YSEALI Alumnus Continues to Help Those in Need: COVID-19 in the Philippines by Nicholas Hampton, Multimedia Project Specialist, UConn Global Affairs
YSEALI alumnus and founder of AccessiWheels disability service in Quezon City, Philippines Miggy Bautista is doing his part to get people with disabilities where they need to be during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Boutista was part of the ninth group of YSEALI students hosted and administered by UConn’s Global Training and Development Institute (GTDI).
Boutista received the $500 grant from UConn that all YSEALI participants have the chance to apply for by formally submitting their business proposals. He will be using the funds to build a food based add on to his business employing people with disabilities.
His company, Accessi Wheels, enables people with mobility problems by connecting customers to trained drivers with accessible vehicles, and they’re continuing their efforts through the virus.
“We salute the brave and good hearted Partner Volunteer Drivers who are on Frontline and service to our regular hospital patients this #COVID19 situation!” posted Accessi Wheels on Facebook.
“During the suspension of public transportation as part of the Enhanced Community Quarantine to address #COVID19, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative alumnus and AccessiWheels Founder Miggy Bautista are helping patients get to their regular medical appointments, such as dialysis and therapy, by connecting them to a network of volunteer drivers with personal vehicles,” the Embassy said on their Facebook page.
The U.S. government has provided approximately $18.3 million in emergency health and humanitarian assistance to ASEAN Member States since the outbreak began, according to the State Department website.
African Student Social Entrepreneurs at UConn: The SUSI Program
January 2018, by Alexander Holmgren
“Ce programme est un rêve (this program is a dream),” says Mondher Tounsi, a law student from Kasserine, Tunisia. He is referring to the Study of the U.S. Institute, or SUSI as it has come to be known, which is funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).
Jack Barry (Left) and Roy Pietro (Right) pose with Mondher Tousni (Center) at the SUSI program’s ceremony of completion at the Alumni Center
Every year since 2010, students have come to UConn from across Africa to participate in the SUSI program, which engenders mutual understanding and respect between foreigners and Americans through specialty exchange programs. The State Department’s ECA has awarded UConn’s Global Training and Development Institute (GTDI) over $3.5 million in contract awards to host the SUSI program over the past 7 years. The program’s academic director, Jack Barry, explains, “for the State Department, it is really an opportune chance to bring foreigners here and expose them to the United States with a broad focus in American history and culture, allowing them to engage in a reciprocal cross-cultural exchange with American citizens.” However, the SUSI program is distinct from many others of its type for its emphasis on Social Entrepreneurship. “The main idea is to help students launch start-ups or companies that have an effect or resolves a social problem,” explains Yousra Kherkhache, an Algerian student participating in the program, “gaining money and at the same time resolving a problem.”
Yousra Kherkhache at her first Fourth of July parade
At UConn, all SUSI program participants enter with an innovative idea on how to tackle a social problem in their community. Over the 5-week duration of the SUSI program, these students learn the skills necessary to launch their ideas as an organization or business. “They start off with a broad idea but no details worked out,” Barry explains. Through the SUSI program, he says, the students “build the plan for their social enterprise, which starts with a couple of paragraphs to, by the time they leave, a 4-5 page business plan with a lot of ideas fully sketched out.”
For Tounsi, The SUSI program provided the skills necessary to address serious problems in his community. Tounsi’s home-city of Kasserine has an unemployment rate 20% greater than Tunisia’s national average, the highest morality rate in the entire country, and a reputation for being an extremist hotbed. “It really makes me so sad to see this,” Tounsi says, especially because of the “lack of investment” in the people of Kasserine it prompts.
Tounsi has come up with an innovative solution: the Kasserine Catalyst, a youth hub where young people may gather to watch TV, play video games, or network ideas. His goal is to give the youth of Kasserine—who Tousni describes as “future entrepreneurs who want to launch their own initiatives”—a safe venue to develop and explore productive interests. Through the Kasserine Catalyst, he hopes to help these future entrepreneurs “dive into the world of entrepreneurship,” and, ultimately, “make a better reputation for Kasserine.”
The Kasserine Catalyst recently received a grant from the European Cultural Foundation and receives donations periodically from community members in Kasserine. Tounsi credits much of this success to his participation in the SUSI program and other Department of State initiatives. “It is now that we are really comfortable with the expertise we have to delve into very serious problems in Tunisia, such as extremism,” Tounsi says on his participation in the SUSI program. “Je veux vraiment remercier le programme qui m’a beaucoup aidé (I really want to thank this program that has helped me tremendously)” he says. “I am very excited to return to Tunisia. I feel a bit different and that I have a perspective that I want to share with everyone back home.”
Dalia Elgharib poses for a photo at the Alumni Center
Dalia Elgharib, an Egyptian student in business administration, likewise feels differently after her participation in the program that she describes as instrumental to the development of her project, Haya. “We have a severe problem with education in Egypt,” she says, “many Egyptian children are illiterate, and our schools are some of the lowest when scored for quality [of] education.” Elgharib attributes this problem to teachers, who in Egypt “are not trained how to interact with kids.”
Elgharib’s project strives to fill this skill gap through an incubation program for teachers that trains them on childhood developmental psychology, leadership, and interactive teaching methods over a 2-3 month period. She named her project Haya, which in Arabic means ‘let’s go,’ to inspire motivation—within herself as well as teachers. Elgharib identifies the largest obstacle to her project as persuading teachers to enroll in the program. Due to a low wage, Elgharib explains, most teachers host private classes to supplement their income, which makes them less likely to attend programs such as Haya. However, as a social entrepreneur, Elgharib recognizes the problem oftentimes encompasses the solution. Teachers compete with one another to attract students to these private tutoring sessions. Elgharib plans to incentivize teachers to enroll in Haya by marketing the program as an opportunity for teachers to draw more students to their private tutoring sessions.
Kherkhache, the Algerian student, took something different from the SUSI program than either Tousni or Elgharib: hope. “Not any country would do this,” she says, funding students to effect societal change in their communities. “I’m really grateful for this chance,” which will help her address a serious problem in her community: food contamination. Algeria lacks stringent food regulations, she explains, which result in high levels of food contamination for people in Algeria, particularly students. Kherkhache conducted a study and found that 235 people in the beginning of 2017 ingested contaminated food provided by their university. Unsure of what food may be contaminated, students are unsure of what is safe to eat.
But they won’t be for much longer. Kherkhache has developed an innovative solution to mitigate students’ ingestion of contaminated foods in the form of her for-profit SUSI project, Otlob Sihhi, which is Arabic for ‘Order Healthy.’ The project offers students a list of restaurants that are close, affordable, and, most importantly, regulated for food contamination. It also contract workers to deliver food from these restaurants via bicycle.
Fatima-Azzahra Benfares (Center) heads the crowd as she and the other SUSI students explore New Haven
Fatima-Azzahra Benfares from Rabbat, Morocco, says the SUSI program for her is all about meeting other social entrepreneurs from North Africa. “The inspiration you get from the other people here, that is the most important for me,” she shares. According to her, only about a fourth of Moroccan women have jobs, oftentimes as fruit vendors in poor neighborhoods. These women, Benfares states, “are harassed for ten hours a day to get 6-10 dollars.” Not far from these women, students in richer areas would pay ten times that for fresh fruit, Benfares says. Taken together, she sees a unique opportunity to empower these women as entrepreneurs.
She started a franchise named Laymouna that contracts these women to sell their fruit to college students. Last year, Laymouna had its first test run as Benfares and a few entrepreneurs opened a fruit-stand on her university’s campus for a week; they sold-out everyday within four hours. “Believe it or not, people like fruit,” Benfares jokes. But despite its success, running Laymouna is not easy work. “What keeps me going is having an impact on these ladies,” who are able to nearly triple their income through participation in Laymouna, Benfares says. She shares the story of Raddiba, a fruit vendor who, like many others in Morocco, planned to marry a richer man for financial support. This changed soon after she joined Laymouna as an entrepreneur. “two months after working with us, she turned down his marriage proposal,” Benfares shares excitedly, “she feels empowered and wants to break that cycle.” Through the SUSI program Benfares hopes to expand Laymouna and empower more women like Raddiba.
SUSI students pose for a photo by the UConn sign
Tousni, Elgharib, Kherkhache, and Benfares left the United States in August, but they continue to benefit from their participation in the SUSI program through the ECA’s International Exchange Alumni Program (https://alumni.state.gov/). This program permits them to apply for a three-year grant to further build the project they developed while at UConn. The impact is huge. GTDI Director Roy Pietro, who has served as the Principal Investigator for the SUSI program since its inception, elaborates, “the SUSI program supports the university’s academic vision of ‘promoting sustainable development and a happy, healthy, and inclusive society both locally and globally, based on intercultural understanding and recognition of the transnational nature of the challenges and opportunities we face.’ Meanwhile, the grant funding has allowed us to provide the SUSI entrepreneurs approximately $85,000 in mini-grants for over 150 social change projects in local communities throughout Africa.” The passion, efforts, and rewards of this year’s SUSI program alumni are sure to change the world, allowing UConn to expand its land grant mission beyond our national borders and young leaders from across Africa to help effect change in their communities.
UConn Wins Grant for US-Cuba Student Research Exchange Program
The 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund has awarded UConn with a grant to establish a U.S.-Cuban exchange program aimed at studying food production and security.
Read more below.
Anna Zarra Aldrich & Jessica McBride, Office of the Vice President for Research
The University of Connecticut (UConn) has received a grant from the 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund for a U.S.-Cuban exchange program aimed at studying food production and security. The project is the culmination of collaborations between UConn’s College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources, the Office of Global Affairs, and Cuban partner institutions.
The 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund is the dynamic public-private sector partnership between the U.S. Department of State, Partners of the Americas, and NAFSA: Association of International Educators. The fund aims to increase the number of U.S. students studying abroad in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Marlene M. Johnson Innovation Challenge that is supporting this project is sponsored by the Association of International Educators and CAF Development Bank of Latin America.
The grant will cover the study abroad expenses of 12 UConn undergraduate students from the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources and six Cuban graduate students from the country’s leading agricultural schools, the Instituto of Ciencia Animal, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Agrícolas, Centro Nacional de Sanidad Agropecuaria and Universidad Agraria de La Habana.
UConn students will work with a diverse group of Cuban professionals and workers including farmers, government officials, scientists, urban agriculture practitioners and community leaders to learn about the history and future of food production and stability.
According to collaborators from UConn, the project will foster student mobility and allow them to interact with people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds whom they are unlikely to encounter at home.
“This exchange system will help students nurture a greater understanding of the culture of another people and promote a sense of global humanitarian responsibility,” said the Principal Investigator of the project, UConn Global Training and Development Institute Director, Dr. Roy Pietro. “We hope that participation in the program will help students from both nations expand their world views, understand a different culture, and form lasting connections that will promote continued communication between individuals from the two countries.”
On a larger scale, the program aims to encourage cooperation between the U.S. and Cuba on vital economic, environmental and societal issues that impact agriculture. Ideally, this increased cooperation will alleviate historical tensions to promote significant mutual interests in both nations.
Pietro and co-PIs Ana Legrand and Guillermo Risatti are confident that the program will attract students interested in studying food systems to consider performing research in Cuba given the program’s targeting research focus and financial support that alleviates the economic burden of studying abroad.
The collaborative relationship between UConn and this Cuban educational and research consortium was established in January 2017 with the support of UConn’s Office of Global Affairs and encourages an enhanced level of understanding and appreciation of each other’s culture, society, values, and institutions after participating in the program; and that they will gain new knowledge and insights into issues and challenges around agriculture. The exchange program and collaborative relationship is supported jointly by UConn’s College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources and Global Affairs.
Students involved in the program will travel to Cuba for two weeks in May 2018. Cuban students are expected to participate in the exchange during two weeks over the summer of 2018.
Since fall 2015, the University of Connecticut (UConn) has welcomed over 100 student leaders from Southeast Asia to work on social entrepreneurship and economic development!
The Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) on Social Entrepreneurship and Economic Development will be hosted by UConn each fall and spring semester – (four weeks on campus, one week study tour). Each institute comprises of 21 college student leaders from ten countries in Southeast Asia: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The educational and cultural exchange program is developed and delivered
YSEALI Spring 2017 participants enjoy snow at UConn.
by the University’s Global Training and Development Institute (GTDI). Numerous faculty members from throughout our institution will be participating in these five week programs, along with subject matter experts from institutions of higher education across New England. The GTDI is partnering with UPEACE on this program. UPEACE’s work in advancing social entrepreneurship is well known and highly regarded across the globe. This Institute is sponsored by the Study of the U.S. Branch in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Student Leader Institutes promote a better understanding of the U.S. abroad and help to develop future world leaders. These Institutes explore the principles of democracy and fundamental American values such as individual rights, freedom of expression, pluralism and tolerance, and volunteerism. Participants have the opportunity to meet their American peers, engage in local community service activities, and learn about the United States. The specific program objectives of this institute are to: 1) deepen participant understanding of the U.S.; 2) provide participants with an overview of how to use business techniques and entrepreneurial skills to address social issues; and 3) develop participants’ leadership and collective problem-solving skills, and inspire them to apply these skills.
YSEALI Fall 2017 visit the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C.
The curriculum will cover several fields of study including: Political Science, American Studies, History, Business, Leadership Development, International Studies, Environmental Studies, Women’s Studies, Global Citizenship, and Civil and Human Rights. Through a creative mix of workshops, group exercises, site visits, homestays, and cultural activities, participants will explore the defining events, time periods, and leaders in American history who addressed social issues and shaped the evolution of the U.S. Participants will develop a social entrepreneurship project idea and business plan during the program. The UConn based portion of the program will conclude with business plan presentations from each participant. The program will include project start-up funds (to be awarded on a competitive basis) and follow-up support for participants when they return home and launch their social entrepreneurship ventures.
The four week intensive residential program at UConn’s main campus in Storrs, CT, will be followed by a week-long trip to cultural sites of significance in New City, Philadelphia, and Washington DC. The short-term anticipated result of the program is that participants will gain a deeper understanding of the U.S. and social entrepreneurship. In the long-term, we hope that they will stay in touch with new American friends and use these new relationships to build stronger international ties. In addition, we hope that participants will use new knowledge and skills to address social issues and transfer lessons learned to their home community.
For more information, contact: Global Training and Development Institute at 860-486-0235
Summer 2014 SUSI Group. (Photo courtesy of Hadil Al Senwi)
Study of the U.S. Institute (SUSI)
In summer 2015, UConn will welcome 40 student leaders from North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa to work on social entrepreneurship!
Two Study of the U.S. Institutes (SUSI) for Student Leaders on Social Entrepreneurship will be hosted by the University of Connecticut (UConn) this summer from July 4 – August 7 (four weeks on campus, one week study tour). These institutes will comprise 20 college student leaders from Sub-Saharan Africa and 20 college student leaders from North Africa. The educational and cultural exchange program will be developed and delivered by the University’s Global Training and Development Institute (GTDI). Numerous faculty members from throughout our institution will be participating in this five week program, along with subject matter experts from institutions of higher education across New England. The GTDI is partnering with Ashoka on this program. Ashoka’s work in advancing social entrepreneurship is well known and highly regarded across the globe. This Institute is sponsored by the Study of the U.S. Branch in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Student Leader Institutes promote a better understanding of the U.S. abroad and help to develop future world leaders. These Institutes explore the principles of democracy and fundamental American values such as individual rights, freedom of expression, pluralism and tolerance, and volunteerism. Participants have the opportunity to meet their American peers, engage in local community and service activities, and learn about the United States. The specific program objectives of this institute are to: 1) deepen participant understanding of the U.S.; 2) provide participants with an overview of how to use business techniques and entrepreneurial skills to address social issues; and 3) develop participants’ leadership and collective problem-solving skills, and inspire them to apply these skills.
The curriculum will cover several fields of study including: Political Science, American Studies, History, Business, Leadership Development, International Studies, Environmental Studies, Women’s Studies, Global Citizenship, and Civil and Human Rights. Through a creative mix of workshops, group exercises, site visits, home-stays, and cultural activities, participants will explore the defining events, time periods, and leaders in American history who addressed social issues and shaped the evolution of the U.S. Participants will develop a social entrepreneurship project idea and business plan during the program. The UConn based portion of the program will conclude with each participant presenting their business plan to their fellow participants. The program will include project start-up funds (to be awarded on a competitive basis) and follow-up support for participants when they return home and launch their social entrepreneurship ventures.
The four week intensive residential program at UConn’s main campus in Storrs, CT, will be followed by a week-long trip to cultural sites of significance in New City, Philadelphia, and Washington DC. The short-term anticipated result of the program is that participants will gain a deeper understanding of the U.S. and social entrepreneurship. In the long-term, we hope that they will stay in touch with new American friends and use these new relationships to build stronger international ties. In addition, we hope that participants will use new knowledge and skills to address social issues and transfer lessons learned to their home community.
For more information, contact: Global Training and Development Institute at 860-486-0235
Connecticut is 12,500 miles from South Africa. But shooting hoops with fifth-graders at the Clark Elementary & Middle School gym in Hartford recently, Sikhulu Zondo was suddenly aware that playing with the American students had erased the age and cultural barriers between them.
“I’m so glad to be here,” said the Cape Town middle school teacher. Sweeping her arm in a gesture encompassing all the players – which included 10 UConn students – she added: “When I get back home, I’m going to start a program like Husky Sport.”
Developed by UConn’s Global Training and Development Institute, the two-way exchange provided the African participants – chosen by the University of Western Cape through a merit-based, competitive process – the chance to interact with Americans and experience American society, culture, and values firsthand.
Printing books in Braille for the blind in Algeria, training rural women to sell handicrafts in Tunisia, finding jobs for disabled people in the Ivory Coast, recycling bottles in Senegal: they’re pressing issues in Africa with one thing in common. Students developed solutions for them at UConn.
As a group of 40 college student leaders from North and Sub-Saharan Africa end a four-week stay on the Storrs campus designed to teach them startup strategies, it’s clear that improving the world is serious business at UConn.
The program is part of an exchange that is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to promote a better understanding of American history, government, and society abroad and to help develop future leaders.
STORRS, Conn. – For the second year in a row, the University of Connecticut has been awarded $225,000 for an International Sports Programming Initiative exchange grant by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) SportsUnited Division. The grant will fund the Sports for Social Change two-way exchange program, aimed at promoting collaboration, knowledge sharing and mutual understanding between the U.S. and South Africa. The program increases the professional capacity of individuals who design and manage community or school youth sport programs that function as tools for fostering positive social change.
The University of Connecticut’s Global Training and Development Institute (GTDI), located in the UConn Office of Global Affairs, developed and piloted the Sports for Social Change program in Hong Kong in 2012. The success of the pilot program led to the development of a similar program for South Africa.
Roy Pietro, Principal Investigator for the program and Director of the GTDI, explains that what makes this program unique is its focus on the “role of youth sports as a significant factor in promoting educational success, psychosocial development, tolerance, cross-cultural understanding and conflict resolution.” The program serves as both an educational and cultural exchange, which will enable American and South African youth sport administrators to share their experiences, challenges and successes in managing and organizing youth sport programs.
amme est un rêve (this program is a dream),” says Mondher Tounsi, a law student from Kasserine, Tunisia. He is referring to the Study of the U.S. Institute, or SUSI as it has come to be known, which is funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).
