Education Bridge (Fall 2021)

Project Background

  Education Bridge seeks to create flourishing South Sudanese communities through education and peacebuilding.  As part of this mission, Education Bridge opened its first school, Greenbelt Academy Bor, in South Sudan in February 2017. Led by South Sudanese Notre Dame graduate Majak Anyieth ’17, Greenbelt Academy Bor currently serves 500 students in grades 9-12, and in a very short time, has become one of the strongest academic schools in South Sudan. In 2022, Education Bridge plans to open its second school, Greenbelt Academy Juba, in the capital of South Sudan. Greenbelt Academies seek to provide quality secondary education as well as to develop a generation of South Sudanese who are not only well prepared academically, but who also see themselves as peacemakers and transformational leaders.

Definition of Opportunity

Education Bridge has worked with Notre Dame DAT teams over multiple semesters on projects related to developing a peacebuilding curriculum, building enhanced opportunities for students, and enhancing international partnerships. Education Bridge now seeks assistance on how to successfully transition from a singular school to a network of schools across South Sudan. The goal of this project would be to research and create a system and brand to effectively manage multiple Greenbelt Academies. 

Definition of Success

 The development and implementation of a sustainable management and branding program that will enable Education Bridge to effectively manage a network of Greenbelt Academies. Systems should be implemented to make the management and branding process efficient and effective, including a database of branding materials for school management to access, communication channels for inter-school exchange, as well as other materials that the DAT team deems useful. 

Meet the Team

Final Deliverables

Vital Strategies (Fall 2021)

Project Background

 Vital Strategies is a global health organization that believes every person should be protected by a strong public health system. We work with governments and civil society in 73 countries to design and implement evidence-based strategies that tackle their most pressing public health problems. Our goal is to see governments adopt promising interventions at scale as rapidly as possible.

Birth registration has been called the “first right of a child” as it is the first official recognition of an individual after birth.  UNICEF has estimated that four out of ten children who are born do not have their births registered.  80 percent of the children whose births are not registered are born in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. It is also estimated that less than half of all deaths occurring in the world are registered. Additionally, the cause of death in far fewer of these cases is medically certified and recorded.  In the context of the Covid-19 sweeping the world, this is a major obstacle to focusing attention and resources to contain and prevent the spread of the pandemic.  

Functional civil registration systems and vital statistics (CRVS) systems provide the fertility and mortality statistics including the cause of death estimates which help to plan, deliver and monitor health and social development programs.   They are thus a key element in the governance mechanisms tracking progress towards national and international commitments such as the Sustainable Development Programmes.  However, the results in terms of timely registration of all birth and deaths; the ability to record the proximate and underlying causes of deaths; publish national vital statistics reports drawing data from civil registration sources are all far from satisfactory in most countries in Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia. Birth registration rates have seen a significant improvement in several countries in South Asia and in some countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.  But death registration rates and the generation of data from causes of death still remain a major concern. 

Definition of Opportunity

The objective is to move the conversation beyond the constituencies that are traditionally engaged in this area (demographers, statisticians, medical professionals) to stakeholders in the area of governance, public policy, public administration, the general public, etc.

Definition of Success

We hope that the team will work on developing, prototyping, and testing communications vehicles that the most effective communication vehicles to reach these audiences? Can we articulate the CRVS concerns of practitioners and scholars through opinion pieces that can take the content in such articles to a wider audience?

Meet the Team

Final Deliverables

The Vines [Food Security] (Fall 2021)

Project Background

 Valle de Uco (Uco Valley) is an agricultural region southwest of Mendoza, Argentina. Despite Argentina being a strong agricultural exporter, extreme food insecurity in the country. Roughly 60% of Argentinian children were living in poverty when the second wave of Covid-19 infections struck. 40 percent of children in Argentina suffer from malnutrition. 

The Vines Foundation is a catalyst for change in Tunuyan, Mendoza, empowering our community to enhance health, end hunger and overcome hardship so they might regain sustainable livelihoods. As the philanthropic arm of an Argentine farming, winemaking, and hospitality company with deep connections to international resources through our clients in the US, Europe, and Brazil, The Vines Foundation is leveraging these resources to meet the immediate local challenge of food insecurity, feeding about 1,000 children each month who otherwise go hungry. Most importantly, however, we are building capacity within our community and the organizations we work with, and seeking to engage local and national businesses, along with the government to solve this crisis of being an agriculturally rich county in which many of its children are starving, and thereby sacrificing their future. 

Definition of Opportunity

 The Vines Foundation is interested in partnering with DAT to explore building new skills and capacities for solving food insecurity in the agriculturally rich Uco Valley as a pilot project. We hope that initial success in the Uco Valley could be replicated first throughout the province of Mendoza and then potentially have an impact across Argentina. 

Definition of Success

Generate a clear understanding of the scope of hunger in the Uco Valley, including detailed data to be able to share with policymakers, community leaders, and donors. 

Identify advocacy and legislative opportunities to incentivize food donations. 

Determine the feasibility of an Urban Agriculture Program whereby donated land could be farmed, creating jobs and food for the community, or other creative opportunities for development that address issues of chronic hunger, malnutrition, and underemployment.  

Meet the Team

The Vines [Strategy] (Fall 2021)

Project Background

The Vines Foundation is a catalyst for positive change in Tunuyan, Mendoza, empowering our community to enhance health, end hunger and overcome hardship, as well as promote sustainable livelihoods. 

As the philanthropic arm of The Vines, an Argentine farming, winemaking and hospitality company (vinesofmendoza.com, vinesresortandspa.com) with deep connections to international resources through our clients in the US, Europe and Brazil, The Vines Foundation is leveraging these resources to meet the immediate and long term needs of the local community. Most importantly, however, we are building capacity within our community and the organizations we work with, and seeking to engage local and national businesses, along with the government to solve complex challenges. 

Definition of Opportunity

 The Vines Foundation is interested in partnering with DAT to create a strategic and inspirational mission and vision statement, which will serve as the foundation for our community work for at least the next decade. We will also identify solid guiding principles, and meaningfully engage prospect donors and partners to unite a force for good. 

Definition of Success

Generate interest, excitement and action in support of The Vines Foundation. Provide hands-on volunteer experiences for individuals to become connected to the mission of The Vines Foundation. 

Be an incubator of new thoughts, strategies and methods to identify and solve the ever-changing needs of the local community. Become a model upon which others can base their initiatives to effectively serve the needs of the broader region and country of Argentina. 

Meet the Team

Rusalia (Fall 2021)

Project Background

The Rusalia Resource Foundation (RRF) is a registered non-profit legal entity operating in Kisumu, Kenya with a parallel non-profit organization located in South Bend, Indiana. Founded by Dr. Juliana Otieno, a Kenyan pediatrician who was in the 2019-2020 academic year Inspired Leadership Program at Notre Dame, RRF works to empower girls in Western Kenyan by providing full high school tuition scholarships and mentorship opportunities, with a special focus on life skills education. Rusalia Scholars are expected to be “college-ready” and learn the value of education, personal strength, independence, life skills, and service to the community. The project aims to help girls develop improved life skills, including being able to handle social challenges and conflicts in an environment where they are independent of parental guidance. In addition, the program works to improve girls’ knowledge and skills on nutrition and overall healthy development.

The goals of RRF’s works are 1) To provide opportunity and create an enabling environment for girls to become self-actualized adults by providing access to an integrated support system including education, scholarship at high school and college, growth opportunities, values, and mentorship that would otherwise not be available due to the circumstances of their families 2) To enrich the academic experience of Rusalia scholars through mentoring and training from professionals and others with special expertise, such as health advocacy, particularly in preventive medicine protocols, and environmental management.

RRF has carried out two mentorship programs in partnership with ND Development Advisory Teams. The first mentorship activity focused on building an empowered girl child in building confidence, communication skills, and some knowledge on reproductive health issues. The second mentoring activity involved giving the RRF scholars skills to live in a new college or university environment. It empowered them to have people skills and networking capacity as well as preparing them for general college life.

Definition of Opportunity

Notre Dame students will work directly with girls in the program (RRF scholars) and with Rusalia leadership to explore educational and behavioral opportunities (might be curriculum, experiential, web-based platform, etc.) that address concrete responses to climate change. We hope to engage the RRF scholars to bring out their stories of experiences of the effects of climate change from their family and home perspectives. The RRF scholars will share their stories and in the process work with the ND students to create a learning platform. The platform will provide perspectives of the girls’ understanding of climate change and initiate a process of mindset and behavior change. The girls and ND students together will be involved in the development of a behavior change model for the transformation of society generally and the African community in particular. We hope for a process of joint design, helping the girls feel empowered to design programs that connect with these issues both globally and locally, tapping into the idea of“Think globally, act locally.” This might involve building a climate change curriculum or finding other ways that the girls can help lead locally in addressing climate change and environmental concerns.

Definition of Success

The DAT will help RFF support educational and leadership activities for the girls related to climate change. We look forward to understanding more about the most inspiring and concrete examples of the best programs globally for providing climate change education and engagement and translating these into the local context. We hope to take specific lessons from these international experiences and build them into our own programming, and try out many of these ideas, working directly with the girls in the program. 

Meet the Team

Final Deliverables

Rusalia and Climate Change by ND DAT

Bethany Land Institute (Fall 2021)

Project Background

Bethany Land Institute represents a new model: an integrated approach to fight poverty, restore dignity and care for creation. BLI’s goal is to inspire similar models that can revitalize rural livelihoods in Uganda, and its mission is to train leaders in rural Uganda and set a new standard for sustainable creation care, food production and economic well being in Africa. The mission is realized through three key programs of the Bethany Land Institute:

Mary’s Farm: A sustainable farm that conducts educational and mentorship programs in sustainable practices of land use and food production.

Lazarus’ Trees: A forest, which serves as a catalyst for a major countrywide reforestation effort and an education base for a new ecological consciousness.

Martha’s Market: A Savings and Credit Cooperative Organization (SACCO), which serves as the business hub of BLI and the engine for ongoing economic entrepreneurship of BLI caretakers. Among others, Martha’s market will set up, manage and operate a retreat center and a roadside market (to provide a market for the produce, a rest stop for travelers, and publicity for the BLI vision and programs).

Definition of Opportunity

BLI is a unique initiative, whose programs of learning (Mary's farm), renewing (Lazarus Forest) and sustaining (Martha's Market) offer a unique methodology of integral ecology that responds to twin cries of the cry of the earth and cry of the poor. BLI does not want this model and mission to spread solely around rural Uganda but wants to engage with scholars, students, and researchers across the world who will learn from BLI and bring their own gifts to campus. Therefore, BLI wants to develop an internship program at its campus in Nandere in which US or European students and scholars can live at BLI, both learning about integral ecology and Pope Francis’ Laudato Si as well as providing value to BLI with their presence and skills.

Definition of Success

Ultimately BLI is hoping that the team will help BLI understand the role that immersive education experiences (including internships and fellowship) play at BLI, and explore how these contribute both to participants and to BLI. The team will further delve into one of these immersive experiences (one designed for US students) and help design the program, helping set and manage visitors' preparation, expectations, field experience, reflections, and continuing engagement.

Meet the Team

View fullsize

Final Deliverables

Embed Block

Add an embed URL or code. Learn more