What's Interesting To Me These Days

There are not enough hours in the day for me to follow every trend, cause and issue in which I'm interested professionally (as well as personally). Therefore, I have to budget my time and prioritize which issues and causes I'm going to follow. It's not an easy task. It means leaving a lot of things by the wayside, unfortunately.

Below is a list of my current professional priorities -- issues and trends that, in my spare time, I'm actively researching, reading and writing about (I tried to pick just five... and I'm leaving out about 20 other issues I feel passionately about). With more time and funding, I would love to engage in any of these areas even more fully. I'm also interested in hearing from others who are involved in any of these issues and would like to work with me or just to share information. Often, I link to particularly interesting resources I find about the topics below, or to resources I create, via the Jayne Blog, which also features regular updates about this web site, and resources and issues relating to mission-based organizations (nonprofits, non-governmental organizations/NGOs, civil society, and public sector agencies). The blog provides a way for readers to post comments as well.

What's Interesting To Me These Days:

• The impact of rumor, myths and "urban legends" on development interventions, aid work and relief efforts, ways such have been addressed in various situations, and ways to prevent such from becoming a problem that defeats a much-needed program or activity.

• Ways that religious and cultural barriers prevent:
  • the education of girls and women
  • women from engaging in businesses, from farming to selling things on the street to owning a shop,
  • the use of condoms,
  and how various organizations and advocates have worked to overcome such.

• Capacity-building in volunteer management practices in the developing world
  Everyone seems to want to promote volunteerism in Africa, Central and South America, the Middle East, former Soviet states, and parts of Asia -- the "developing" world. But where are the capacity-building programs in volunteer management , which are, ofcourse, absolutely essential for successful volunteerism to happen? I welcome opportunities to participate in programs that create ongoing training experiences in volunteer management for people who staff organizations that serve the developing world. My volunteerism-related resources are linked from my web site.

• Capacity-Building for nonprofits/civil society in the developing world
  So many civil society organizations are doing fantastic work, but lack the skills on how to document that work and promote it to potential supporters, as well as how to evaluate their work, record successes and identify obstacles -- all of which lead to their being able to do more fantastic work. I'm interested in efforts to help mission-based organizations (nonprofits, non-governmental organizations/NGOs, and public agencies) serving in the developing world to be well-run, transparent, results-oriented and attractive to potential supporters, as well as to build their capacities to publicize their efforts and to cultivate support.

• Promoting online volunteering
  I continue to research, speak, write and train regarding this subject frequently, and the resources I've developed regarding online volunteering are linked from my web site.

• Promoting mass transit and other alternatives to cars in the USA
  I live in Germany, and I don't own a car. For the first time in my life, I bike, or use mass transit (buses, trains and light rail) for 80% of my traveling here. It has totally changed my perspective about mass transit and using a bicycle to commute: finally, my eyes are open to the freedom, the health, and the much lower costs these methods of transit bring. But I've also now realized that, for the most part, advocacy groups in the USA do a poor job of promoting mass transit and bikes to the general public, and agencies in the USA do a poor job of making mass transit easy to use -- for instance, bus stops in the USA rarely have information other than what time a particular bus stops there. By contrast, here in Germany, most every bus stop in Bonn, for instance, has a map, so you can map your whole trip right from the stop. I'm very interested in participating somehow in helping to make mass transit easier to understand and use in the USA, as well as how to promote it better to everyone.

• Promoting affordable, environmentally-appropriate housing
  Living in Kabul, Afghanistan for six months, I was amazed to see so much construction going on -- construction of buildings and houses that would be energy hogs, that were not environmentally-appropriate, and that would be incredibly expensive to maintain. There are alternatives to this! It's renewed my commitment to greener living and green construction for myself.

• Urban Farming
  My grandparents have always maintained a garden, and their value of growing even just some of their own food is something I have tried to emulate. When I see huge lawns in the US, I always wonder why so many of them have no vegetable garden or fruit trees -- if managed properly, they use less water than a lawn. But urban gardens are more than a nice idea; they provide any family with access to fresh, nourishing, low-cost food -- something that people, especially children and especially in urban areas, no matter the country, need more of. According to the UN Food and Agricultural Agency (FAO) 10 to 30 percent of produce in impoverished nations is spoiled in transit due to long distances, bad roads and urban crowding, and impoverished urban populations face many difficulties in accessing fresh food. FAO advocates expanding the practice of raising crops and small animals on vacant lots, gardens or roof tops in cities, as well as just outside the city in the so-call peri-urban areas. Rooftop gardens only one metre square introduced by an FAO project in Dakar, Senegal are yielding 18 to 30 kilos of tomatoes per year, it said.

• Programs involving the care and training of "cast off" animals (dogs and horses, for instance) by people in jail and prison
  Every story I read about these programs blows me away. It is transformative experience for both the people and animals involved: the people learn both practical skills and life-affirming lessons, and the animals receive love, care, training, and adoptive homes. More documentation, research and evaluation needs to be done regarding these programs, so that they can be undertaken successfully at other institutions -- in fact, I have a dream of them being a part of every prison on Earth.

• Education and capacity-building programs for women and girls ANYWHERE
  Even in Kentucky, my home state, the value of education for women is substandard (for more than a few years, it has had the lowest rate of women attending or graduating from post-secondary institutions, and probably the lowest population of such graduates in the USA). Study after study shows that if you educate women and girls, you raise the quality of life of the entire population (doesn't happen if you educate only men and boys). In addition, I'm appalled by the dream of so many girls in developing countries -- to become super models or footballers wives, rather than doctors, teachers, business owners, or footballers themselves. I'm interested in helping to publicize efforts that promote the value of education and capacity-building for women and girls ANYWHERE.

• Women and Girl's Access to Complete Information and Services Regarding Reproduction and Sexual Health
  This has been a longtime passion of mine. I donated my services to the California Abortion Rights Action League and the Pro-Choice Coalition of Santa Clara California in the early 1990s, and volunteered briefly for the Texas Abortion Rights Action League in 1997. I very much hope to get to resume working for similar organizations in the near future.

• Educating USA Citizens About International Affairs
  Americans do not receive much information about the world abroad. The major TV channels provide little information about other people and cultures, and their incomplete information about the United Nations has lead to gross misunderstandings about the important, vital work of the UN and how the organization is administered. Local chapters of the UN Association, as well as other organizations, need larger, younger membership and much higher profiles, in order to counter this lack of information.

• The Girl Scouts
  I was a Brownie, and then a Girl Scout. I must admit that, on the whole, it wasn't that memorable or great of an experience, but there was one thing about it that was unforgettable and life-changing: for two years, I went to a Girl Scout week-long summer day camp at "Hickory Grove" in Kentucky, and it was that small experience sparked a love of hiking, camping and care for the environment I've carried away. I would love to promote Girl Scout programs that give similar experiences to other young girls, and even volunteer for such programs myself (unfortunately, there are no Girl Scout troops where I live in Germany).

  I support expanding the Girl Scouts outside of the USA.

   
  
• Factors for Success in using theater as a tool for development
  This was the subject of my Master's Degree project.

• Media Literacy
  Lack of understanding about how to critically evaluate information, as well as the proliferation of urban legends, are leading to problems that aren't just annoying -- they are a threat to understanding among different cultures, to development interventions, and, in my belief, to our safety and security. I have been stunned I don't know how many times at a friend, a family member or a co-worker who repeats some outrageous claim about a current event, a historical event, or a culture only because they read about it on the Internet, or heard it from a friend who has a friend, who has a cousin, who claims he saw it on TV. From Holocaust deniers to people who think the polio vaccine in Africa spreads AIDS, there are growing examples of the lack of media literacy. As Internet and other networking tool use spreads, so too does the need for people to learn how to critically evaluate the information they receive.

Again, I'm interested in hearing from others who are involved in any of these issues and would like to work with me or share information. Please click on any links within the bullets for more information and for contact information (or, if there is no link, contact me).

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