Accra, Ghana) – Mercer will create a strategic plan for the use of creative mediums to fulfill the mission of The Nubuke Foundation’s commitment to recording and preserving Ghanaian culture. She will also assist in implementing artistic programming, including theatre workshops and poetry, that serves the patrons of the foundation and connects them to culture parallels of Ghana’s rich history.
Yaala Muller – Vital Voices (Washington, D.C.) – Muller will assist in the incorporation of a new qualitative data analysis software into the organization’s monitoring and evaluation program.
Adriana Ongay – Give & Surf (Bocas del Toro, Panama) – Ongay will be assisting in launch a new community center in Bocas del Toro that will provide the local residents with resources and services to increase opportunity and access to education. She will be conducting a needs assessment and program development.
Izehi Oriaghan – Landesa (Washington, D.C.) – Oriaghan will support the development of Landesa’s emerging campaign on Women’s Land Rights by conducting background research and helping to develop messaging and other communication around the campaign. She will also support other regular global advocacy and communication activities of the organization.
Wesley Prewett – Zoona (Cape Town, South Africa) – Prewett will assist Zoona in planning and implementing a series of financial inclusion pilots across underbanked markets in southern Africa.
Beth Quarles – Girl Scouts Diamonds of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas (Little Rock, Ark.) – Quarles will focus on developing partnerships within the Hispanic community with the intention of recruiting volunteers and girls to springboard into a Girl Scout program in the Hispanic community. She will also be involved with direct programming for the girls, work on community cultivation, and provide support to current members.
Kirby Richardson – Winrock International (Yangon, Myanmar) – Richardson will be working in conjunction with Winrock’s Value Chains in Rural Development program in Myanmar in order to assist with conducting data analysis and program evaluation. In addition, Richardson will be responsible for assisting with methodology development and internal capacity building.
Mallory Rusch – Women Political Leaders Global Forum (Brussels, Belgium) – Rusch will be working on final preparations and execution of the organization’s annual Women Political Leaders Summit, which will be held this year in Vilnius, Lithuania on June 6-8, 2018. Lithuania is hosting the 2018 event in celebration of 100 years of women’s suffrage in Lithuania.
Madhav Shroff – The Asia Foundation (Colombo, Sri Lanka) – Shroff will work with the Foundation’s Justice and Gender team and contribute to program development, program implementation, and documentation on commercial mediation. He will also assist with developing a proposal for fund raising to further develop the Asia Foundation’s work in Sri Lanka.
Joseph Stepina – Peacework/Vietnam Campus Coalition (Hồ Chí Minh City, Vietnam) Stepina will create a needs assessment for a civic engagement initiative. He will assist the Vietnam Campus Coalition determine how to increase civic engagement among Vietnam’s college students and universities.
Amy Stewart – Arkansas Community Organizations (Little Rock, Ark.) – Stewart will be organizing community members around the issue of renters’ rights in the state of Arkansas. The anticipated work will involve outreach, communication, and message development with diverse populations.
Sara Swisher – Awamaki (Ollantaytambo, Peru) – Along with two other classmates, Swisher will conduct interviews and focus groups to contribute to the organization’s yearly evaluation report.
Ravyn Towns – HIPPY Canada (Vancouver, Canada) – Towns will collect the stories of HIPPY Mothers detailing their experiences of familial and personal change they’ve experienced as a result of their participation in the program. She will systematize the findings from previous years and identify and publish findings on the emergent themes.
Allison Tschiemer – U.S. Department of State (Bern, Switzerland) – Tschiemer will serve in the public affairs division of the U.S. Embassy in Bern to enable the exchange of knowledge and values among Swiss and American citizens and to effectively advocate U.S. foreign policy interests and American democratic principles across various media platforms.
Clay Turner – LGBT Consortium (Exeter, England) – Turner will develop a map of LGBT organizations outside of London that will be used to identify potential members for the LGBT Consortium. He will gather data by conducting interviews.
Nora Viñas – Accenture (Washington, D.C.) – Viñas will be working with Accenture Consulting focusing on non-profit corporate citizenship strategy.
Brandon Wayerski – Ozark Natural Foods (Fayetteville, Ark.) – Wayerski is working to identify market opportunities for immigrant farmers who have difficulty selling their goods outside farmer’s market settings. He will interview farmers and local businesses to assess the feasibility of a food hub that would mitigate barriers these farmers must overcome to develop essential business relationships with local establishments.
Rebecca Webber – Kenya Relief (Migori, Kenya) – Webber will work in conjunction with the Kenya Relief staff to implement a new medical records system and create an evaluation plan which will serve as the foundation for a monitoring and evaluation program for Kenya Relief’s new clinic. She will train new staff on the medical records system, identify data collection processes, and create measures which will be used to assess the performance of the new clinic at Kenya Relief.
Brian Wegner – Cheetah Conservation Fund (Otjiwarongo, Namibia) – Wegner will create a comprehensive report spanning Cheetah Conservation Fund’s 25+ year history. He will also assist with evaluation of the organization’s guard dog and education programs. In addition, Brian will serve on the day-to-day operations to make the Cheetah Conservation Fund a safe and healthy environment for Cheetahs needing rehabilitation across Namibia and the African continent.
Marquisa Wince – Probation and Aftercare Services, Ministry of Interior and Coordination (Nairobi, Kenya) – Wince will work in partnership with the department to conduct an evaluation of the current treatment programs offered to youth offenders in Kenya. She will be supervised by Clinton School Alum, Florence Mueni, who currently serves as an officer in the department.
Karen Zuccardi – Avani Eco (Bali, Indonesia) – Zuccardi will conduct market analysis on North and South America for Avani, a social enterprise. She will also assist with road shows throughout Indonesia in key segment markets.
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