Summer 2007

Los Angeles, CA

In the summer of 2007, three GIIP fellows, Dmitry Kogan, Maira Sutton, and Judy Esber, worked with coordinators and community leaders from Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice in Los Angeles, California. CLUE is an interfaith association that brings people together to fight for worker rights and economic justice. CLUE organizes as well as educates the religious community in order to improve working conditions, raise wages, and give the working poor a voice in the job market and community.

The goal of the internship was to work on concurrent campaigns, improving information communication technology, making a more efficient work environment, and building strong bonds with the religious and community leaders. Maira and Dmitry were able to use skills they learned in GIIP classes to increase CLUE’s workplace efficiency by revamping the organization’s database. CLUE’s web site, a primary source for outreach as well as information was restructured and updated. In addition, publications and mailing lists were revised, and a long overdue newsletter published.

Judy was in charge of coordinating all the summer interns. Not only was she an active member in many campaigns such as Ritz Carlton Hotels Campaign and The New Sanctuary Movement, she also managed, mentored, and assisted interns in completing projects for their campaigns. Judy has been working with CLUE for two years, and has extensive knowledge on campaign strategies as well community organizing. GIIP has been a tremendous help to her, in that she was able to become a stronger leader in the community while also honing her technology skills.

For more information visit: http://www.cluela.org/

Summer 2008

Kano, Nigeria

This Summer, I was an intern in Kano, Nigeria. I worked primarily with the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) which is deeply involved in advocacy, training, and research related to the use of ICT for sustainable development in Northern Nigeria. Unfortunately, due to poor infrastructure and difficulty of acquiring technology in the area, the staff of CITAD has not had much opportunity to increase their skills and were anxious to find new ways to use technology for the organization as well as expand their training program.

Initially I was very surprised by the low level of computer and internet literacy within the organization. Despite being an ICT-focused organization, many of the staff were uncomfortable with computers and used them at much slower pace and frequency than what I’d normally associated with a “connected” office. In fact, the internet had only recently been brought to the office, so many of the staff did not have the necessary skills to use e-mail effectively or find information they needed. In short, the technology was there but there were numerous obstacles, such as incredibly unreliable electricity and power supply, limited English skills, slow internet connectivity, and more which all made a real engagement in technology to be incredibly difficult.

I learned to prepare for anything, be it a power outage, internet malfunction, absent trainees, late starts, or having three times as many people as computers. The scene of an air-conditioned computer lab with comfortable seats, projector for the instructor, and well maintained computers was a fantasy neither I, nor my trainees could indulge in. Eventually, the internet in the office was shut off not to be turned back on for at least a month, requiring some trainings to take place in a crowded corner of the local cyber-cafè as 4 staff members crowded around my one laptop.

The circumstances required me to constantly reassess my strategies and pay constant attention to my trainees’ progress and skill level. I don’t imagine that they will be checking e-mail on iPhones or developing database driven website anytime soon but I feel that my focus on capacity building and training allowed them to get a different kind of perspective on technology and how it can be used.

Summer 2007

Santa Cruz, CA

The D@PP Summer Technology Institute is a week-long program that brings Central San Joaquin Valley youth volunteers in the Digitally Abled Producers Projects (D@PP) to U.C. Santa Cruz. During their stay, the students learn advanced technological literacy concepts while immersed in the university setting, guided by staff and interns from GIIP and Fresno’s Center for Multicultural Cooperation (CMC).

Summer Technology Institute’s Objectives:

• To provide potential first generation college students considering applying to University of California with outreach materials and contact with counselors.
• Introduce students to new and innovative uses of technology by partnering with campus academic and research programs
• The production fo culturally sensitive, multilingual digital videos about college admissions, financial aid resources, and student support after enrollment, to be shared with hundreds of Central Valley youth
• Increase diversity, by increasing enrollment from the San Joaquin Valley, an area historically underrepresented in the UC system.

More information about D@PP and GIIP’s partner organization, the Center for Multicultural Cooperation can be found at www.cmcweb.org

Summer/Fall 2006

Chalatenango, El Salvador

GIIP fellow Gail Chadwin spent Summer and Fall quarter in Chalatenango, El Salvador, helping a local NGO preserve natural resources and improve the local infrastructure and economy. Working with the Intermunicipal Technical Unit (UTI) of the Association of Municipalities Mancomunidad La Montañona (MLM), Gail’s project focused on enhancing the UTI’s organizational capacity.

Some of Gail’s most exciting work improved the UTI’s utilization of information technology. She first created a database of possible grants and foundations to which the organization could apply for funding. Finding the right foundations proved difficult, but Gail’s final database included several promising opportunities.  She also observed how the UTI used technology over several months, and wrote an extensive assessment on how they could increase their technical capacity.

Near the end of her stay, Gail took charge of improving the municipalities’ internet presence as well. Looking to improve the local economy, the MLM wanted to attract tourists, but was having trouble marketing on a wide scale. Gail’s solution was to write Wikipedia pages for each municipality. When their original contractors didn’t come through, she also picked up the task of creating a website for the UTI. “I eventually grew tired of waiting and, with the support of the rest of the staff, completed a design and wrote content for the site in both English and Spanish… I taught two of the staff members how to update it, using Joomla!, a Content Management System, during my last week of work.”

In addition to her technical work, Gail got involved in the UTI’s community projects. She was the organization’s representative at the Intersectorial Committee for the Rescue of the Tamulasco River, and was able to meet with community members, representatives of nonprofits, and local government officials, including the mayor of Las Vueltas. She also taught English at the local school and to forest rangers who needed to be able to communicate with tourists.

“My work with the Mancomunidad was overall very rewarding.” she says, “I enjoyed working on all of the technology and other projects and learned a lot through my work.” Gail was able to use the skills she learned from GIIP throughout her project for the technical assessment, the grants database, and in creating a Joomla! site. Hopefully, the work I completed will help to improve the organizational capacity of the Unidad Técnica and the staff.”

Summer 2009

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

This summer, I was in Ethiopia working with the Institute of International Education’s (IIE) Leadership Development for Mobilizing Reproductive Health (LDM) program. The LDM program focuses on building the capacity of grassroots community organizations working in the field of reproductive health by providing leadership and health-based trainings. I worked with IIE and the organizations in their LDM network on ICT applications.

After arriving, I spent a lot of time with Hiwot Ethiopia and the Integrated Community Education Development Association (ICEDA). Hiwot Ethiopia works with youth in Addis Ababa to promote reproductive health, raise awareness of gender issues, and provide services related to education and sexuality. ICEDA works in a rural Oromo region not far from the capital. It’s a region where formal public schools are non-existent, and the rates of early marriage, abduction of young girls, child labor, and female genital mutilation are very high. Since ICEDA’s inception in 1998, they have established Alternative Basic Education schools in all of the villages, and are passionately committed to empowering women and creating safe environments for girls. Traveling with them to the villages where they work, and meeting some of the women involved in their programs, left me very humbled and inspired.

In terms of ICT, both of these organizations desired a stronger web presence, and ICEDA really needed a data collection system. Both organizations had websites, but they found them too expensive and difficult to update regularly or edit them when necessary. They were excited to learn about a free and easy-to-use platform where they can reach out to potential funders and partners, and raise awareness around the issues relevant to their work. In addition to teaching how to blog, I created databases, and held workshops on various topics including: Microsoft Access, E-Newsletters, and Offline Email.

I lived in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. The initial transition was not easy. The people were all very kind and welcoming but it was hard to adjust to the frequent power cuts and lack of Internet. At the time, the city was experiencing a power and water crisis, so electricity was only provided for only part of the day, every other day. For the first few weeks I spent a lot of time hiking around the city for Internet connections. There are many cafés advertising wireless, but unfortunately the connection was often too slow to work with or was completely unavailable. Aside from those kinds of challenges, I really enjoyed my work there.

GIIP-E initially partnered with International Health Programs on the first version of the Packard Reproductive Health and Family Planning Fellowships Database. This first project merged a half-dozen separate data-sources in to one uniform, secure, web-based system.

Fellow Maira Sutton, traveled to Kuala Lumpur (KL) for her six-month internship with Sisters in Islam (SIS), an NGO committed to promoting the rights of Islamic women. Maira worked in their Legal Unit on various research reports on family law and international child support agencies. “I was helping them plan and conduct their Mobile Legal Clinic, a workshop conducted in KL and surrounding communities to provide legal women and Muslim families with their legal rights,” she said.

On the technical side, Sutton also worked on their new Joomla! website, built a research a database for their CourtWatch program, and trained their legal interns to ensure that they can update the database on their own. “They kept me extremely busy with all the various projects,” said Maira, “but I cannot express how much fun I had with these incredible, fun, passionate women, as well as the amazingly rich, multicultural city of KL.”