Month: March 2013

Summer field placement to the world’s most productive whale calving ground

Posted by

4

Looking back at my life, I realize that (for better or worse) I have a tendency to be a guinea pig. I was the first to graduate from Washington Elementary School (an experimental bilingual program), I was the first high school exchange student to Mante, Mexico through the Boulder-Mante Sister City Project, I was among the first students at the University of Colorado earn a certificate in International Media, and I will be in the third graduating class to receive a master’s in development practice from Columbia University. So, it should not come as a surprise that I will be in the first cohort of master’s students to spend my summer field placement in Colombia (with an -o- not a -u-).

This summer, I will spend approximately 8 weeks working with an afro-Colombian community inside the Uramba-Bahía Málaga National Natural Park, which my program describes as the “most productive calving grounds for whales in the world…notable for its high level of endemism.” Despite the natural beauty of the surroundings, residents of Bahía Málaga suffer from debilitating poverty, lacking access to clean water and sanitation, and with minimal access to education and critical health services. A full description of the field placement is available here (see PROJECT PROFILE #5).

[googlemaps https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=205338961251887176338.0004d873bf63e433e653d&ie=UTF8&t=m&ll=5.266008,-76.838379&spn=7.652325,9.338379&z=6&output=embed&w=425&h=350]

Key goals of my interaction with the Community Council of La Plata – Bahía Málaga will be to:

  • Develop community council’s strategic relations with the public and private sectors of Buenaventura and the department of Valle.
  • Develop a strategy to build the capacities and opportunities that will allow the council to create knowledge-based autonomy (managing and channeling opportunities for the long term empowerment of community leaders).
  • Build alliances to strengthen ecological and cultural tourism and forestry enterprises.

The program description exceeds any expectations I had for my summer field placement. I am excited to work with and learn from the people of Bahía Málaga.

More information about Bahía Málaga: http://bahiamalaga.org

ReliefMap: A 21st Century Approach to Disaster Response

Posted by

2

This weekend I participated in the National Invitational Public Policy Challenge, hosted by the Fels Institute of Government in Philadelphia. Nine teams from across the country were selected to participate. I, along with my teammates Lakshmi Balachandran, Seisei Tatebe-Goddu, and Eric Smyth, had the honor of being the first team from Columbia’s School of International Public Affairs to participate in the annual competition.

Our idea is a disaster relief platform called ReliefMap meant to help facilitate the matching of citizens’ needs to disaster relief organizations after a natural disaster like Hurricane Sandy. You can read our full proposal here.

While our team didn’t make it through to the second round, it was a valuable experience that raised the profile of the idea, which if implemented would greatly benefit the City and its inhabitants WHEN the next disaster strikes. The other teams had very interesting and well-thought-out ideas, some of which were already at the pilot phase. I can’t help but wonder what might have happened had we had a little more time to develop the idea and reach out to key stakeholders in New York City government.

[scribd id=130936375 key=key-1evb7yze15ft0sro03tk mode=slideshow]

Knowing when not to say “no”

Posted by

0

View of Manhattan from Brooklyn...it's not all work.

View of Manhattan from Brooklyn…it’s not all work.

Last semester I took only four classes and had few extracurricular activities, but that was more than enough. Endless group project meetings and Stats/Econ problem sets kept me beyond busy and struggling to keep my head above water. You would think that when planning my activities for this semester I would have taken into account my trials and tribulations from last semester and paired back my responsibilities. I did the opposite.

I kept my course load to 13 credit-hours, but instead of one massive semester-long project (Sustainable New York City ) I now have two (Business Plan Social Enterprise in Senegal; Implementation Plan for Scaling Up Community Health Workers in Mozambique). I am now the president of the New Media Task Force, a student organization whose mission is to educate SIPA students about the importance new media for international development. I took a part-time work-study job with the Earth Institute managing the social media for the Millennium Villages Project. Oh, and I joined a group of students selected (from 8-15 other student groups*) to represent Columbia at the National Invitational Public Policy Challenge. The competition is the weekend before spring break in Philadelphia and a 10-15 page proposal (I should probably be writing that instead of writing this blog post…positive procrastination?) is due on Monday.

Despite the workload, I’m having a blast. Still, I’m looking forward to an uneventful spring break (after the Public Policy Challenge, of course) and the long bike ride I plan to take on March 18…eight days and counting.

*Don’t ask.