Blog
Building a Foundation of Hope: Supporting Guatemalan Households to Combat Shelter Challenges and Food Insecurity
Over the past few years, vulnerable communities in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, have faced the triple shock of COVID-19, prolonged periods of drought and increasingly severe hurricane seasons. In 2021 and 2022, heavy storms affected 44% of the population in the country, resulting in the evacuation of 78,877 people and placement of 14,757 in shelters. According to…
Read MoreCollaborating for Impact in Kenya’s Cooperative Sector
By Tindi Sitati Collaborative partnerships are the driving force behind the Cooperative Leadership, Engagement, Advocacy and Research (CLEAR) program at Global Communities. These partnerships enhance cooperative sector growth and advance economic prosperity by enabling cooperatives to pool resources, share knowledge, access broader markets and achieve economies of scale. Through collaboration, cooperatives can mitigate risks, foster…
Read MoreArt Therapy for Ukrainian Children Helps Reduce Stress Under Everyday Shelling
By Tania Dudnyk Since the end of June, children from three villages in the Chernihiv region have been attending special art therapy classes designed to support their mental health as the war continues in Ukraine. The sessions, which will continue until the school year begins in September, are made possible with funding from the United…
Read MoreHow Vitas Jordan is Supporting Medical Centers through a New Digital Loan Product
By Lizzie Hickman The COVID-19 pandemic exposed weaknesses in the global medical supply chain. Shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators and medications made it challenging for hospitals and clinics to treat patients and contain the virus. In Jordan, where public hospitals lacked beds and ventilators, the government ramped up domestic production of PPE and…
Read MoreRecycling Cooperative in Brazil Gets a Boost from Young People’s Communication Skills
By Leticia Oliveira An estimated 800,000 trash recyclers collect 90% of Brazil’s recyclables every day. Many Brazilian cities lack formal recycling programs, so catadores (recyclers) offer a crucial public service and play an important role in protecting the environment. Still, they remain largely undervalued in their communities. Forming a recycling cooperative is no longer a…
Read MoreYoung Innovators in Sri Lanka Use Technology to Bridge Cultural and Ethnic Divides
By Jessica Ayala DreamSpace Academy, located in Sri Lanka’s Batticaloa District, and its co-founder, Kishoth Navaretnarajah, believe that the key to creating a future beyond historic cultural tensions and conflict lies with empowering youth through technology and innovation. “Facilitating peacebuilding is one of the pillars of DreamSpace,” says Navaretnarajah. “DreamSpace itself is … a great…
Read MoreProviding Professional Development Opportunities to Graduate Engineers in the Gaza Strip
By Ziad Bakri and Nour Zaqqout Seven graduate students are one step closer to building a better future for themselves and the world at large after completing a seven-month engineering fellowship focused on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) construction projects in the West Bank and Gaza. Global Communities welcomed the first cohort of engineers in…
Read MoreDirect Cash Assistance Gives War-Torn Ukrainians Freedom to Cover Most Pressing Winter Needs
The winter of 2022-2023 was expected to be highly challenging for Ukrainians. Continued Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure caused disruptions of electricity and heating as well as damage to unprepared houses. The ongoing war has had a disastrous impact on the country’s economy. Millions have lost their livelihoods, and among those who have not…
Read MorePass the Mic: Using Data to Improve and Adapt Emergency Food Assistance Programs
By Paula Rudnicka, Sr. Manager for Public Affairs at Global Communities Using reliable, quality data in humanitarian settings is critical to ensuring that life-saving interventions reach affected populations in a timely and equitable manner. While evidence-based decision-making should be a trademark of any emergency response program, data collected in crisis contexts is not always translated…
Read MoreUSAID CLEAR Program in Kenya Launches a Series of Cooperative Management Education Videos
The Cooperative Leadership Engagement Advocacy and Research (CLEAR) program, funded by USAID, Cooperative Development Program, recently developed a series of training and educational videos to capture the curriculums and materials developed over the life of the program. Cooperatives, SMEs, and others can benefit from these videos to learn about the basics of cooperative management, view…
Read MoreBuilding the Resilience of Kenya’s Cooperative Sector through Capacity Building of Policymakers and Implementers
By Olga Oyier & Maureen Gitau, USAID/CLEAR Program Kenya’s devolved system of governance has provided the country with an opportunity to implement grassroots-led development programs but also revealed technical gaps at the county government level, particularly in the area of public policy formulation and implementation. More specifically, the cooperatives policy and legislative reform process to…
Read MoreHow Policy Innovations Can Strengthen Cooperative Businesses in Kenya
By Maureen Gitau, USAID/CLEAR Program Registration of cooperative businesses is a challenging issue for policymakers and stakeholders in the cooperative sector. Under Schedule Four of the Kenyan Constitution, cooperative development is a fully devolved function, meaning oversight for cooperatives was transferred from the national government to county governments, including the transfer of powers and funding.…
Read MoreWorking to Build Economic Resilience in Guatemala’s Crises-Stricken Highlands
By Gesler Castillo Guatemala’s Western Highlands continue to suffer long-term impacts from widespread destruction caused by Hurricanes Eta and Iota, including the loss of livelihoods and damage to infrastructure and public services. The region is home to a significant portion of Guatemala’s rural population, many of whom rely on subsistence agriculture to survive. Unfortunately, prolonged…
Read MorePass the Mic: Reinvigorating Global Efforts to Reduce Maternal and Child Mortality
By Paula Rudnicka, Sr. Manager for Public Affairs at Global Communities In 2012, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) partnered with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Governments of India and Ethiopia to convene the Child Survival Call to Action, which galvanized unprecedented commitments from governments and civil society around the…
Read MoreHow Village Savings & Loans Groups Saved $7,000 in Only Four Months
By David Mbulula Garamba National Park lies in the Haut-Uélé province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), along the border with South Sudan. Most of the region is very isolated, but African Parks (which manages Garamba) has improved security greatly over the past few years, both for the wildlife within the park and…
Read MoreImproving Access to Safe Drinking Water in Honduras
By José Alberto Vasquez Padilla Despite possessing a large amount of water resources, many communities in Honduras suffer from a shortage of safe drinking water, which leads to a series of public health and quality of life problems across the country. According to the National Survey of Demography and Health (ENDESA 2019), only 50% of…
Read MoreUp to Youth Program Supports Sweet Entrepreneurship in Kosovo
By Lizzie Hickman Do you remember what it was like to be a teenager, to have the entire world of possibilities open for you to explore? Many of the world’s young people lack the resources to pursue or invest in their dreams, but that’s where Up to Youth, a five-year initiative funded by the United…
Read MoreFirst School Meals Served up in Madagascar
By Chloe Pan On February 6, 2023, Global Communities and its consortium of partners in Madagascar served the first school meals supported by Mianatra (“Learn” in Malagasy), a McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition (McGovern-Dole) project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). By the end of the week, a total of…
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