5 ways you can improve people’s lives internationally.

 

By Deirdre Schwiesow

 

“I know the difference between being in a job where you feel a sense of anticipation and fulfillment every day, and want to get to work and make a difference, and the job where you’re just marking time,”says the Right Honorable Lord Malloch-Brown, Britain’s Minister for Africa, Asia, and the UN. Lord Malloch-Brown received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa, at Walden’s summer 2008 commencement, in recognition of how his career has aligned with Walden University’s mission of applying knowledge to solve critical societal challenges around the world.

 

Lord Malloch-Brown began his career as a journalist with The Economist. He then made a transition to humanitarian and development work because “the story just looked too exciting from the other side—I was more of a doer than an observer.” Like him, many feel called to make a difference on the international level, either by addressing a specific need in a foreign country or by working on global issues. This feeling is particularly true within the Walden community, which attracts students, faculty, and staff who are driven to improve the lives of others.

 

The most direct ways to improve people’s lives internationally include working in development or for nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. These avenues, traditionally somewhat separate, are becoming increasingly connected and interdependent. Lord Malloch-Brown explains that the success of large, intergovernmental development organizations, such as the World Bank or the United Nations, “depends on a network of partners who are much smaller—not-for-profit, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),” some international and some local, such as church groups and community groups.

 

His wife, Lady Malloch-Brown, a philanthropist and board member of Refugees International, agrees that “the lines are much more blurred now than they used to be” between philanthropic organizations, nonprofits, corporations, and governmental organizations.

 

“Bringing all the sectors—corporate, nonprofit, government—together is the way to go to make real changes,” says Dr. Mark Gordon, a recipient of the 2006 Extraordinary Faculty Award forWalden’s School of Public Policy and Administration and the director of Walden’s new M.S. in Nonprofit Management and Leadership program (see page 22). He describes the challenge of making a difference internationally as taking “a holistic approach—not just treating one problem, but a whole system.” He hopes that his students will be inspired to effect systemic change by “leading the conversation, creating the agenda, bringing people into the process. When people come together, they can accomplish anything.”

 

Opportunities to Make a Difference

 

For those who want to make a difference internationally, Lord Malloch-Brown sees tremendous opportunities: “We have a host of ways, these days, of changing the world around us,” he says. “Just about every theater of action is no longer in the hands just of government—the means of making a difference through activism and involvement in the community, in one’s country, in the world, have never been so many as they are today.

 

“Walden alums are natural leaders,” he says. “If they put themselves behind the goal of international development—whether they do it by going to a developing country or whether they do it from back home—they can make a real difference.” As an example, he cites Walden graduate Dr. Lydia Apori-Nkansah and her work in international peace-building through restorative justice (see page 26): “The fact that she has done her Ph.D. in this area and is herself a practitioner involved in management and government in West Africa is a real tribute to Walden as well as to her.”

 

Here, members of the Walden community share their experiences of creating positive social change in the international arena, in the context of different avenues one can pursue to make a difference at the global level.

 

 

The Power of a Nonprofit

 

In the international development arena, says Lord Malloch-Brown, “There’s a huge premium placed on experience.” He notes that one common career path is to “start in the not-for-profit, NGO sector, and then use that experience as the credential to get a job in one of these bigger international public organizations.” And Lady Malloch-Brown predicts that the wave of the future will include more “partnerships between NGOs and big companies or consultancies” and that “small organizations are now working in what would be traditional development activities,” where they can have a big impact.

 

Uchenna Ekwo, a journalist and doctoral candidate in Walden’s Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration program, has been an effective advocate for positive social change in the arenas of peace-building, freedom of the press, and human rights through his work as a journalist and teacher, both in his native Nigeria and now in New York, where he is the director of the nonprofit Center for Media and Peace Initiative.

 

“The media, in my assessment, should be the last line of defense for the agents of change,” Ekwo says. Professionally and academically, he is focused on “what the media can do to improve civilization and cross-cultural understanding.” In Nigeria, he has played a leading role in championing freedom of the press from the control of the (then) military government and fighting against corruption in the media; his many accomplishments there included securing the release of two reporters from jail and helping to form the National Association of Women Journalists.

 

While he accepts that the constraints of needing to make a profit will influence media content, he feels that “media owes society the objective truth” and that an international embrace of basic journalistic ethics will help bring a more balanced view of global issues. He is particularly concerned with the influence of the Western media in terms of promulgating stereotypes about Africa and concerned that, because of media convergence and the domination of major media by just a few owners, “one person really can have the power to truncate democracy.”

 

The media, Ekwo explains, thrive “on controversy and conflict.” But, he says, in any conflict between two parties, there’s always a third party whose perspective should be included, “because that’s the party that’s interested in bringing about peace.”

 

 

Fundraising for a Cause

 

“In 50 seconds, 80,000 people or more lost their lives,” says Lady Malloch-Brown of the earthquake in Kashmir in October 2006. Witnessing the devastation of the earthquake firsthand prompted her to take action, and she partnered with another woman to raise $200,000 to fund three projects in the affected communities: a school for the area’s poorest children, a combined irrigation and sanitation project, and a mobile blood transfusion center. “Along the way,” she adds, she was drawn into two other projects—rebuilding a village that “basically fell off the mountain” and partnering with a doctor at UNICEF on a project to transform health care in Kashmir using cell phone SIM card technology.

 

Although this example shows the value of raising money quickly to address a crisis, ongoing fundraising is important for long-term projects, such as the decade- plus work of Dr. Larry Flegle, a faculty member in Walden’s College of Management and Technology. Flegle was a pastor’s son brought up in a home of public service, he says. In 1994, Flegle’s church hosted a presentation by a doctor who was volunteering in Thailand. Soon after, “I woke up one morning and felt very compelled to call him,” Flegle says, “and I told him that my wife, daughter, and I would go to Thailand and help him with a conference.”

 

Once there, Flegle fell in love with the country. In Nan, Thailand, he met the headmaster of the Love Thy Neighbor Dormitory, a home for children whose parents were too poor to raise them— children who might otherwise end up in prostitution or drug trafficking. The dormitory was having trouble finding the $24 a month per child needed to continue. So on Flegle’s return to the U.S., he incorporated a foundation to support the dormitory, and since 1995, he has raised $1.4 million—50 percent of the total funds needed for the children in that time. (Another agency provides the other 50 percent.)

 

Flegle raises the funds primarily at church-related events. “I just make people aware of the need,” he says. “It’s not a high-pressure thing.” He also goes to Christian conferences and gives slide shows about the dormitory to generate donations, and he sells crafts, such as needlework pillowcases, made by the girls in the dormitory. Flegle’s church committed to covering the administrative costs for the foundation, “so 100 percent of the donor money goes directly to the children,” he explains.

 

Funds are sent to an American oversight person in Thailand, who distributes the money as needed. “You have to do due diligence when dealing with people of other cultures,” he notes, “so establishing a relationship with someone like a professor or fellow Walden student who has a connection to the country that interests you would be a positive way to proceed.”

 

Thanks to the donations, the dormitory’s 100 children—from Hmong or Mien Yao tribes—are fed, clothed, housed, sent to public school, and taught English (“Just by teaching them English, we ensure their economic future,” Flegle explains). As the children get older (they live in the dormitory until they are 19), they are taught a trade.

 

Flegle doesn’t second-guess his call to serve: “God impressed Thailand on my heart, and I said, ‘OK.’”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Called to Give

 

 

 

 

A career in philanthropy is often seen as the province of the rich and powerful. But the main criterion is having the drive to make a difference. As Lady Malloch-Brown says, “If you can make a difference in one life, that should be important—whether it’s getting them medical care, getting them water, or connecting them with their community again—if you forget that one person is just as important as 100,000, then you’ve missed the picture.”

 

Magdalena LaVerdiere, who received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Walden in 2005, is evidence of what can happen when one ordinary person dedicates herself or himself to philanthropy. LaVerdiere didn’t plan to close her practice in order to work as a full-time volunteer for a nonprofit development organization. But, four years ago, when she and her husband learned about the work being done by Miracles in Action, an American group interested in improving Mayan life in Guatemala, they felt compelled to get involved.

 

LaVerdiere and her husband started by donating a water system to a rural village. But after watching a video made by Miracles in Action, her focused changed. “In the video, they asked the villagers in the town of Canton San Antonio what was their most pressing need; they said constructing a school was more important than having running water,” LaVerdiere recalls. This realization led her and her husband to sponsor the construction of a five-room school in the village of Canton San Antonio.

 

“We donated the funds to buy the materials, the villagers did the building, and a professor who operates a nonprofit in Guatemala oversaw the construction,” she says. In January 2008, LaVerdiere presided over the opening of the school, where the 180 students include both boys and girls; a condition for LaVerdiere’s sponsorship was that the parents would commit to sending their daughters to school as well as their sons.

 

“Providing them with the opportunity to read and write improves their lives by allowing them to learn a trade,” LaVerdiere explains. “And improving their quality of life helps them to stay where they are. They love their country and want to stay there; they just want the basics—running water, safe homes, schools for their kids.” In addition, because most of the homes in the village don’t have stoves—and the open fire pits in unventilated rooms cause respiratory problems for the children, who are also often accidentally burned—LaVerdiere donated more than 80 safe, ventilated stoves to the villagers.

 

Stateside, LaVerdiere now serves as director on the Board of Directors for Miracles in Action, which has no paid employees (100 percent of donor funds go directly toward the projects). She says, “Sustainable development is what I’m interested in doing. We’re not giving people handouts, we’re giving them a hand up.”

 

LaVerdiere notes that working together with your community to raise funds for a project is a great way to make a larger impact than you could make on your own. “There are so many opportunities to volunteer,” she emphasizes. “It’s incredible to see what people can do when it tugs at their heart, if they just take that step of contacting an organization.”

 

 

A Different Kind of Vacation 

 

A philanthropic sabbatical or extended working vacation is a way to make an impact without actually switching careers. Lady Malloch-Brown suggests that businesspeople take sabbaticals of several weeks or months—or take time between jobs— to work with an organization on the ground overseas. With this kind of arrangement, she says, “the experience and the excitement that this individual gets is just huge—you can lend your expertise but get something back.”

 

A. Marlene Klingeman, an M.S. in Psychology graduate who received Walden’s 2006 Outstanding Thesis Award for her work on bipolar disorder, was recovering from brain surgery after a stroke when an earthquake hit El Salvador in January 2001. Klingeman, who lives with her husband in the country’s capital, San Salvador, took advantage of her necessary “sabbatical” to begin a long-term aid project in a small mountain village. “I just felt grateful to be alive,” she says, “and I wanted to give back, but I wanted to do it in a tangible way, where I could see where my money was going and get my hands dirty.”

 

Klingeman began searching for a project that called to her, and found one in San Juan Buenavista, a pueblo of 5,000 people—most of them illiterate—whose clinic was destroyed in the quake. She decided to devote her own time and funds to rebuild the clinic, and spent six months just locating skilled labor and adequate transportation for the project. (Although the town would normally be a half-hour trip from San Salvador, the roads were so damaged that each trip could take as long as three hours.)

 

It then took another year to get the clinic functional again. Klingeman went to the village every day, taking workers and supplies, and was completely hands-on. “I was not working at the time,” she explains. “The project required that kind of flexibility because of how difficult it was to put it together.” Many times during the process she felt so discouraged by the challenges— such as lack of electricity and running water—that she was tempted to quit. But her experience with Walden (where she had begun to study) inspired her to keep going, to “take charge and make sure things were getting done.” She also raised funds from family, friends, and her family’s church.

 

Today, the clinic is functional and Klingeman has a practice as a life coach, but she is still actively involved in the community, where it’s still a struggle to get consistent running water. She says, “The reward is when I go up there and see the little kids standing in line and getting the medical services, like vaccines and antibiotics, that other people take for granted, and knowing I made it possible.”

 

 

 

The Doctoral Difference

 

When it comes to affecting policy on an international level, there’s no substitute for the knowledge and credibility conferred by a Ph.D. “Degrees really matter,” says Lord Malloch-Brown. “For example, in the U.N. or the World Bank, you can’t be hired at the professional level anymore without a second degree—preferably a Ph.D.”

 

And Gordon adds, “One thing that has happened with the professionalization of the sector is that, as the sector matures, so do the expectations of the skills required. As that happens, degrees become more important to get those leadership jobs and make big changes.”

 

“Getting a Ph.D. really gives you legitimacy,” says Kenneth Davis, who is completing his dissertation for his Walden Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration. “Obviously, there are financial benefits, but to play at a senior level, you really need a Ph.D. to be taken seriously, and it also gives you a seat at the table with some bigger players.” Davis, a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps, has balanced philanthropic and relief work with the Marines with his personal interest in addressing the global effects of deindustrialization.

 

Davis, who is currently the academics officer at the Financial Management School in Jacksonville, N.C., has been deployed throughout Asia, where his work with the Marines included building schools and homes, assisting with free democratic elections, and promoting free medical care in developing nations. In emergency situations, such as tsunamis, hurricanes, and earthquakes, “the collective group needs to take care of each other” with humanitarian relief, he says.

 

At the same time, Davis looks forward to using the skills in policy analysis he has been developing in his doctoral program to address more systemic international challenges. The industrialized world, he explains, tends to look at “symptoms, rather than on what’s really going on globally.”

 

Also completing his dissertation in Public Policy and Administration is James Kollie. Kollie grew up “very, very poor” in Liberia, but through “a combination of luck and determination,” he was able to change his circumstances: he had the opportunity to go to public school, did well, and ultimately earned a scholarship to college.

 

A job as an accountant for a nonprofit in his country’s capital city of Monrovia gave him extensive experience with international development programs, and he saw that while “the nonprofit The Doctoral Difference 5 community has good intentions,” it’s not always effective. Often, he explains, “no one does program evaluation to see if the program is actually meeting the development needs of the people in Africa. The international development community continues to spend billions of dollars, and the people in Africa still live in abject poverty.”

 

After several years, Kollie obtained a visa to come to the U.S., where he has been working as an accountant and pursuing graduate education; he earned an M.B.A. from the University of St. Thomas before beginning the doctoral program at Walden. His focus of study has been on Public Policy Analysis and Evaluation, and he intends to return to Liberia to set up a think tank to evaluate development work there.

 

“We need to step back and find out exactly what the problems are and address the problems on a case-by-case basis,” he says. For instance, microfinance— loaning small amounts of capital to individuals or small groups—has lately become a popular tool for development. But, says Kollie, “capital is for people with entrepreneurial skills. If they don’t have the skills, then they will squander the capital. There has to be a way for government to work with NGOs to ensure that policies will add value.”

 

 

 

 

 

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