Thirty-four Clinton School students will travel to 21 countries this summer to complete international public service projects as part of the school’s Master of Public Service degree program.
The students will partner with government and nongovernment organizations to complete projects related to social justice, human rights, education, economic development and health improvement, among other causes. They will partner with organizations such as the Desmond Tutu Peace Center, Heifer International, Room to Read, Vital Voices Global Partnership and the World Bank.
“The international public service project is one of the truly unique experiences we offer at the Clinton School,” said Skip Rutherford, dean of the school. “These students will take what they learned related to communication, decision analysis, conflict resolution, leadership and social change in their coursework this year and apply it to helping improve peoples’ lives across the globe. We’re looking forward to seeing the results of their work.”
Six students will work in countries never before visited by Clinton School students, including Belgium, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Laos, Mexico and Turkey. One student, Laura Crosby, will have personally visited all seven continents after completing her project in Indonesia.
Four class members will become the first Clinton School students to serve as McLarty Global Engagement Fellows with the Vital Voices Global Partnership, a nonprofit promoting women’s empowerment around the world. The students will each complete a project related to empowering women entrepreneurs in Ghana.
The international project is one of three public service projects that make up 30 percent of the MPS degree 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.
2012 International Public Service Projects:
Mitchell Adams – Games for Change (New Delhi, India) – Adams will be evaluating the efficacy of using electronic games to relay social justice messages for Games for Change, a nonprofit that facilitates the creation and distribution of social impact games that serve as critical tools in humanitarian and educational efforts.
Todun Afolabi – Legal Resources Foundation Trust (Nairobi, Kenya) – Afolabi will partner with the Legal Resources Foundation Trust, an NGO working to promote access to justice through human rights education, research, and policy advocacy. She will be examining traditional community justice systems and proposing strategic linkages to alternative forms of dispute resolution.
Jordan Aibel – Multimano & The World As Home (Brussels, Belgium) – Aibel will help develop revenue models for the services offered by Multimano and The World As Home, two organizations working in communication in immigration around the European Union.
Nuno Almeida – ACORN (Mexico City, Mexico) – Almedia will work with two traditionally marginalized communities in Mexico to collect data for ACORN related to the effect of U.S.-based remittances on the livelihoods of children and families.
Stephen Bailey – Canadian Urban Institute (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) – Bailey will create a number of video productions, including a documentary, about the implementation of a project aimed to bring economic development to villages surrounding the city.
Dylan Buffalo – Grass Roots India (Ranikhet, India) – Buffalo will perform an impact assessment of a clean water intervention project led by Grass Roots India. His research will help the organization determine a best-practices strategy for future development projects.
Russell Carey – Desmond Tutu Peace Center (Cape Town, South Africa) – Carey will work with the Desmond Tutu Peace Center to develop a comprehensive web and social media plan, developing new outlets of information through social media and assessing the sustainability of the center’s digital archiving project.
Maggie Carroll – Heifer International (Rajastan, India) – Carroll will partner with Heifer International, the world hunger organization, to document the impact of a hunger project on the empowerment of women and girls.
Jake Coffey – The Centre for Health Equity Training, Research and Evaluation (Sydney, Australia) – Coffey will examine the direct and indirect impacts of Equity Focused Health Impact Assessments conducted on service plans.
Laura Crosby – Search for Common Ground (Jakarta, Indonesia) – Crosby will develop a sustainability plan for Search for Common Ground Indonesia’s Transformational Women’s Leadership Program, which supports empowering women in Indonesian society.
Mark Eastham – Massmart (Johannesburg, South Africa) – Eastham will help develop a sustainable palm oil advocacy toolkit in collaboration with the supply chain of Massmart, the second-largest distributor of consumer goods in Africa.
Trish Flanagan – Room to Read (Cambodia, Sri Lanka) – Flanagan will create a family and community engagement framework for Room to Read’s programs in Asia and Africa. Her findings will inform Room to Read’s Global Guidelines for Family and Community Engagement, purposed to strengthen community and family engagement practices across the globe.
Kelly Ford – Accademia dell’Arte (Arezzo, Italy) – Ford will conduct a process and impact evaluation and create a sustainability plan for the Crisis Art Festival hosted by Accademia dell’Arte, a performing arts education program accredited by Hendrix College.
Leslie Harris – Youth With a Mission (Budapest, Hungary) – Harris will work with YWAM Central Europe on their Five Cities: Support, Establish, Transform (SET) initiative, which focuses on expanding YWAM into Athens, Krakow, Prague, Pristina and Sarajevo. She will lead a needs assessment to determine the areas in which YWAM can provide outreach services to marginalized populations.
Francennett Herrera – Foromundial Atlernativo de los Pueblos en Movimiento (Mexico City, Mexico) – Herrera will research and identify unmet needs of the immigrant community in Oaxaca for a nonprofit organization that is committed to assisting at-risk immigrant populations.
Burt Hicks – Vital Voices & West African Trade Hub (Accra, Ghana) – Hicks will work with two women-led businesses to help them expand their operations and positively impact their wider community. He will focus on addressing the lack of access to finance and the challenges of small business regulations.
Nathan Jesson – Ultimate Peace – (Acco, Israel) Jesson will evaluate the use of sports as a mechanism for ameliorating conflict among youth for Ultimate Peace, a youth organization that promotes nonviolence through sports.
Katie Longino – Vital Voices (Accra, Ghana) – Longino will conduct personal interviews with women entrepreneurs in order to gain a better understanding of their challenges. The data she gathers will be used to publish information about women in leadership in Ghana.
Gina Lopez – Vital Voices & School of Social Entrepreneurs – (Accra, Ghana; London, England) Lopez will train leaders for public service and provide resources to entrepreneurs to solve social problems through community and economic redevelopment.
Stanley Luker – Heifer International (Manila, Philippines) – Luker will work with Heifer International to evaluate a disaster preparedness project, which aims to protect development gains made by the organization by increasing the abilities of communities to prepare for and respond to disaster threats such as flooding, earthquakes, and political unrest.
Matt Lyon – Grass Roots India (Ranikhet, India) Lyon will conduct an impact assessment of biogas generator projects in 15 villages in the Gagas River Basin. This will help the organization more effectively implement and maintain biogas generation projects in the future.
Papy Muntumosi – World Bank (Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo) – Muntumosi will assist the World Bank in establishing an open-aid partnership with donors to develop accountability procedures and foster the empowerment of Congolese citizens and stakeholders.
Eakpot Nimkulrat – Health Leadership International (Vientianne, Laos) – Numkulrat will develop an evaluation system that can be used to examine the Medical English Program for students at the University of Health Science. The project will provide recommendations to improve the effectiveness of program management.
Dylan Perry – Soil for Life (Cape Town, South Africa) – Perry will evaluate Soil for Life’s Home Food Garden Program to determine and address attrition rates. His research will assist the organization to amend or supplement services and improve its ability to address food insecurity in Cape Town.
Andrea Price – Belize Youth Business Trust (Belize City, Belize) – Price will work in partnership with Belize Youth Business Trust, Youth for Belize and St. John’s Community College to develop and facilitate an entrepreneurship camp for students.
Veena Rangaswami – Room to Read (Katmandu, Nepal) – Rangaswami will assess the impact of Room to Read’s Girls Education Program on students in the Bardiya region of Nepal. Her work will include interviewing stakeholders and presenting recommendations to Room to Read for potential improvements to the program.
Rebecca Scissors – Building Tomorrow (Uganda) – Scissors will develop a health curriculum for a rural school system for Building Tomorrow, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting education access in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Yana-Janell Scott – Vital Voices & West African Trade Hub (Accra, Ghana) – As part of a business-advising project, Scott will work with a team of University of Arkansas students to provide critical assistance to two women-owned businesses.
Sydney Shearer – Children’s Radio Foundation – (Cape Town, South Africa) Shearer will partner with the foundation to create monitoring and evaluation tools to collect data about program impact. She will also research and develop recommendations for the organization on youth-led program evaluation strategies.
Britney Sink – HIPPY Canada (Vancouver, Canada) – Sink will design a replicable tool to evaluate the impact of participation in HIPPY Canada’s program on immigrant women’s settlement process in Canada. She will work with HIPPY Canada’s trained home visitors to implement the tool via personal and group interviews to gather oral histories of the women’s experiences.
Christine Sumner – Heifer International & Jane Goodall Institute (Hoima, Uganda) – Sumner will work on the Sustainable Livelihoods Project assessing the economic, nutritional and environmental impact of Heifer’s work in the Hoima region. This project, aimed at conserving forests and water for both people and chimpanzees, is in partnership with the Jane Goodall Institute Canada and the Canadian International Development Agency.
Jillian Underwood – Canadian Urban Institute (Manila, Philippines) – Underwood will participate in grassroots economic development initiatives in the Philippines with the Canadian Urban Institute, which works to create thriving, sustainable urban regions across the world.
Kellen Utecht – World Wildlife Fund (Istanbul, Turkey) – Utecht will conduct research on and prepare a roadmap for more efficient water stewardship policies. This will include evaluating and comparing different assessment tools on water stewardship and their implementation in Turkey.
John Vollertsen – Canadian Urban Institute (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) – Vollersten will assist the institute in developing and organizing messaging strategies for the Eco-City Project in Addis Ababa and Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. He will design methods and manuals for engaging marginalized populations and creating community buy-in.
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