Advancing Leadership for 80 Years

Earlier this year, World Learning announced the creation of the Advancing Leaders Fellowship, which supports alumni implementing original social innovation projects worldwide. We received more than 100 applications from alumni of all of World Learning’s major programs, who proposed projects on five continents that tackle a wide range of social needs.

It was difficult, but we narrowed it down to 10 finalists, who will present their proposals to an audience and panel of judges at World Learning’s inaugural Social Innovation Summit on June 5 in San Francisco. The judges will announce the five fellowship recipients that evening during The Citation Award dinner honoring former World Learning trustee Judy Huret. The five fellows will each receive leadership development and social innovation training and $10,000 to implement their project.

Read more about the 10 finalists and their projects on the NOW blog. Like and comment on your favorite projects to show your support.

World Learning’s Advancing Leaders Fellowship provides alumni with training, mentoring, and funding to implement an original social innovation project anywhere in the world. The 10 finalists will present their project proposals at World Learning’s Social Innovation Summit on June 5, 2013, and that evening the judges will announce the five fellowship recipients at the Citation Award dinner.

Varghese Chakkummootil

World Learning SIT Graduate Institute, Master of Arts in Social Justice and Intercultural Relations (2009)

Nurturing Leaders for Social Action
Strengthening and Sustaining Effective Leadership for Transforming Conflicts and Building Peace in India

Nurturing Leaders for Social Action will advance leadership and foster peacebuilding in four of India’s most conflict-ridden states. The project will address issues such as gender violence, human rights violations, trafficking, youth violence, religion and conflict, political leadership, and intra- and inter-tribe conflicts through a unique model that creates a ripple effect of leaders and changemakers. Forty peacebuilders from India’s most violent states will be trained in leadership and conflict transformation so that they can build their own “Peace Core” teams. These teams will in turn transform the lives of over 1,000 people that they will train in their communities.

About Varghese: Varghese Chakkummootil is the CEO and president of the Daya Center for Peace in Hyderabad, India. He has a Master of Arts in Social Justice and Intercultural Relations from World Learning’s SIT Graduate Institute in the US, and a master’s in Christian-Muslim relations from Vrije University in the Netherlands. Varghese has been working in conflict transformation since 2003, with a focus on building relationships between people of different faiths, ethnicities, and social groups. He, along with the Daya team, has trained more than 4,500 young people from different parts of India, who continue to work for peace in society.

Varghese believes that peace is the way and strives to work with local partners in engaging people in non-violent processes for social change. He is committed to helping people strengthen their peacebuilding and leadership skills to address the challenges that are arising out of political, economic, social, and ecological injustices. Varghese is a strong believer in promoting and celebrating diversity. He has the cross-cultural experience of training young people from 35 countries in peace building and leadership.

Varghese lives with his wife Reeba in Hyderabad, India.

World Learning’s Advancing Leaders Fellowship provides alumni with training, mentoring, and funding to implement an original social innovation project anywhere in the world. The 10 finalists will present their project proposals at World Learning’s Social Innovation Summit on June 5, 2013, and that evening the judges will announce the five fellowship recipients at the Citation Award dinner.

Kate Sachs

World Learning SIT Study Abroad: Madagascar: Culture and Society (2007)

Spiral Up: Building Personal Resilience
Breaking the Cycle of Poverty and Poor Mental Health among Immigrants in the US

Poor mental health among high-poverty populations worldwide presents a grave and increasing threat to development. Though the cycle of mental ill-health and poverty is increasingly well-documented, emerging research indicates it may be broken–and even reversed—by developing “personal resilience.” Personal resilience cultivates a skill set and personal network that empowers individuals with the tools they need to thrive. Spiral Up will develop and implement an Afrocentric resilience program for African immigrants in San Francisco, and will be one of the first pilots of personal resilience training in a marginalized population.

About Kate: Kate Sachs graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 2009 with a bachelor’s in social anthropology. She participated in a World Learning’s SIT Study Abroad Program in Madagascar in 2007, where she conducted research during her Independent Study Project on local definitions and treatments for depression.

From 2010 to 2011, Kate worked in Nyeri, Kenya, with BasicNeeds UK-Kenya, on one of the first community mental health programs in the country. There she conducted participatory program design and improvement projects among community mental health workers, youth living with mental illness, herbalists, and prisoners.

Since 2011, Kate has worked with CorStone, a US-based international NGO, to develop, deliver, and assess resilience-based programs among marginalized adults and youth in the US, India, and Kenya. She serves as research and program coordinator for all CorStone programs, including a multi-arm randomized controlled intervention trial of an emotional resilience-based program for 3,600 high-poverty adolescent girls in rural India.

Kate volunteers with San Francisco Suicide Prevention as a hotline counselor, where she has completed over 250 hours of non-judgmental, non-directive peer counseling for a predominately low-income population of callers.

World Learning’s Advancing Leaders Fellowship provides alumni with training, mentoring, and funding to implement an original social innovation project anywhere in the world. The 10 finalists will present their project proposals at World Learning’s Social Innovation Summit on June 5, 2013, and that evening the judges will announce the five fellowship recipients at the Citation Award dinner.

Max Perel-Slater

World Learning SIT Study Abroad: Tanzania: Wildlife Conservation and Political Economy (2009)

Maji Safi: Rural Centers of Disease Prevention
Empowering rural women and communities in Tanzania to prevent disease

 The Maji Safi Group (MSG) is a disease prevention and health promotion nonprofit that operates through a community health worker model in rural Tanzania. A core belief of MSG is that preventable diseases can be avoided by taking a community-led approach through empowering women and children to promote disease prevention. MSG takes an innovative approach by training and employing local women as Community Water Workers (CWWs) to be hygiene, sanitation, and health promotion ambassadors for the community.

Max’s vision as president of MSG is to expand the network of CWWs from one group of villages to a regional level by establishing Community Resource Centers (CRCs) that tie disease prevention and health promotion education to essential community services. These CRCs will be safe, fun, and creative communal spaces where CWWs can reach out to a greater population and focus on empowering vulnerable populations.

About Max: Max Perel-Slater is a San Francisco Bay Area native and received his Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies & Earth and Environmental Science from Wesleyan University in 2011. As part of his undergraduate degree, he studied with the World Learning SIT Study Abroad Program in Tanzania, where he did his Independent Study Project on the water situation in the village of Shirati. He continued this research the following summer as part of his Senior Capstone project at the Wesleyan College of the Environment. In 2011, Max worked in Kibera, Kenya, for the community-based organization Shining Hope for Communities, where he coordinated its water project and co-led its summer program for American University students. In March 2012, Max founded a disease prevention and health promotion project called Maji Safi Group (MSG), with a fellow SIT student and a former SIT lecturer.

Max lives in the rural village of Shirati, Tanzania, where he works as the president of the US-based MSG and treasurer of Maji Safi Organization (MSO), the Tanzanian affiliate organization.

World Learning’s Advancing Leaders Fellowship provides alumni with training, mentoring, and funding to implement an original social innovation project anywhere in the world. The 10 finalists will present their project proposals at World Learning’s Social Innovation Summit on June 5, 2013, and that evening the judges will announce the five fellowship recipients at the Citation Award dinner.

Divine Ntaryike Jr.

International Visitor Leadership Program (2012)

Science Investigations, Inc.
Popularizing science reporting in Cameroon to promote economic growth and innovation in Africa

Global development experts increasingly contend that a major reason for Africa’s snail-paced growth lies in the absence of a policy focus that promotes science and technology.

Frequently, they cite the emerging “Asian Tiger Economies,” where government decisions to “give science a chance” have significantly fast-tracked growth for an impressive number of hitherto impoverished states.

Science Investigations, Inc. (SCINC) is a science news service initially tailored for Cameroon, with progressive continent-wide, scale-up possibilities.  It will seek to popularize scientific solutions and shortcomings through sundry investigative reporting, thereby providing decision makers with insights on science and technology’s crucial roles in accelerating Africa’s emergence.

About Divine: Divine Ntaryike Jr. currently works as Cameroon correspondent for the Voice of America; leading local private television broadcaster, Canal 2 International; and prominent English biweekly, The Post.  Divine also works as stringer for several international news outlets, including the Associated Press, Think Africa Press, Science and Development Network, and the Africa Report, among others.

Divine participated in World Learning’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), sponsored by the U.S. Department of State in 2012, and is also an alumnus of the Science Journalism Cooperation (SjCOOP) program run by the World Federation of Science Journalists for emerging science journalists from Africa and the Middle East. Divine graduated with distinction from the second phase of the two-year distance mentoring course in October 2012.

Divine is passionate about getting more local and global attention for science reporting in Africa by moving science stories to the forefront of media coverage. Since his graduation from SjCOOP and his participation in IVLP, Divine has been working to move his idea from paper to reality via SCINC, a news agency designed to serve as a vehicle for the fruition of the initiative.

Divine lives with his wife Gaelle and their two children, Jessie-Berry and Dylan-Trevor, in Cameroon.

World Learning’s Advancing Leaders Fellowship provides alumni with training, mentoring, and funding to implement an original social innovation project anywhere in the world. The 10 finalists will present their project proposals at World Learning’s Social Innovation Summit on June 5, 2013, and that evening the judges will announce the five fellowship recipients at the Citation Award dinner.

Sefakor Komabu-Pomayie

World Learning SIT Graduate Institute, Master of Arts in Sustainable Development (2013)

Accessible Schools—Ghana
Enlightening and empowering people with and without disabilities through the media

The Accessible Schools campaign will use national television and radio to advocate for accessible schools for persons with disabilities (PWD) in Ghana. The objective of the project is to ensure that the government takes concrete steps to change the building plans of schools through the Ghana Education Trust Fund. Sefakor’s goal is to buy air time at least once a week in order to publicize her campaign. Recommendations will be brought out for the government through periodic panel discussions on radio and television about the inaccessible school environments and how they affect PWD and lead to negative effects on national development.

About Sefakor: Sefakor Komabu-Pomeyie is an educator, advocate, policy analyst, and writer. She is a Ford Foundation International Fellow and a master’s degree candidate in Sustainable Development—Policy Analysis and Advocacy at World Learning’s SIT Graduate Institute. She now uses her policy and advocacy skills to influence national policies. Her care and concern for fellow PWD won her the International Alliance for Women Award in 2012. She is a French teacher and the resource centre coordinator for schools in Ghana Education Service in Akuapem South. She has been described as a role model and leader for people with and without disabilities.

As an advocate, she participated in meetings of the 56th UN Commission on the Status of  Women, particularly during the discussions of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.  In her community, she mobilized local PWD, particularly women, to demand change.

Sefakor lives in Ghana with her husband and their twins.

World Learning’s Advancing Leaders Fellowship provides alumni with training, mentoring, and funding to implement an original social innovation project anywhere in the world. The 10 finalists will present their project proposals at World Learning’s Social Innovation Summit on June 5, 2013, and that evening the judges will announce the five fellowship recipients at the Citation Award dinner.

Shiri Barr

World Learning SIT Graduate Institute, Master of Arts in Conflict Transformation (2011)

Mind the Conflict, Cultivate Peace
Innovative alleviation of conflict-aggravating mindsets, to foster support for Israeli-Palestinian peace

Mind the Conflict is a budding center working innovatively to dissolve psychological barriers to peace within Israeli society. It aims to enhance the ability of peaceworkers and change agents to deal with these barriers amongst their target audiences. It also works with mainstream Israelis to transform prevailing conflictual attitudes. People exposed to its unique approach are encouraged to put aside their positions and explore their underlying mindsets. This allows them to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with fresh eyes and move away from one-sided and antagonistic perceptions, leading to increased support in a negotiated solution to the conflict.

About Shiri: Shiri Barr was born and raised in Israel, and is a long-time change agent for peace in her country.

After receiving her bachelor’s in social ecology from the University of Western Sydney in Australia (2003, with distinction), Shiri returned home to dedicate herself to fostering peace and justice in Israel and Palestine, and worked with different grassroots organizations as a project manager of joint Jewish-Arab community projects and as a facilitator of Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. In 2007 she commenced a Master of Arts in Conflict Transformation, as a Peace Fellow in World Learning’s SIT Graduate Institute to acquire skillful-means and an integrative approach to peacebuilding. While at SIT, she continued to work in the NGO peace sector in Israel as a coordinator, facilitator, and grassroots entrepreneur, while simultaneously researching and developing an intervention for dealing with psychological barriers to peace. This led to her current work with Israeli individuals, groups, and organizations to alleviate some of these barriers and cultivate mindsets that support social justice and peace.

In her professional and voluntary positions, Shiri aspires to combine change in attitudes with change on the ground—to create the conditions for a just and lasting peace.

Shiri lives in Jerusalem with her partner.

World Learning’s Advancing Leaders Fellowship provides alumni with training, mentoring, and funding to implement an original social innovation project anywhere in the world. The 10 finalists will present their project proposals at World Learning’s Social Innovation Summit on June 5, 2013, and that evening the judges will announce the five fellowship recipients at the Citation Award dinner.

Sneha Shrestha

World Learning SIT Study Abroad: Indonesia: Balinese Art and Social Change (2009)

Kathmandu Children’s Art Museum (KCAM)
Providing a creative space for art and culture among youth of Kathmandu, Nepal

Political instability, a low literacy rate, lack of access, and outdated views conspire to keep Nepali children from the joy of art. In conjunction with a public and private school, several community organizations and local artists, KCAM will be the first sustainable art space for Nepali children and youth.

It will facilitate two, six-weekend art workshops on Nepali culture for children and local artists, resulting in production of the first two exhibitions. This multidimensional project encourages children’s appreciation of their culture and promotes self-expression through hands-on art experience by allowing them to express themselves and reflect on their culture amidst the instability in Nepal.

About Sneha: Sneha Shrestha is a Nepali artist based, until recently, in Boston, where she created unique art pieces that meshed the Nepali alphabet and Boston street art. She has had several exhibitions and commissioned works in Boston and Kathmandu. She is an award-winning children’s book writer and illustrator. Sneha holds bachelors’ degrees in globalization studies and studio art from Gettysburg College.

Sneha is committed to using art as a vehicle for positive social change, which led her to work as a mentoring artist in painting and an education coordinator at Artists for Humanity in Boston, helping inner city youth for almost three years. Her passion for the arts, mixed with her concern for global issues, shapes Sneha’s work and her art. In 2009, a Kathryn Davis Foundation grant helped Sneha establish a children’s library for a struggling public school and publish three bilingual and culturally sensitive children’s books. The library is sustained by book sales and sales of her t-shirt line, MO:MO: NATION.

After living and learning in the United States, Geneva, and Bali for the past seven years, Sneha has recently moved back to her hometown in Kathmandu to establish Nepal’s first Children’s Art Museum, a space for Nepali children to express themselves through art.