TCN Newsletter Issue 13: May 2015
Featured Emergent Leader:
Deanna Lewis
&
Social Prophet Ventures
by Taylor Proffitt
Deanna Lewis is a public health professor at University of Arizona in Tucson. For the last two years she has brought students to a small village in the Ekumfi District of Ghana to develop sustainable strategies to empower the members of the community. The project she has developed, Social Prophet Ventures, uses four tenets to build such strategies. The first is Service Learning, in which students have a chance to serve under privileged communities and learn from the cultural exchange involved in on the ground work. Next is Social entrepreneurship is which effective funding and business models for social projects are taught to students so they may continue this work in a way that is sustainable for themselves. Third is Outreach Education, in which students learn skills from community members in exchange for teaching skills. This mutually beneficial educational experience gives both students and community members skill sets which empower each to work in the world through a more holistic lens. Last is Work Force Development, where students are able to enter the work force after graduation guided toward social project work and hands on experience. Many of these tenets overlap into a whole systems approach to sustainable foreign aid education.
Reprinted with Permission from Deanna Lewis
The main overarching theme in Deanna’s work is empowerment. By teaching skills to students and communities abroad, the programs she works with achieve an exit strategy. In working with a NGO called Global Brigades, a community in Honduras has opened its own locally operated medical clinic that does not require on the ground assistance from Global Brigades any longer. While they provide occasional support, the community medical clinic is autonomously sustainable, economically and operationally. Instead of setting up a temporary clinic that simply treats injured or ill community members, Global Brigades taught these citizens how to treat themselves and each other. They renovated an old building alongside the community using locally available resources in order to establish a replicable model for localized medical clinics. Individuals who are trusted and well known in the community now manage and operate it.
Reprinted with Permission from Deanna Lewis
It is this concept of asset mapping to set up independently operated social structures that Deanna now takes into her own work with Social Prophet Ventures. They ask what community members themselves value and research what resources are locally available to determine what pertinent projects can be tangibly and sustainably implemented. For example, as opposed to bringing nutrition dense peanut butter bars to a community, which create a mindset of scarcity and dependence, the local and nutrient dense tiger nut abundance in Ghana was utilized to create a tiger nut co-op which not only provides health and vitality, but economic prosperity and employment to the region.
Reprinted with Permission from Deanna Lewis
Deanna is taking her students back to the Ekumfi District in Ghana for a third year, and has a campaign running to raise funds for the venture. To support Social Prophet Ventures next trip, donate to or share the campaign on your social media accounts.
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Featured Emerging Leader
Deanna Lewis
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by Taylor Proffitt
TCN Community Member
Network Ambassador at Project Nuevo Mundo