Jan 14, 2013 | Community Development, Education, Escuela Nueva, Vicky Colbert
Since founding the nonprofit educational organization Fundacion Escuela Nueva (FEN) 25 years ago to improve the quality and relevance of basic education in Colombia’s low-income schools, 2011 Kravis Prize winner Vicky Colbert has gained international acclaim as an educational innovator. The cornerstone of the world-renowned Escuela Nueva (“new school”) education model she co-authored is its Learning Guides – interactive tools that help children learn concepts through activities. As shown in this video, these educational tools promote collaborative learning and encourage reflection on the concepts being taught. This has a tremendous impact on students in low-income schools – and their teachers. In the coming weeks, FEN has announced that Learning Guides will be provided to nearly 200,000 students in need. Escuela Nueva Learning... read more
Jan 8, 2013 | Community Development, Entrepreneurship, INJAZ Al-Arab, Soraya Salti
2012 Kravis Prize winner Soraya Salti has spent more than a decade mobilizing the private sector and ministries of education across the Arab world to join forces in creating a new generation of business-minded youth. All Africa News recently published an article by Salti regarding Egypt’s development potential under the country’s new government. In their article entitled, “Egypt: Harness the Youth to Create a Culture of Social Entrepreneurship,” Salti argues that the key to Egypt’s success is to invest in its young people. Salti formulates her argument around three divisions of Egyptian culture that have shaped the country’s identity: rising Internet usage, a large private sector economy, and the region’s most celebrated media industry. She provides the following statistical analysis to contextualize the country’s online mobility: “Magnified by the Arab Spring, millions of young Egyptians are now active on online platforms. As of June 2012, nearly 30 million Egyptians had access to Internet, a 30 percent penetration rate (Internetworldstats.com). Twenty-five percent of all Facebook users in the Arab World live in Egypt, and in 2012 it added more users than any other country in the region, 70 percent of whom were in the 15-29 age bracket (Dubai School of Government, 2012). On top of this, a recent study from the Dubai School of Government found that Arabs increasingly view social media as a tool for developing entrepreneurial skills and gaining productive knowledge. She continues by offering three examples of how to most effectively engage these principles into Egypt’s entrepreneurial culture. As the Regional Director for INJAZ Al-Arab, an organization that uses mentorship by Arab business leaders to inspire entrepreneurialism and innovation among Arab... read more
Dec 28, 2012 | Education, Female Empowerment, Health, Sakena Yacoobi
As the keynote speaker at Global Washington’s Redefining Development Conference, Kravis Prize winner Sakena Yacoobi inspired and challenged her audience to help educate the women and children of Afghanistan. Yacoobi was selected to deliver the event’s opening address in recognition for providing education and health services to more than 9 million Afghan women and children since the founding of her organization, the Afghan Institute of Learning. Global Washington published an article by contributor Nina Carduner, who detailed Yacoobi’s speech. Yacoobi began by describing her own “happy and secure” childhood in Afghanistan. Her family did not have much, but their needs were met. After travelling to the U.S. to complete her education, Afghanistan was invaded and Yacoobi and her family became refugees, unable to return to their home. But Yacoobi’s heart remained in Afghanistan, and so she pursued a career in public health in hopes of someday returning to provide medical resources to women and children. The turning point in her career, Yacoobi said, came during a visit to an Afghan refugee camp. Her shocking testimonial described how women “were like animals. … They felt less than human,” as their fathers, husbands, and brothers were taken away from them. Yacoobi rejected the idea that women were incapable of doing things for themselves, and dedicated her life to educating Afghan women and children. She began in Pakistan, where a majority of Afghan refugee camps were located. Met with criticism at first by religious leaders who believed that education was not appropriate for children, Yacoobi eventually convinced many of them to become teachers themselves. According to the article, she reached 27,000 children... read more
Dec 14, 2012 | Community Development, Education, Escuela Nueva, Vicky Colbert
2011 Kravis Prize recipient, Vicky Colbert of Colombia, is a renowned innovator in the field of education. As the founder of Fundacion Escuela Nueva (FEN) and the co-author of the Escuela Nueva (or “new school”) model of education, Colbert has dedicated her life to improving the quality and relevance of basic education in schools that serve low- income students. Pearson Education, the world’s leading education company, recently launched a campaign to promote affordable learning, featuring Fundacion Escuela Nueva as a quality service provider in Colombia. In a case study on their website, Pearson Affordable Learning described the evolution of Escuela Nueva from a local initiative into a national policy in Colombia. According to Affordable Learning, this is “How it works”: In all programs, Fundación Escuela Nueva strives to improve the quality, efficiency and sustainability of rural and urban basic education, formal and informal. It does this by implementing the New School learning model which is cost effective, replicable and scalable. They work with students, teachers, educational administrators and communities to transform conventional schooling and the learning process. This is achieved through enhancing curriculum and classroom strategies through renovated teaching practices and experiential teacher training. We applaud Vicky Colbert for her continued success with the Escuela Nueva education model, and the Kravis Prize is proud to congratulate Colbert on being recognized by Pearson Education. To visit the Affordable Learning page and learn more about the FEN case study please visit:... read more
Dec 7, 2012 | Female Empowerment, Health, m2m
Since 2001, Mothers2Mothers has empowered women infected with HIV across the globe. In a recent interview with Voice of America contributor Joe DeCapua, m2m co-founder and international director Robin Smalley discussed ways the organization’s Mentor Mothers program is changing the lives of more than 1 million women in sub-Saharan Africa. Smalley said that Mentor Mothers was developed to address the lack of both access to healthcare and emotional support available for pregnant women living with HIV. She explained how difficult pregnancy can be for vulnerable women in the region: “A young woman would come in. She’d come in for her first pregnancy test. In Africa, that tends to be around five months. At that time she’s offered her first HIV test. She’s like young mothers everywhere. She’s excited. She’s full of joy. She never anticipates anything going wrong. So when that test comes back positive she thinks it’s a death sentence for herself and for her baby. And there’s nobody available to tell her that there is medical intervention available to help her prevent transmission to her child. And so she goes home. She never seeks medical care again because of the terrible stigmas in the community.” Smalley and Dr. Mitch Besser, m2m’s co-founder, determined that the women themselves may represent the best available resource for others facing the same situation. She recalled how they transformed that realization into action. “Let’s just take newly delivered moms, who are HIV positive, put them through a rigorous training, send them back into their own clinics as what we call Mentor Mothers. Pay them for their work, and let them address this... read more
