Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies (IJPS)
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Lessons of Community Partnership in International Development
Get PDFWhen it comes to international development, and more specifically rural development, effective partnership is of the utmost importance. The procedure for effective partnership should be streamlined, and should be aimed at involving and engaging the community partnership regardless of what service is being provided. From recent projects in various countries in Engineers Without Borders, I have compiled a series of vital lessons relating to developing and maintaining effective partnership with our most important stakeholders - the community in question. First, the community must have trust and a direct stake in the project’s success to ensure longevity. Second, the scope ought to be carefully set via a rigorous baseline study and managed through effective communication. Finally, an effective communication strategy must be constructed that adequately manages the community’s technological limitations, and cultural and language barriers
Community Empowerment Through Grassroots Action: A Story of Building Personal and Local Resilience with the Transition Towns Model
Get PDFNils Palsson and Virajita Singh have partnered in telling Nils’ story of his personal and professional journey with the Transition Town movement – its thought leaders, philosophy, practices, and relationship to the partnership/domination paradigm shift. Through his participation in the grassroots Transition Town movement, Nils found, cultivated, and ultimately shared with others a sense of local empowerment. In his rural home in California’s Lake County, Nils found community, following great personal transformation in his life with the passing of his father. He learned about Transition Towns, permaculture, and other concepts dealing with local resilience, grassroots empowerment, and regenerative and holistic systems and lifestyles. He and others employed the Transition model, as described in Rob Hopkins’ Transition Handbook in transitioning Lake County. In 2015 he became Communications Director of Transition US. In this position, Nils has come to see that the world of Transition is much larger than he had imagined, with citizen-leaders and change agents in Transition Towns working toward environmental justice for all
Development and Implementation of a Culturally Responsive Mentoring Program for Faculty and Staff of Color
Get PDFThis paper describes a mentoring program for university employees of color and American Indians that employs a culturally responsive mentoring framework. The mission of the program is to foster a community of support and interdependence to assist members to navigate the university systems, so that members can thrive and, ultimately, be successful. The partnership and collaboration among faculty, staff, and students of color across campus has created a robust mentoring network that has organically grown stronger through the diversity of members represented. This paper discusses the history, goals, components, and outcomes of the culturally responsive mentoring program, and the plans for the future. The paper concludes by offering recommendations for individuals, researchers, and administrators who might consider adopting a similar mentoring program to improve retention, recruitment, and satisfaction of employees of color in their respective higher education institutions
A Conversation with Ruah Swennerfelt: The Transition Movement and People of Faith
Get PDFRiane Eisler talks with Ruah Swennerfelt, author of Rising to the Challenge: The Transition Movement and People of Faith and president of the Transition Town Charlotte board, about the role of faith and faith communities in the Transition Town Movement, dedicated to localized ways of living in harmony with our Earth
One World, One Standard for Burn Care: Nursing's Role in Global Health
Get PDFIn 1978, a landmark United Nations conference in Alma-Ata declared the goal of health for all by the year 2000 (WHO, 1978). Yet, today significant disparities exist between the health care afforded individuals in resource-limited countries and those in the industrialized world. Nursing, as a global profession, can become a powerful force for change so that better health is universally achieved.
Problem/Background: This project started with a partnership between a burn center in the United States and a pediatric burn center (Burn Center) in Peru, a country in which it is estimated that 15,000 children endure burn injuries each year (Huby-Vidaurre, 2016). Most are under the age of five, and suffer scald burns from pots with hot liquids left to cool on the floors of their homes. Pressure garment therapy (PGT) is a major treatment to reduce scarring for pediatric burn survivors in the United States since the early 1970s, but is unavailable in Peru.
Strategy: The Doctor of Nursing Practice project leader worked with the Burn Center team to develop a plan to use PGT as an intervention to address disfiguring scarring among pediatric burn survivors, utilizing the twinning approach.
Methods: This quality improvement project involved interdisciplinary collaboration and international partnerships between resource-rich and resource-challenged nations. Obtaining supplies needed to promote PGT in Peru required cultivating relationships with many people in the United States, including translators and interpreters to assist in overcoming language barriers among the participants, manufacturers and distributors of pressure garments to donate fabrics, and people regularly traveling to Peru who transported the donated PGT materials. It also involved working closely with the Burn Center team on developing a culture conducive to conforming to an international standard of practice.
Results: Resources were successfully leveraged to build a sustainable PGT program for all pediatric burn survivors in Peru.
Conclusion: Forging partnerships between the U.S. and Peru utilizing the twinning approach led to implementation of PGT, allowing for a best practice standard of care in the treatment of pediatric burns
Cover Art: Two Ships
Get PDFArtist's Statement for the cover art of IJPS volume 4, issue 2: Two Ships, 2017. Watercolor and chalk on paper
Gidakiimanaanawigamig’s Circle of Learning: A Model for Partnership between Tribal Community and Research University
Get PDFSince 2002, the National Center for Earth-Surface dynamics has collaborated with the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, the Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College, the University of Minnesota, and other partner institutions to develop programs aimed at supporting Native American participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, and especially in the Earth and Environmental Sciences. These include the gidakiimanaaniwigamig math and science camps for students in kindergarten through 12th grade, the Research Experience for Undergraduates on Sustainable Land and Water Resources, which takes place on two native reservations, and support for new majors at tribal colleges. All of these programs have a common focus on collaboration with communities, place-based education, community-inspired research projects, a focus on traditional culture and language, and resource management on reservations. Strong partnerships between university, tribal college, and Native American reservation were a foundation for success, but took time and effort to develop. This paper explores steps towards effective partnerships that support student success in STEM via environmental education
The Original Partnership Societies: Evolved Propensities for Equality, Prosociality, and Peace
Get PDFThis article focuses on what nomadic forager research suggests about human nature and examines how this ancestral form of human social organization is fundamentally partnership-oriented. Taking mobile forager social organization into consideration is important to partnership studies because all humanity lived as mobile foragers until very recently. The material considered in this article stems from 1) individual forager ethnographies, 2) qualitative comparative forager studies, and 3) research based on systematically sampled forager traits. The findings show the pervasiveness of egalitarianism (including gender equality), socialization and social control mechanism geared toward promoting prosocial behaviors such as sharing and the caring for others, conflict avoidance and resolution mechanisms, and no inclination toward warfare in values or practice. Such patterns that cut across nomadic forager societies from around the world call into question a familiar narrative about the supposedly self-centered, warlike, and hording nature of humanity. Mobile forager studies support an alternative narrative that challenges assumptions about the ‘'primitive versus civilized,’ normative progress and modernity, and biased projections of innate depravity onto all humanity. The article concludes by proposing that our nomadic forager forbearers solved the challenges of survival over evolutionary time not by making war, developing slavery, or ranking people into domination hierarchies of ‘haves’” and ‘have nots’—social institutions with which we are all too familiar today—but rather, our mobile forager ancestors promoted egalitarianism, cooperation, caring and sharing as they developed ways to resolve disputes with a minimum of bloodshed and sidestepped the development of war
Case Study: "Care" as a Political Winner
Get PDFThrough face-to-face conversations and open-ended questions designed to elicit stories and deeper interactions, the Michigan People’s Campaign (MPC) may have altered voting patterns more effectively than using traditional electoral engagement strategies. During the 2016 election, by campaigning on issues of family care, MPC helped elect a progressive state house candidate in a Downriver Detroit district that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump carried by over 6,000 votes
From the Guest Editor: Caring Democracy
Get PDFThe Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies was launched in the fall of 2014, and as Editor in Chief, I am happy to report that since our launch we have had more than 10,000 downloads of articles by readers all over the world. I also want to take this opportunity to welcome our new Managing Editor, Heidi Bruce, and to thank her for being part of the wonderful team producing this journal, which, among others, includes Liz Fine Weinfurter, Marty Lewis-Hunstiger, Teddie Potter, Peg Lonnquist, and Virajita Singh of the University of Minnesota.
I am honored to be the Guest Editor for our first themed issue on Caring Democracy, a subject that is especially timely at this historic juncture, and to have so many distinguished contributors to it. Here is a brief outline of its contents