Several of our students who recently returned from completing International Public Service Projects (IPSP) across the world will participate in a series of panel discussions Friday afternoon at Sturgis Hall. The students will discuss the work they did in partnership with international nonprofit organizations and governments. Here’s a rundown of the panels:
Panel 1
1:00 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. (Sturgis Hall, Classroom I)
Cory Biggs – Rwanda Judiciary (Kigali, Rwanda) – Biggs, a concurrent MPS/JD student with the UALR law school, worked to lessen government corruption in Rwanda by researching and determining ways to reduce the impact of misconduct or negligence of official duties among public servants.
Lindsey Johnson – Bo Hua Heart Hospital (Jilin City, China) – Johnson worked with staff and administration to develop strategies for public health education at a small, private hospital in northeast China that specializes in surgical procedures and seeks to ensure access for disadvantaged and minority populations.
Jeerawat Na Thalang – Rural Education and Development (READ) Global (Kathmandu, Nepal) – Jeerawat helped determine appropriate curriculum and content for literacy development training programs and organize training courses and evaluation processes for READ Nepal, an organization that empowers rural communities through education programs.
Panel 2
1:00 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. (Sturgis Hall, Classroom II)
Nathanial Owen – Nyaka AIDS Foundation (Nyakishenyi, Uganda) – Owen worked to develop a fair-trade system to enable women in rural Uganda to sell their handmade goods in the United States for the foundation, which empowers communities impacted by HIV/AIDS through development programs.
Kate Raum – Asylum Access (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) – Raum helped locate urban refugees and identify their legal protection needs for her the Tanzania office of Asylum Access, which works across the world to provide legal information, representation, advice and advocacy to refugees in their first country of refuge.
Sophia Said – Development Action for Mobilization and Emancipation (DAMEN) (Lahore, Pakistan) – Said conducted a study to gauge the impact of DAMEN’s microfinance program on the social and economic empowerment of women entrepreneurs.
Rebecca Swearingen – twocities art gallery (Shanghai, China) – Swearingen helped her host organization collaborate with local art galleries, businesses, charities, and community members to build a plan for a community art event with the goal of fostering community between local galleries and business.
Panel 3
2:00 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. (Sturgis Hall, Classroom I)
LaTrenia Byrd – InnoCSR (Shanghai, China) – Byrd developed a corporate social responsibility (CSR) factsheet for Bayer China, a multinational health care, crop science and material science corporation. She partnered with InnoCSR, a consulting firm that specializes in the innovation of sustainable CSR practices.
Kimberly Caldwell – West Coast Community Foundation; Community Development Foundation Western Cape (Western Cape, South Africa) – Caldwell worked to identify ways for two Western Cape community foundations to collaborate. She helped create a shared fund from which the foundations can offer joint grants and presented her plans to the organizations for implementation.
Gralon Johnson – Glad Star Ministries, Inc. (Accra, Ghana) – Johnson worked with his partner organization, which works to reduce the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Ghana, to create a more efficient, accessible and user-friendly client information database in its Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) program.
Judy Watts – PCI-Media Impact (Castries, St. Lucia) – Watts assisted her host organization with a radio project that focuses on climate change in the Eastern Caribbean. She created a manual for outreach activities and designed a measurement and evaluation strategy for the organization, which works to promote human rights through creative media.
Panel 4
2:00 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. (Sturgis Hall, Classroom II)
Mircha King – Labor Law Service Center (Shanghai, China) – King, a concurrent MPS/JD student with the UALR law school, worked with the center, the only organization that works to defend labor rights of the 4 million rural migrant workers in Shanghai, to create the capacity to become an independent, self-sustaining NGO.
Julie Meyer – African Prisons Project (Uganda) – Meyer conducted a resource analysis and needs assessment to help efforts to expand the African Prisons Project from its base in Uganda to Kenya and Sierra Leone. The prisons project addresses the lack of infrastructure and resources in prisons by building educational, health and recreational centers.
Rebecca Morrison – The Brotherhood of St. Laurence; HIPPY Australia (Melbourne, Australia) – Morrison researched evaluation processes at other HIPPY organizations across the world to find a program evaluation approach for HIPPY Australia, which works with families to prepare children for school and increase literacy rates.
Hallie Shoffner – PROMSEX (Lima, Peru) – Shoffner developed a fundraising strategy and donor database for PROMSEX, a nonprofit that works to promote gender equality, empower women and eliminate gender-based discrimination and violence.
Responses