Re-Vision Labs has partnered with the innovative interdisciplinary program Three Degrees for the Digital Media and Learning Competition supported by the MacArthur Foundation. If the joint proposal is successful in securing a grant, Re-Vision Labs will create a participatory online platform to connect Three Degree’s interdisciplinary Climate Justice Seminar with host community partners in the high-Andes and other climate vulnerable communities around the globe. Please check out the entire proposal here—we are looking to find additional innovative and established partners within the competition to see whether our collaboration can be strengthened further.
Three Degrees, which is comprised of 25 graduate students from 15 different departments at the University of Washington, is researching how communities in the high-Andean regions of Ecuador will adapt to glacier retreat. At the completion of the 5-month seminar the graduate students will create climate adaptation assessments focusing upon 5-issue areas: health, food & water, security, equity, and justice. Currently, the seminar is in its first phase as pilot project.
Need the current scoop on education in the United States? Check out these links!
Week of January 4th – 8th, 2010
MICROFINANCE: Microfinance week at RVL is upon us! (Go check it out!) In the most broad of terms, microfinance refers to a movement that envisions low-income households having the permanent support of, and access to, high quality financial services to help reduce poverty. More narrowly, this term refers to loans and and financial services provided by mircofinance institutions to low-income clients. How does this effect education one may ask? A cornerstone of alleviating poverty lies in the opportunity to provide education. This crucial fact has spurred many microfinance institutions to focus on providing education loans and creating educational focus. ETC.
Viattana connects you, the lender, with students who need your help.
1. Vittana – Based in Seattle (yay!), Vittana makes it possible for person-to-person loans to go directly from the public to a student. 100% of the money you loan to Vittana goes to a high achieving student that needs an education loan, and as the student pays Vittana back, Vittana pays you! Pretty cool. Student profiles are uploaded to the site so people can see exactly who your money is going to! This is a great way to help finance someone’s education!
2. Janta – Down the coast in San Francisco, Janta offers the possibility of educational loans or gifts. This organization provides student profiles and academic progress reports to the financial donors, providing proof that education works to alleciate poverty and provide opportunity one person at a time. Donations can be made to Janta through gifts, that are tax deductible through the charitable organization Namaste Foundation, or through lending, that will be repaid by Janta’s microfinance institution when funds are repaid by the student.
How does Janta work, you ask?
3. Focus on Children – A faculty member at the University of Huston reviews a study that proposes to add a children’s education fund on to the microfinance loans made to clients. When clients pay back their loans, small business loans or otherwise, a portion of the repaid money goes into a fund that is reserved for their child’s education. It focuses on the possibilities of existing mircofinance institutions adding educational lending and program updates to their current offerings.
4. Stories from the Field – Kiva, another institution implementing mircofinance loans, has a fellows program that serves the purpose of documenting the lives of the working poor. This blog is very informative and gives supreme insight to the populations that can benefit from all kinds of mircofinance loans and gifts. This particular post explores how women in the Philippines have used loans to better their standards of living, allowing their children to be free to attend better schools in other cities, attend college and have opportunities that they would otherwise never have been able to experience. While this example is not based in the United States, it speaks to the power of microfinance and the inherent ties between education and alleviation of poverty.
Need the current scoop on education in the United States? Check out these links!
Week of December 14th – 18th 2009
PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT: Here at Re-Vision Labs, we cherish the deep importance of building community, however that process may take place. The education system provides a space in which family units can support a child’s educational goals outside of the classroom. The following links illustrate ways in which building an education community inside the home can help boost a child’s ability to learn and drive to succeed in the classroom.
Families help to build the foundation for student success outside the classroom.
1. A Strong Framework : A great outline for understanding the foundational importance of the school-family relationship.
2. Involvement Strategies : This is a great resource for parental involvement ideas and classroom projects.
3. Research Supports Parents: Science Daily discusses a study done by the University of New Hampshire that shows parental involvement has a positive impact on student achiever.
4. Homework Help: How much help should parents be giving their children with homework?
5. Profiles of Success : While an older source, this is a great resource for successful examples of parent-school relationships.
Check back for next week’s hot topic! Education is empowering. Enjoy the week!
Dave Ferguson, head of Global Development Commons for USAID, speaks out about the importance of collaborative partnerships and community surrounding information and communication technology.
Saul Garlick, the founder of ThinkImpact, a non-profit organization that aims to alleviate poverty by harnessing the entrepreneurial power of young people and students, writes about Generation Y and global development.
An article from World Water and Environmental Engineering extolling the virtues of Halosource’s water purification technology and global partnerships. Check them out!
Surrounding oneself with inspiring people sure is, well, inspiring! I am blessed with some stellar social networks I can call my own, filled with friends and family that continue to light my fire every day of the week. Driven by different passions, be it skiing, microfinance, or global access to education, my web of wonderfuls are creating communities and inciting change on a global scale. My challenge then becomes, not necessarily how to create my own passion-derived community, but rather, how can I use my skills as ‘networker extraordinaire’ to connect these pieces in an effective and meaningful way.
Martina’s marathon for microfinance.
My friend Martina Welke has put her dual passions for running and microfinance into action, training for the Seattle Marathon and simultaneously raising money for the local, Seattle microfinance operation Vittana. She pitched her idea to the the founders of Vittana, started a blog about her journey: http://martimarathon.wordpress.com/, and as a result is raising awareness in her community about the positive things that microfinance is doing globally.
Willy’s web 2.0 network for education.
Another great friend, Willy Oppenheim, co-founded the non-profit Omprakash Foundation in high school and with the help of a few dedicated individuals has since created an expansive, FREE volunteer database that connects volunteers with educational-based opportunities abroad. Their partner organizations are located all around the world, free-of-charge, and focus on issues such as access to education and global health. Their mission differs from most volunteer-based programs, in that the emphasis is on community engagement, awareness, and knowledge, rather than a strict focus on fundraising and donations.
Claire’s skiers for empowerment.
Claire Smallwood, a friend from my days on the slopes of Alta, Utah, co-founded SheJumps , a non-profit organization whose mission is to increase female interest in the outdoors and motivate skiers and outdoor enthusiasts to give back outside their tight-knit community. Her inspirational attitude and infectious positivity has created a physical link between the active, motivated outdoor community and given it a vessel to participate in community outreach and youth development.
Go forth and connect.
As my network continues to expand, I look forward to figuring out how to “connect the dots” among these differing communities. In the mean time- link in to the good works of my friends above, you never know, they may light your fire too…
Need the current scoop on education in the United States? Check out these links!
Week of November 9th – November 13th 2009
TECHNOLOGY IN SCHOOLS: There is a growing movement to integrate technology into schools as a new way to reach students. The following blog posts are great examples of how technology is employed to keep students active, alert, and engaged in both their classrooms and their communities!
Updates to classrooms across America include installation of computers to expose students to technology-based learning.
1.Youth Empowerment and Technology – The YMCA Youth Institute in Long Beach, California combines service-learning and technology to promote youth activism and positive development
2. Reinvisioning Education by Embracing a Digital-Age Learning Culture – Based on the International Society for Technology in Education’s 2009 recommendations for education administrators, the need to transform, not simply reform, the education system is brought to light.
3. What Is Old Is New Again – Free Web 2.0 tools can help educators easily update lesson plans in fun and interesting ways!
4. Basic Technology Integration Strategies – This guide provides twelve web-based applications to streamline activities in the classroom including document presentation, group projects, and educational streaming media for lesson plans.
5.Social Media Changes Student Culture – The shift that social media has caused within culture dynamics is discussed in terms of addressing this shift within schools.
Check back for next week’s hot topic! Education is empowering. Enjoy the week!
Three Degrees, which is comprised of 25 graduate students from 15 different departments at the University of Washington, is researching how communities in the high-Andean regions of Ecuador will adapt to glacier retreat. At the completion of the 5-month seminar the graduate students will create climate adaptation assessments focusing upon 5-issue areas: health, food & water, security, equity, and justice. Currently, the seminar is in its first phase as pilot project.
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