Jun 29, 2012 | Education, Escuela Nueva, Vicky Colbert
As leaders in the nonprofit world, Kravis Prize winners have earned well-deserved recognition from many organizations. For example, 2011 Kravis Prize winner Vicky Colbert is also a Skoll Entrepreneur! In fact, Colbert was a featured speaker at the Skoll World Forum last year, where she discussed her commitment to education. She also shared the drive and rationale behind Fundacíon Escuela Nueve and the Escuela Nueva model: “Without quality education, nothing can be achieved in any country. No economic development, no social development, nor peace. And this is extremely important. No social cohesion.” In addition, Colbert discussed the massive reform that schools underwent during the pilot Escuela Nueva program in Colombia: “Responding to problems of inequality and inclusion, we started working with [public] schools … we had to think systemically since the beginning – large-scale reform. If we wanted to make changes with the child, we also had to make changes with the way of the teachers, the way the teachers’ training was taking place, the teacher training institutions, the way you’re bringing the community and the parents in, the way you’re bringing the local administrators in. So we had to think systematically and thinking from the outset that anything we would do would impact national... read more
Jun 22, 2012 | AIL, Award Ceremony, Community Development, Education, Female Empowerment, Health, Sakena Yacoobi
On June 7, Sakena Yacoobi, 2009 Kravis Prize winner and founder of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), was honored with the Asia Foundation’s 2012 Lotus Leadership Award. The award recognizes outstanding individuals and organizations that have made major contributions to the wellbeing of women and their communities in Asia. At the awards ceremony, the Foundation screened this never-before-seen video of Yacoobi discussing the circumstances under which she started her organization. “It was scary. If I was caught, or if one of my teachers would be caught, they would be killed because the policy of that time was … no education at all. But we were doing something against the system. Through education, you can really, completely change an entire family. … Through this program, we graduate thousands and thousands of students.” Yacoobi also discussed the impact and goals of AIL: “Today in Afghanistan, AIL has reached 9.1 million people. I am proud of that. And when you have the power of people, you don’t have to fight with gun[s]. You can communicate and through understanding, you can really bring peace to Afghanistan.” She closed with a powerful message: “I will continue this fight because this fight is not finished yet, for the women of Afghanistan.” Another example of a Kravis Prize winner perpetually fighting for social... read more
Jun 15, 2012 | Landesa, Roy Prosterman, Sustainable Development
Kravis Prize winners all strive towards raising awareness of issues that people may or may not encounter in everyday life. For example, the New York Times published an op-ed this week by Roy Prosterman, 2006 Kravis Prize winner and founder of rural developer Landesa, and land-rights specialist and Landesa senior attorney Darryl Vhugen, who discuss the importance of land rights in Myanmar. Here in the U.S. it’s easy to take these basic rights for granted, since we have a rule of law and certain institutions in place. Prosterman and Vhugen, however, point out how these seemingly deserved rights are very much lacking in some countries, such as Myanmar: “Nearly 70 percent of Myanmar’s 47 million people live in rural areas. About one-third of these are landless agricultural laborers. Most of the others, fortunate enough to have some rights to the patch of ground they farm, control their fields only tenuously. There are two main reasons for this. First, with increasing frequency, land is taken from farmers, often with little or no compensation. Large swathes of farmland have already been made available to foreign-based companies in a process that appears to be accelerating. … Second, Myanmar law requires farmers to grow what the government or the local military commander wants them to grow, and subjects farmers to production quotas. Policies like these also displace farmers and lead to food insecurity, as farm productivity suffers. This can push farmers into debt by forcing them to take out loans from money lenders or sell their land in an effort to meet an unrealistic planting directive.” The authors add that despite the growing... read more
Jun 8, 2012 | Landesa, Roy Prosterman
Inaugural Kravis Prize winner Roy Prosterman founded Landesa to put to work his expertise on land reform, rural development and foreign aid and to enact change in the world including China, where more than 4 million rural Chinese lose their land due to government takings every year. Not only do these land grievances violate property rights, they also accounted for two-thirds of the 187,000 reported mass protests and riots in China in 2010! With such a large rate of incidence and a link to rebellion, it is no wonder that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said the country needs to adopt land reforms. Landesa also recently conducted a field study that examined farmers’ land rights in more than 1,700 villages in 17 provinces in China, which revealed some implications of the current state of land laws. On March 6, 2012, Prosterman and Landesa attorney Zhu Keliang presented the findings of the study at a talk hosted by the National Committee on the U.S.-China Relations. The presentation covered the reasons for the loss of land and incentives for farmers to make long-term investments in land, examined the challenges in developing a more equitable approach to urbanization, rural revitalization and stability and provided recommendations on how to ensure secure land rights for hundreds of millions of small farmers and eventually turn them into middle-class consumers and market participants. Prosterman discussed the effect of the land takings on the population: “The dissatisfied farmers outnumber the satisfied ones more than two to one. And indeed, more than one out of six, 17 percent of the affected farmers who have experienced a taking report themselves... read more
Jun 1, 2012 | Education, Pratham
A common characteristic of Kravis Prize winners is their widespread impact within their fields of expertise. 2010 Kravis Prize winner Pratham is a renowned innovator and leader in the field of education. The organization educates countless children through its programs, such as Read India, and also publishes cheap, accessible books through its not-for-profit publisher, Pratham Books. Through Pratham Books, the organization offers high quality books for children at affordable prices and in multiple Indian languages. For example, Madhuri Purandare, a reputable Marathi children’s book writer and illustrator, is publishing two of her books in English through Pratham Books! The books are already available in Hindi, Kannada and Telugu, and the publisher continues to expand its reach. In fact, Purandare’s books embody the spirit of Pratham Books: “It has simple language and consists of daily experiences, but not of the usual kind. These are ones, which the children can relate to. … Different topics should be taken and for different age groups. There is less literature for the 10 plus group. There is little literature available for those above 10, but nothing after that. If it is available, then I think the kids will read them.” “Words for children” [The Pune Mirror, May 25, 2012] Learn more about Pratham on our page and check out Pratham Books’... read more
