Updated January 1, 2013
What's Interesting To Me These Days
There are not enough hours in the day for me to follow every trend,
cause and issue in which I'm interested professionally (as well as
personally). Therefore, I have to budget my time and prioritize which
issues and causes I'm going to follow regularly. It's not an easy task. It
means leaving a lot of things by the wayside, unfortunately.
Below is a list of my current professional priorities -- issues and
trends that I'm actively researching, reading and writing about (I tried
to pick just five... and I'm leaving out about 20 other issues I feel
passionately about). With more time and funding, I would love to engage in
any of these areas even more fully. I'm also interested in hearing from
others who are involved in any of these issues and would like to work with
me or just to share information.
Often, I write about resources I find about the topics below via my
blog, which also features regular updates about this web site, and
resources and issues relating to mission-based organizations (nonprofits,
non-governmental organizations/NGOs, civil society, and public sector
agencies).
What's Interesting To Me These Days:
- The impact of rumor, myths and
"urban legends" on development interventions, aid work and relief
efforts, ways such have been addressed in various situations, and ways
to prevent such from becoming a problem that defeats a much-needed
program or activity.
- Ways that religious and cultural barriers prevent:
- the education of girls and women
- women from engaging
in business, from farming to selling things on the street to owning
a shop
- women from engaging
in government or leadership roles
- the use of condoms for disease prevention and pregnancy
prevention
and how various organizations and advocates have worked to overcome
such.
- Developing Sustainable Tourism
& Alternative Tourism
As a long-time, avid traveler for both fun
and for business, I've seen first hand the impact that tourism can
have on a variety of countries and communities, and benefitted from what
traveling has given me. I love the good
that tourism can do for small local businesses and for the
traveler as well. I'm very interested in initiatives that help build the
capacities of communities, particularly those in transitional countries,
to develop a sustainable travel industry that benefits local people and
appeals to a variety of travelers - ecotourists, adventure
travelers, budget travelers, business travelers, and women
travelers from any of those groups, not just luxury travelers or
package tours (though those are important as well). I created a page of
Advice for Hotels, Hostels &
Campgrounds in Transitional & Developing Countries: The Qualities
of Great, Cheap Accommodations based on my own experiences in more
than 30 countries, but I would so love to do more to help communities
create sustainable tourism, helping them to: create a variety of
accommodations for a variety of travelers, offer quality local
restaurants for a variety of budgets, offer safety for all travelers,
particularly women, ensure that visitors can get around via bicycle or
by walking, offer transportation to and from larger cities, and on and
on. Read more about developing
sustainable tourism and alternative tourism.
- Capacity-building in volunteer management practices in the
developing world
Everyone seems to want to promote volunteerism in Africa, Central and
South America, the Middle East, former Soviet states, and parts of Asia
-- the "developing" world. But where are the capacity-building programs
in volunteer management , which are, ofcourse, absolutely
essential for successful volunteerism to happen? I welcome opportunities
to participate in programs that create ongoing training experiences in
volunteer management for people who staff organizations that serve the
developing world. My volunteerism-related
resources are linked from my web site.
- Capacity-Building for nonprofits/civil
society in the developing world
So many civil society organizations are doing fantastic work, but lack
the skills on how to document that work and promote it to potential
supporters, as well as how to evaluate their work, record successes and
identify obstacles -- all of which lead to their being able to do more
fantastic work. I'm interested in efforts to help mission-based
organizations (nonprofits, non-governmental organizations/NGOs, and
public agencies) serving in the developing world to be well-run,
transparent, results-oriented and attractive to potential supporters, as
well as to build their capacities to publicize their efforts and to
cultivate support.
- Promoting mass transit and other alternatives to cars,
particularly in the USA and developing countries
I live in Germany, and I don't own a car. For the first time in my life,
and for the last eight years, I bike, or
use mass transit (buses, trains and light rail) for 80% of my
transportation. It has totally changed my perspective about mass transit
and using a bicycle to commute: finally, my eyes are open to the
freedom, the health, and the much lower costs these methods of transit
bring. But I've also now realized that, for the most part, advocacy
groups in the USA and organizations working to help the developing world
do a poor job of promoting mass transit and bikes to the general public,
and agencies in the USA do a poor job of making mass transit easy to use
-- for instance, bus stops in the USA rarely have information other than
what time a particular bus stops there. By contrast, here in Germany,
most every bus stop in Bonn, for instance, has a map, so you can map
your whole trip right from the stop. I'm very interested in
participating in helping to make mass transit easier to understand and
use in the USA and in developing countries, as well as how to promote it
better so that people from a variety of walks of life embrace its use.
- Promoting affordable, environmentally-appropriate housing
Living in Kabul, Afghanistan for six months, I was amazed to see so much
construction going on -- construction of buildings and houses that would
be energy hogs, that were not environmentally-appropriate, and that
would be incredibly expensive to maintain. There are alternatives to
this! It's renewed my commitment to greener living and green
construction for myself.
- Urban Farming
My grandparents have always maintained a garden, and their value of
growing even just some of their own food is something I have tried to
emulate. When I see huge lawns in the US, I always wonder why so many of
them have no vegetable garden or fruit trees -- if managed properly,
they use less water than a lawn. But urban gardens are more than a nice
idea; they provide any family with access to fresh, nourishing, low-cost
food -- something that people, especially children and especially in
urban areas, no matter the country, need more of. According to the UN
Food and Agricultural Agency (FAO) 10 to 30 percent of produce in
impoverished nations is spoiled in transit due to long distances, bad
roads and urban crowding, and impoverished urban populations face many
difficulties in accessing fresh food. FAO advocates expanding the
practice of raising crops and small animals on vacant lots, gardens or
roof tops in cities, as well as just outside the city in the so-call
peri-urban areas. Rooftop gardens only one metre square introduced by an
FAO project in Dakar, Senegal are yielding 18 to 30 kilos of tomatoes
per year, it said.
- Promoting online volunteering
I continue to research, speak, write and train
regarding this subject frequently, and the
resources I've developed regarding online volunteering are linked
from my web site.
- Programs involving the care and
training of "cast off" animals (dogs and horses, for instance) by
people in jail and prison
Every story I read about these programs blows me away. It is
transformative experience for both the people and animals involved: the
people learn both practical skills and life-affirming lessons, and the
animals receive love, care, training, and adoptive homes. More
documentation, research and evaluation needs to be done regarding these
programs, so that they can be undertaken successfully at other
institutions -- in fact, I have a dream of them being a part of every
prison on Earth.
- Education and capacity-building programs for women
and girls ANYWHERE
Even in Kentucky,
my home state, the value of education for women is substandard (for more
than a few years, it has had the lowest rate of women attending or
graduating from post-secondary institutions, and probably the lowest
population of such graduates in the USA). Study after study shows that
if you educate women and girls,
you raise the quality of life of the entire population (doesn't happen
if you educate only men and boys). In addition, I'm appalled by the
dream of so many girls in developing countries -- to become super models
or footballers wives, rather than doctors, teachers, business owners, or
footballers themselves. I'm interested in helping to publicize efforts
that promote the value of education and capacity-building
for women and girls ANYWHERE.
- Women and Girl's Access to Complete Information and Services
Regarding Reproduction and Sexual Health
This has been a longtime passion of mine. I donated my services to the California
Abortion Rights Action League and the Pro-Choice
Coalition of Santa Clara California in the early 1990s, and
volunteered briefly for the Texas
Abortion Rights Action League in 1997. I very much hope to get to
resume working for similar organizations in the near future.
- Educating USA Citizens About International Affairs
Americans do not receive much information about the world abroad. The
major TV channels provide little information about other people and
cultures, and their incomplete information about the United Nations has
lead to gross misunderstandings about the important, vital work of the
UN and how the organization is administered. Local chapters of the UN
Association, as well as other organizations, need larger, younger
membership and much higher profiles, in order to counter this lack of
information.
- Factors for Success in using theater
as a tool for development
This was the subject of my Master's
Degree project.
- Media Literacy
Lack of understanding about how to critically evaluate information from
the Internet, television and radio, as well as the proliferation of
urban legends, are leading to problems that aren't just annoying -- they
are a threat to understanding among different cultures, to development
interventions, and, in my belief, to our safety and security. I have
been stunned again and again when a friend, a family member or a
co-worker repeats some outrageous claim about a current event, a
historical event, or a culture only because they read about it on the
Internet, or heard it from a friend who has a friend, who has a cousin,
who claims he saw it on TV. From Holocaust deniers to people who think
the polio vaccine in Africa spreads AIDS, there are growing examples
of the lack of media literacy. As Internet and other networking
tool use spreads, so too does the need for people to learn how to
critically evaluate the information they receive.
- Appropriate technology for economically-disadvantaged people.
The term means technological choice and application that is small-scale,
labor-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sound, and locally
controlled. But in my interpretation, it is also technology that can
quickly and easily be used by people or a community, that can be
immediately beneficial to users in terms of creating income, improving
health or increasing literacy or education, and that can be built and/or
sustained and/or further developed relatively easily by local people
themselves, without creating over-reliance on imported resources. The National
Center for Appropriate Technology has been serving economically
disadvantaged people by providing information and access to appropriate
technologies that can help improve their lives.
Often, I link to particularly interesting resources I find about the above
topics, or to resources I create, via the Jayne
Blog, which also features regular updates about this web site, and
resources and issues relating to mission-based organizations (nonprofits,
non-governmental organizations/NGOs, civil society, and public sector
agencies). The blog provides a way for readers to post comments as well.
Again, I'm interested in hearing from others who are involved in any of
these issues and would like to work with me or share information. Please
click on any links within the bullets for more information and for contact
information (or, if there is no link, contact
me).
Quick Links
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by Jayne Cravens, all rights reserved
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