Country: Haiti | Date Range: Fall 2015 | Website

The Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) has been working closely with the Congregation of Holy Cross in Haiti (CSC Haiti) since 2011. CSC Haiti runs two flagship K-12 schools in Haiti in Cap-Haitien and Port-au-Prince and also has a network of 20 additional rural, under-resourced schools in the Northern and Southern regions of the country. CSC Haiti wants to improve the quality of education in these rural schools, where access to resources and quality teaching staff is a challenge due to the schools’ remote location and inability to adequately compensate faculty and staff. ACE in Haiti has made it a strategic priority to work alongside CSC Haiti to improve the quality of education in these rural schools.

Country: Chile | Date Range: Spring - Fall 2013 | Website

América Solidaria aims to promote effective volunteer engagement among the countries of the Americas. The main objective of the organization is to promote regional and multilateral development between the different countries of the continent. América Solidaria aims to accomplish this through volunteer networks of young professionals who work with a sense of professionalism and social awareness to promote social integration and solidarity in the countries where they have been placed.  Founded in Chile, América Solidaria now works throughout South America and the Caribbean and would like to extend the scope of its work to include the United States.

COUNTRY: South SUdan |  DATE RANGE: FALL 2016 | WEBSITE

Currently operating in 30 countries, AVSI specializes in education, with deep experience in primary education in a wide array of global contexts, including complex and other emergencies. More broadly, AVSI boasts a record of demonstrated efficacy in both development and humanitarianism, including peacebuilding, water and sanitation, health, nutrition, and food security and livelihoods. Formulated over more than 40 years of development practice, the AVSI methodology is informed by Catholic Social Teachings as well as extensive organizational experience.

The Keough School Integration Lab is partnering with the Bangladesh Centre of Advanced Studies (BCAS) to help advance its important policy work focused on climate-vulnerable populations. This i-Lab BCAS Project specifically assesses the climate vulnerability of different sub-populations, especially women and children, across the ecosystems of Bangladesh in order to evaluate current national policies and develop climate vulnerability maps that can further inform future policy making. Critically important is increasing public awareness about climate change, particularly among the poor and those who are most vulnerable to the impact of climate change.

Forming Leaders in Integral Ecology for Rural Transformation in Uganda

Country: Bangladesh | Date Range: Spring 2013-Fall 2015 | Website

BRAC is one of the largest development organizations in the world, with over 100,000 employees worldwide. It strives to alleviate poverty through empowerment and creating opportunities for the poor. BRAC works on many different fronts in order to combat issues of poverty: focusing on empowerment of women and farmers, grassroots organization, health, education, inclusive financial services, and self-sustainment. The organization began as the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee (BRAC) in 1972 to provide relief and rehabilitation following the end of Bangladesh’s War of Liberation. Over the last decade, the organization has extended its work beyond Bangladesh to 11 additional countries. The main values of the organization are innovation, integrity, inclusion and effectiveness.

country: USA | Date Range: Fall 2014 | Website

CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. CARE places special focus on working alongside marginalized women because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty. Women are at the heart of CARE’s community-based efforts to improve basic education, improve maternal and child health, increase access to clean water and sanitation, expand economic opportunity and protect natural resources. CARE also delivers emergency aid to survivors of conflict and natural disasters and helps people rebuild their lives. In 2013, CARE worked in 87 countries around the world, implementing long-term programs to fight poverty, respond to humanitarian emergencies and advocate for policy change to improve the lives of the poorest populations.

The purpose of CARE’s advocacy work is to influence U.S. Government policymakers and the American public to adopt and fully implement policies that support the efforts of poor and marginalized people in the developing world to realize their rights and improve their lives.

COUNTRY: UNITED STATES | DATE RANGE: FALL 2015 - SPRING 2016 | WEBSITE

Overview

The Development Advisory Team project of design thinking initiative at Notre Dame continued from the first course of International Development in Practice to the second advanced course, expanding the project's scope and clients over time. In the first semester, a team served as consultants to the College of Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. In the second semester, another team built on the first team's work and started consulting the College of Arts and Letters and the new Keough School of Global Affairs in addition to the College of Engineering. Read on to learn about each team's clients and their recommendations.

Fall 2015: College of Engineering

Engineering has been offered at the University since 1873, when Notre Dame became the first Catholic university in the country to have a school of engineering. In fact, Notre Dame boasts a long history of engineering developments in a variety of fields … from the construction of the first hand-driven wind tunnel in America (aerospace) and the successful transmission of one of the first wireless messages (communications) in the country to the discovery of a new class of actinyl peroxide compounds (energy) and demonstration of magnetic logic (computing).

When the College of Engineering was officially founded in 1920, most of the students were pursuing civil engineering, due to the nation’s need for surveyors and designers of roads, bridges, and railroads. Today, graduate and undergraduate students continue to explore a wide variety of fields through the five departments housed within the college as they search for ways to address some of society’s most pressing needs.

• Number of Teaching and Research Faculty: 169
• Number of Undergraduate Students, Sophmore-Senior: 1,214 
• Number of Incoming First-Year Students: ~500
• Number of Graduate Students: 521

Recommendations:

Spring 2016: College of Arts and Letters, College of Engineering, and Keough School

The University of Notre Dame is a Catholic academic community of higher learning, animated from its origins by the Congregation of Holy Cross. The University seeks to cultivate in its students not only an appreciation for the great achievements of human beings but also a disciplined sensibility to the poverty, injustice and oppression that burden the lives of so many. The aim is to create a sense of human solidarity and concern for the common good that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice.

In spring semester 2016, a group of students from International Development in Practice II served as consultants to Deans of the College of Arts and Letters, College of Engineering, and the new Keough School of Global Affairs on the initiative of human-centered design. Their work has become a cornerstone for the macro movement at Notre Dame of bringing innovation, cross-discipline collaboration, and design thinking to the forefront of the University's mission to serve as a force for good.

Learn more about this Development Advisory Team's clients:

Recommendations:

Country: United States | Date Range: Fall 2015 | Website

The U.S. is one of the largest donors globally for foreign assistance. In an effort to bring transparency & accountability to U.S. Foreign Assistance, the Department of State manages and coordinates the website ForeignAssistance.gov (FA.gov).

FA.gov currently provides budget, financial, and programmatic data from across ten agencies (representing 98% of the total foreign assistance portfolio) that are contributing to U.S. efforts on issues such as health, peace and security, democracy, environment, and humanitarian/emergency assistance. The site includes many different data elements including activity titles, descriptions, partner names, dates of performance, and locations. 

Country: South Sudan | Date Range: Fall 2015 

Some pastoral communities in South Sudan have for a long time encouraged cultures of violence. These cultures are problematic as they incite youth to engage in violent activities that disturb communal peace and interfere with development in these communities. Education Bridge believes using educational seminars and workshops that introduce youth to non-violent means of conflict resolution and negotiation is one of the ways to break these destructive practices and encourage positive community engagement. Founder, Majak Anyieth, an undergraduate student at the University of Notre Dame, envisions Education Bridge to become a bright spot for peace-building exercises in the face of the aftermath of civil war and subsequent uprisings, tribal tensions, religious differences, and land disputes in South Sudan. 

Country: Haiti | Date range: Spring 2013-fall 2014 | Website

Engineering2Empower (E2E) seeks to overcome the challenges of establishing safe and affordable permanent housing in the developing world. Limited financial resources, the absence of codes and standards, and poor quality control currently govern these housing sectors. E2E’s current focus is on Haiti, where more than three years after the devastating 2010 earthquake, the majority of displaced families are still in transitional shelters, looking for permanent housing they can call “home”. Forced evictions have disbanded many of the camp settlements, leaving most to vie on their own for housing.

E2E has formulated an innovative approach to navigate the aforementioned constraints, and ultimately support self-financed recovery in the residential housing sector. The E2E model fundamentally shifts the structural system used in residential construction from the established masonry system toward a frame and panel system. Through this approach, the limited resources available to Haitian families are engineered into a U.S. code compliant concrete frame (“skeleton” of structure), while lightweight concrete panels are then introduced to simply enclose and partition the home (“skin” of the structure). The level of safety against earthquakes and hurricanes is drastically increased, but the cost, materials, and skill sets required remain exactly the same as the current model.

Through other innovations, such as customizable payment plans, prefabricated components, and standardized designs, E2E is additionally able to deliver the model through locally operated businesses. Unlike other developing world housing solutions, E2E is able to supply safe, affordable homes in a culturally appropriate and financially sustainable way, solely dependent on existing skill sets and locally available materials.

Country: Chile |  Date Range: Spring 2013- Fall 2018 | Website

Enseña Chile is based on the successful Teach for America model, recognized for creating a corps of leaders committed to improving access to excellent education regardless of socio-economic circumstances. Many join straight after finishing college, but others have gathered professional experiences outside the education sector. All applicants need to have demonstrated skills in leading and motivating teams, such as campus initiatives, community organizations or sports teams. Enseña Chile was founded by Tomas Recart in 2007 in Santiago, Chile. Enseña Chile provides quality education to 14 to 18 year old high-school students by bringing outstanding university graduates with leadership skills into classrooms of low-quality schools in poor areas for a period of two years. On a long term basis Enseña Chile is promoting a movement/network of Enseña Chile alumni that will be active at key positions in society with the possibility to positively influence a change in the educational system of Chile. Enseña Chile has adapted the model for the Chilean and Latin American context. By bringing bright college graduates and professionals to teach in underprivileged schools, they provide significant contribution to bridging the inequality gap. Although Enseña Chile believes that good teachers have similar characteristics independent of culture, the organization has been adapting the Teach for America model in the way these competencies are measured and trained, and in teacher training.

Country: Kenya | Date Range: Spring-Fall 2013 | Website

Dandora (Nairobi, Kenya) is one of the largest urban squatter settlements in the world. The Holy Cross Congregation has had been working for more than 50 years in Dandora. The Kellogg Institute’s Ford Family Program in Human Development Studies and Solidarity works closely with the community in Dandora to explore different opportunities for social, community and health development. The Parish and community have expressed a long-term interest in establishing a maternity ward, and donors have also expressed interest in providing support.  We would like this to be a ward that incorporates research, focusing on serving a population for which high quality, cutting edge care maternal and child health care is often out of reach.

Country: Bolivia | Date: Spring 2014 | Website

Fundación Nuevo Norte (FNN) is a non-profit organization in La Paz, Bolivia with an entrepreneurial approach to promoting sustainable economic and social development of the productive sector and services of the Department of La Paz. It has a special emphasis on micro, small and medium enterprises, using innovation, differentiation of products and market segmentation to help promote competitiveness in a way that connects with the natural riches and cultural traditions of Bolivia.

Hagámoslo Bien is a movement of citizens who wish for a different city, and are prepared to create such city through a Culture of Legality (Cultura de la Legalidad). Hagámoslo Bien believes that actions always create impact, that examples teach, and that only together can the impossible be achieved. Hagámoslo Bien is comprised of businesses, schools, universities, churches, civil society organizations, media, government institutions, fathers and mothers, youths, students, children; citizens. 

Country: ChilE | Date: Fall 2013 | Website

The mission of the Harvard Forest Program on Conservation Innovation (PCI) is to build knowledge about highly effective conservation science, education, governance, protection, and stewardship practices and to communicate that knowledge to conservation practitioners, decision makers, and citizens in the United States as well as across the globe.

The PCI has five overarching goals:

1. to conduct research that informs advanced conservation practice and focuses attention on the outstanding innovation in the field
2. to educate present-day and future conservation practitioners and involved citizenry regarding emerging approaches to conserving land, water, and biodiversity
3. to award and recognize exemplary conservation initiatives
4. to convene focused leadership dialogues on critical conservation challenges and inventive solutions commensurate with those challenges, and
5. to broadly communicate with a global audience regarding important conservation innovations that may be commensurate with the complex challenges of our day.

The Program in Global Surgery and Social Change (PGSSC) is a collaborative effort between the Harvard teaching hospitals, Harvard Medical School/ Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) and Partners In Health (PIH) to advocate for Universal access to safe, affordable surgical and anesthesia care when needed.

country: India | date range: Spring 2013-fall 2014 | website

Kerala, a state located in southwest India, is one of the lowest-income places in the world, but it has remarkably high levels of social development.  Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen classified Kerala as one of the three models of places in the world with high quality of life indicators with low per capita income.  However, while Kerala has indicators that are considered exceptional, the Wayanad District in northeast Kerala is a pocket of incredible difficulty and deprivation, mainly due to challenges faced by the tribal population living in largely inaccessible forests and hill areas.

The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are the most prestigious business schools in the country and IIM Kozhikode is located about 40 kilometers from Wayanad. In collaboration with Notre Dame, the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode, seeks to revitalize key children’s programs to be more effective, especially regarding issues related to children’s health and nutrition.

The Tecnológico de Monterrey and its network of campuses throughout Mexico is committed to providing quality education, world-class research, and building innovative models for the benefit of society. With the leadership of ITESM’s School of Medicine and the School of Government, the University is looking to build a new interdisciplinary center for global health training and research with strong links to practice.

Region: Latin America | Date Range: Fall 2013 | Website

Established in 1959, the Inter-American Development Bank is the leading source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean, with a strong commitment to achieve measurable results, increased integrity, transparency, and accountability. The IDB has an evolving reform agenda that seeks to increase our development impact in the region.

While the IDB is a regular bank in many ways, it is also unique in some key respects. Besides loans, the IDB also provides grants, technical assistance and does research. The IDB has shareholders, 48 member countries, including 26 Latin American and Caribbean borrowing members, who have a majority ownership of the IDB.

Latin American Leadership Academy (LALA) seeks to promote sustainable economic development and strengthen democratic governance in Latin America by developing a new generation of leaders. LALA creates international and socioeconomically diverse cohorts of the most promising graduating high school students who have demonstrated an unshakeable commitment to social change.

LALA is launching leadership boot camps throughout Latin America to create local hubs of social impact and find values-aligned youth. In the near future, LALA hopes to open an eighteen-month program, which blends entrepreneurial leadership, a liberal arts education, and social and emotional learning. The program connects participants to mentors, resources, and opportunities, and LALA envisions a diverse continental ecosystem that collaborates across differences to bring shared prosperity to Latin America.

Country: Global | Date Range: Fall 2015 | Website 

L’Arche is an international non-governmental organization that works to provide support for people with intellectual disabilities so that they take their rightful place in our societies as active citizens. As an international organization, it seeks to promote diversity and solidarity across geographical and psychological borders. L’Arche is present in 147 communities in 35 countries around the world.

NDIGD is launching an experiential learning opportunity for ND undergraduates in northern Colombia, where they will conduct research on sustainable systems for safe drinking water.

Oxfam is a global movement of people working together to end the injustice of poverty. With 70 years of experience in more than 90 countries, Oxfam takes on the big issues that keep people poor: inequality, discrimination, and unequal access to resources including food, water, and land.

Global | Time Range: Spring 2013-Spring 2018 | Website

Partners in Health (PIH) was founded in 1987 to bring quality medical care to rural Haiti.  Since then, PIH has expanded to several countries around the world including Rwanda, Lesotho, Malawi, Russia, Peru, and Navajo Nation in the United States.  PIH also partners with several sister organizations to increase its ability to further its mission.  In 2012, PIH launched its newest project in the Chiapas region of Mexico.  PIH draws on the world’s best medical institutions to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care.  According to PIH’s mission statement, its mission is both medical and moral, and it is based on solidarity rather than charity alone.

Projects with Puente

Country: Mali | Date Range: Fall 2013-Spring 2014 | Website

Rubia promotes women’s empowerment through literacy, education and income generation from the sale of their heritage handwork. An American scholar started Rubia as a grassroots embroidery project in Pakistan in the year 2000 when desperate Afghan refugees asked her to help them find a means to earn income.  These impoverished embroiderers, who belong to the minority Pashai tribe, continued selling their handwork through Rubia when they returned to their homes in Eastern Afghanistan when the Taliban was overthrown after September 11, 2001.  Over the past 14 years, Rubia’s literacy and embroidery projects have grown, in spite of worsening poverty, increasing insecurity, and a rise in Islamic fundamentalism.  All aspects of the development and implementation of Rubia’s programs are rooted in local culture, using community members at all levels to help build the economy and capacity in their home region. Most recently, 600 Afghan women participated in “Threads of Change,” a curriculum that integrates health, human rights and literacy with handwork.  In 2007, Rubia spread to Manchester, New Hampshire in response to the needs of impoverished refugees from Central African who had fled the genocide and were trying to rebuild their lives in the US. “Sewing Confidence,” Rubia’s American program, has expanded over the past five years to include financial literacy and entrepreneurship. Rubia is considering expanding its work to other countries, including Mali.

In 2017, Gisela Solymos, co-founder and former CEO of CREN, Center for Nutritional Recovery and Education, Nitesh Chawla and his team from the Interdisciplinary Center for Network Science & Applications, and Walter Link and his team from the Global Academy Foundation have integrated efforts to develop the concept of a Knowledge Hub (KH) that provides a framework for capturing data, knowledge, and experiences to help drive positive outcomes in child health and malnutrition.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is an assembly of the hierarchy of the United States and the U.S. Virgin Islands who jointly exercise certain pastoral functions on behalf of the Christian faithful of the United States. The purpose of the Conference is to promote the greater good which the Church offers humankind, especially through forms and programs of the apostolate fittingly adapted to the circumstances of time and place. 

The Vines Foundation is a catalyst for change in Tunuyan, Mendoza, empowering our community to enhance health, end hunger and overcome hardship so they might regain sustainable livelihoods. As the philanthropic arm of an Argentine farming, winemaking, and hospitality company with deep connections to international resources through our clients in the US, Europe, and Brazil, The Vines Foundation is leveraging these resources to meet the immediate local challenge of food insecurity, feeding about 1,000 children each month who otherwise go hungry. Most importantly, however, we are building capacity within our community and the organizations we work with, and seeking to engage local and national businesses, along with the government to solve this crisis of being an agriculturally rich county in which many of its children are starving, and thereby sacrificing their future.

Vital Strategies is a global health organization that believes every person should be protected by a strong public health system. We work with governments and civil society in 73 countries to design and implement evidence-based strategies that tackle their most pressing public health problems. Our goal is to see governments adopt promising interventions at scale as rapidly as possible.