Returned Peace Corps Volunteers advance Creative’s mission

August 2, 2016

By Karen Ives

5 min read

When Monnie Heminthavong was 7 years old, she and her family fled Laos in 1979 and traveled across the globe to Yorkville, Ill. Though they had never heard of Yorkville, she immediately felt at home in the small town.

The community, and particularly the local Unitarian churchwomen, helped her family resettle, providing support and opportunities.

Heminthavong decided she wanted to return that generosity and in 1993 joined the U.S. Peace Corps as a way of “getting back to give back.” She served as an Agroforestry volunteer in Cameroon from 1993 to 1997 and the experience left an indelible mark on her.

“It was one of the most gratifying and satisfying things I’ve ever done,” she says.

For Heminthavong and returned volunteers like her, Peace Corps service prompted a lifelong passion for development.

Established in 1961 by President Kennedy, the Peace Corps fosters positive relationships and friendship around the world by providing developing countries with skilled labor that can train the workforce, share U.S. culture and learn about the host countries in which they work and live.

At that time, President Kennedy probably did not realize that it would create a cadre of well-trained, culturally aligned returned volunteers who could work on some of today’s toughest development challenges.

Heminthavong, who now serves as a Contracts Administrator at Creative Associates International, is one of nearly a dozen returned Peace Corps Volunteers on staff. For the company, these returned volunteers bring a commitment to service that aligns strongly with Creative’s mission to support people around the world to realize the positive change they seek.

“Our Creative community is richer and our technical work is stronger because of the diverse experiences of our staff,” says Leland Kruvant, President of Creative. “Peace Corps Volunteers bring a community-oriented approach and cross-cultural communication skills that help us live out Creative’s mission and values.”

During a two-year assignment, Peace Corps volunteers gain experience in a community-driven style of development. They apply skills in appreciative inquiry to identify local needs and conditions and apply an understanding of the importance of language and local culture to of cross-cultural communication.

Jeffrey Coupe, who was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo from 1982 to 1984, is now a Senior Associate in Creative’s Education Division. He says the Peace Corps experience carries over to all facets of development.

“It was a life changing experience—for me anyway,” says Coupe. “I continued working in development and I enjoyed working on a USAID project as part of my Peace Corps experience and I think that helped in many ways because I had professional responsibility and I had to report on my activities.”

A broader perspective on complex development

With hands-on experience working on education initiatives in The Gambia, Creative’s Technical Manager Jake Thomsen says he better understands the key role community plays in supporting education, especially in conflict zone like Northern Nigeria (pictured above). Photo by David S

In addition to building skills like collaboration, flexibility and language ability, Peace Corps Volunteers experience firsthand the complexities of a country and region and understand how complicated and politicized those contexts can be. This is a key perspective for implementing development projects, particularly in the conflict and crisis-affected environments where Creative works.

When political unrest erupted in Burkino Faso in 2015, David Newstead—a Data Analyst at Creative and returned Peace Corps Volunteer who had served in neighboring Togo—recognized something familiar about the rebels who raided the presidential residence.

“They’re the same type of guys who used to wait at the taxi stands in Togo,” he says.

Young, unemployed and disenfranchised. Newstead had seen men like this in Togo. To him, these men weren’t just rebels, but a population who had been marginalized and down-trodden by a host of other factors, including economic and societal.

Through their experiences, many of Creative’s returned Peace Corps Volunteers say they learned the value of engaging the community in every step of a project to ensure that it achieves it goals and serves the intended target population. Community engagement is key to accountability.

As Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia, Jake Thomsen, currently a Technical Manager in the Education in Conflict Practice Area at Creative, helped the headmaster at an elementary school apply for and win a grant to build a library. It was a significant achievement his early days in development—and the library was to become a critical tool for the community.

Thomsen also helped the library procure several boxes of donated books. Unfortunately, because of some of the funds were siphoned by a school official, there wasn’t enough money to buy furniture, Thomsen says. By the time Thomsen left The Gambia, the books were still in boxes and the library was still not operational.

Nonetheless, Thomsen says it was a learning experience for him.

“To me, that was a powerful example of the need to be careful to involve the community, to make sure one person isn’t running the show and making dubious decisions,” says Thomsen.

Creative’s returned Peace Corps Volunteers also report that their experiences gave them a richer understanding of cross-cultural communication and better insight into the beneficiaries’ perspectives. Volunteers say they learned to build personal relationships across cultures and understand how these relationships can lead to positive change in the lives of individuals.

Peace Corps “gives you the perspective of a beneficiary that you wouldn’t get unless you lived with them for an extended period of time,” says Meaghan Buksas, a Proposal Manger at Creative who served with Peace Corps in Ecuador.

She says her service helped her develop the ability to observe critically in order to better understand people, situations and opportunities.

Bringing the experience home to Creative

Returned Peace Corps Volunteers are applying their experiences to the work they do at Creative. Because of their experiences abroad, they bring practical knowledge and a down-to-earth approach to development.

Peace Corps Volunteers “bring practical knowledge to the work we conceptualize,” explains Heminthavong. “Being in the field helps put context into what we do”

While it can be a big transition to go from working at the grass roots level to working at the headquarters level with an established international development organization, the returned Peace Corps Volunteers at Creative are up to the challenge.

“To me, it’s a way of coming full circle,” says Newstead. “In Peace Corps, you’re really in the weeds while at development organizations like Creative you get a birds-eye view.”

This birds-eye view often means working in development capacities most Peace Corps Volunteers haven’t encountered during their service, including work at the policy level.

“Here we deal a lot with policy,” says Thomsen. “We’re working with governments to help them perhaps develop their policy or improve their education policy or implement and operationalize their policy, but it’s a learning experience.”

For Creative, these returned Peace Corps volunteers help advance the organization’s mission with their insight into on-the-ground implementation and fierce dedication to the communities Creative partners with and serves.

The Peace Corps “made me a stronger and better person,” says Heminthavong. “I want to continue to provide service and uplift the way I have been uplifted.”

Campaign helps open doors for Salvadoran youth

August 2, 2016

By Iván Enrique Flores

3 min read

This country’s cities and its young people too often make negative headlines focused on crime and violence. Gabriela Castellón dispelled those myths about her town in the southeastern department of La Union.

“I want to tell you a story,” she said, standing in front of an audience of 250 government officials, media and community members during the July 20 kick off of the #PorMásPuertas (“For More Doors”) campaign in San Salvador.

“I come from a beautiful place called Las Tunas, in Conchagua. A place full of sun, beach, seafood and music…a place where young people and children [once] had no place to learn, play and make friends,” she said.

As the coordinator of the Las Tunas Outreach Center, Castellón is changing this narrative and opening doors for young people in her community with access to a violence-free space where they can learn new skills and chart a positive course for their lives.

The For More Doors campaign, which will run until October, aims to position the Outreach Center as a successful community model for violence prevention at the national level—promoting community volunteerism, engaging institutions and companies in the Outreach Centers, and bringing in more beneficiaries.

As part of the El Salvador Crime and Violence Prevention Project—funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented by Creative Associates International—Outreach Centers are a youth violence prevention tool at use in high-risk, violence-plagued communities.

These centers provide opportunities for children and youth in volunteering, job training and tutoring, and offer them opportunities to creatively use their leisure time off the streets and away from violence. Currently, 123 project-supported Outreach Center operate in 17 municipalities.

The Outreach Centers’ “The Challenge of Dreaming My Life” methodology helps participants develop life plans and set goals in the short-, medium- and long-term, contributing to their own improvement and the renewal of their communities.

To galvanize more youth and community members to get involved in the Outreach Centers, the band Friguey has joined the campaign and will launch a campaign concert tour called Tour x + Doors.

Opening doors to a second home for youth

For Outreach Center coordinators, mentoring at-risk young people and helping them find a better path has become their mission.

Speaking at the campaign launch, Andres Vanegas, Coordinator of the Ilobasco Outreach Center said, “Every day we coordinators walk from our homes to do one thing—open the doors of our centers. We open the doors so that the young people of our communities can reach their second home. We open the doors to help realize dreams and to save lives. We open the doors to sow hope, friendship and values.”

Outreach Centers in El Salvador have opened their doors to more than 22,000 young beneficiaries who daily move away from negative actions and build plans for their lives through the services Outreach Centers provide.

Volunteers, many of them youth, are critical to this, generating an average 8,243 Outreach Center volunteer hours per month and delivering their knowledge and experience to other young people to build a better community together.

This tireless dedication to improving the lives of their communities’ youth is working, said Castellón, the Coordinator of Las Tunas Outreach Center.

“Two years later, in my Outreach Center over 500 young people in Las Tunas daily enjoy their second home. Here, they laugh, play, learn and dream…and with them we build a better community, a better city, a better country,” she said.

These changes have even spread beyond the Outreach Center, effecting the community as a whole.

“Today Las Tunas is a different place,” she said. “It is still full of sun, sand, and seafood, but now also with hope and dreams for our youth. I have faith that ultimately out of these doors will walk men and women who will change El Salvador.”

To view the For More Doors campaign video, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RilRbDqvICg

To learn more about the Outreach Center model, visit website: www.centrosdealcance.org

Eastern & Southern Caribbean – Community, Family and Youth Resilience

Program

1 min read

The Community, Family and Youth Resilience program identified and worked with families and youth who were empirically at the highest risk of becoming involved in crime and violence.

The program, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, assessed youth risk through the Youth Service Eligibility Tool (YSET), which measures risk across nine factors at a family, peer and individual level.

Youth were matched with interventions based on their level of risk. These interventions increased protective factors or “resilience”. These initiatives included civic activities to build social and leadership skills, workshops to increase youth workforce readiness, community activities that promote positive youth-police contact, and campaigns to challenge those gender norms which contribute to an environment permissive of violence.

The program also reached youth at higher levels of risk—those who are leaving the juvenile justice system—with targeted support to improve their chances of reintegration.

Based on evidence and proven success in Central America, including the USAID-funded Proponte Mas program, the Community, Families and Youth Resilience program reduced rates of juvenile detention and built community safety and cohesion in the areas where it operated.

Creative implemented the program in partnership with international and local organizations with expertise in evidence-based approaches to building the capacity of governments, communities, and local service providers to deliver prevention services to at-risk youth. These groups included the Pan American Development Foundation, the University of Southern California and YouthBuild International.

New program to empower Caribbean communities to better service at-risk youth

July 25, 2016

3 min read

Family support networks and government agencies in 10 Caribbean countries that provide violence prevention services to at-risk youth will receive training and other resources through a new program, Creative Associates International announced.

The four-year program—called Community, Families and Youth Resilience—will adapt successful approaches to reduce crime and increase opportunities for youth across the Eastern Caribbean, including juvenile offenders and those most at risk for becoming involved in gang violence and crime.

Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the program seeks to improve the ability of national and local government, community-based family support networks and local service providers to deliver violence prevention services to at-risk youth.

“It is important to offer targeted support to youth facing different levels of risk,” says Enrique Roig, Director of Citizen Security at Creative. “This project provides a holistic set of interventions so that youth, their families and communities get the specific support they need to lower risk factors for violence and strengthen protective factors.”

The program focuses on the six independent countries that comprise the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (including Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines), as well as Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Suriname.

Creative will implement the project in partnership with the Pan American Development Foundation, YouthBuild International and the University of Southern California.

Reaching youth at all risk levels

While the countries of the Eastern and Southern Caribbean have had historically high levels of development, recent years have seen high rates of youth unemployment and violent crime in the area. Because of its location, the Caribbean has been a transit point for illegal drugs and weapons traveling from producers in northern South America to consumers in the U.S. and Europe.

While drug transit has abated in the last few years, the resulting crime and violence has persisted. High youth unemployment and a lack of psychosocial support resources for youth have exacerbated the problem and contributed to a cycle of violence.

Creative draws on a proven citizen security policy framework used successfully in programs in Central America, including the USAID-funded Alianza Joven Honduras (Youth Alliance Honduras) violence prevention project and Proponte Más, a secondary violence prevention program which applies family counseling to help reduce the risk factors of youth most at risk for joining gangs.

As in Central American countries, Creative will use a holistic public health, place-based approach to support youth and lower youth risk factors for violence in the Caribbean.

The public health model focuses on targeting intervention activities across three risk-differentiated groups—including the general population of youth in at-risk area, youth at the highest risk for violence, and youth offenders— and serves as a complement to criminal justice interventions.

The place-based strategy focuses complementary prevention activities to a set geographical area. It brings the public health model to life by using accurate data to develop crime and violence prevention plans, apply tools to measure levels of risk, and design interventions to reduce risk factors, including lack of psychosocial support and vocational skills.

“By concentrating resources in an at-risk neighborhood and applying evidence-based strategies that focus on places, people and behaviors, we expect to improve the security situation in the target countries” says Roig

Rare opportunity to prevent violence escalation

Communities in the Eastern and Southern Caribbean are at a crossroads. While homicides rates have increased over the past 12 years, they have yet to reach the levels experienced in the Northern Triangle (Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala) and Panama, where Creative and its partners have made measurable differences in the lives of at-risk youth.

The program has an opportunity to lower risk factors that lead youth to violence and unite communities, youth, police and others in achieving sustainable reduction in youth crime and violence.

By applying its specialized expertise and leveraging an evidence-based practices, Creative will achieve measurable results in reducing youths’ risk factors for crime and violence by, for example, improving the workforce readiness, providing prevention services, fostering social and leadership skills through civic participation.

Top military school cadets visit Honduran Outreach Center

July 7, 2016

1 min read

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Top military school cadets visit Honduran Outreach Center

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Cadets from the top 20 U.S. military schools spent a day getting to know at-risk youth at a USAID-funded Outreach Center in the Estados Unidos neighborhood of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. They visited the Outreach Center as part of a Department of Defense initiative to learn more about USAID-funded projects, build leadership skills and improve cultural understanding. As part of the Alianza Joven Honduras-USAID project, more than 45 Outreach Centers like this one provide youth with safe spaces and opportunities for recreation, tutoring, music lessons, life skills, vocational training and more. Photos by Alejandro Rodriguez.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Central American summit explores solutions to reduce violence & crime in the region

June 29, 2016

By Karen Ives

4 min read

Initiatives to reduce crime and violence —including community-focused outreach centers—are having an effect in certain neighborhoods in Central America, though much more work and time are required before anyone can claim victory, according to experts at the Regional Conference on Prevention and Education in Tegucigalpa.

“It is not enough to suppress the crime,” according to the declaration of the Regional Conference on Prevention and Education in Honduras. “It is essential, in the medium and long term, to work toward peace and coexistence in order to prevent violence.”

Approximately 350 elected officials, policymakers, program implementers and the media attended the Regional Conference on Prevention and Education, organized by the Honduran Ministry of Security of Honduras. The conference, an initiative of the Honduran Pro-tempore Presidency of the Central American Integration System, drew together national, regional and international experts to share their experiences of what works in crime and violence prevention and discuss how to strategize implementation elsewhere.

At the conclusion of the two-day conference, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández told participants: “We are sending a message that we are waking up and are committed as a generation to take on one of the challenges we have faced through history. We will not stay silent and with our arms folded, as has happened in the last 15 or 20 years, before the issue of safety and prevention.”

Of the 350 participants, most of who stayed for both days of the conference, 100 came from outside Honduras, mainly from Central American countries and the Dominican Republic. There were also representatives from the US, South America and other parts of the world.

Creative’s outreach centers play a critical role

In the struggle to ensure safety and prevent violence, Latin America experts at the conference emphasized the need to reach children and youth before they became involved with gangs, as well as the importance of empowering the community to be involved and take action.

Salvador Stadthagen, Director of USAID’s Alianza Joven Honduras program, told conference attendees how Outreach Centers were designed to do both.

In Honduras, 46 Outreach Centers serve more than 28,000 youth and empower communities to engage and protect children and at-risk youth. At least 16 new centers will be opening this year. Through education and professional training programs, these Outreach Centers are breaking the cycle of violence for many Honduran communities.

These centers have received a great deal of support, particularly from the Deputy Secretariat of Security for Prevention, and by the local governments of the municipalities in which they are located. The Mayor of Tegucigalpa, Nasry Asfura, has recently committed to building more of them in the Honduran capital.

In El Salvador, Outreach Centers are reaching an estimated 51,045 children and youth, Juan Jose Hernandez, a representative from Creative’s Crime and Violence Prevention Project in El Salvador, said at the conference.

“The centers are places of opportunity and hope in the hearts of communities,” said Hernandez, “and seek the development of children and youth.”

Similar centers have been set up in other countries like Panama to support efforts in violence prevention and provide opportunities for children and youth. The Outreach Centers are funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, host governments, communities and the private sector.

In his speech, Stadthagen noted in particular the importance of empowering individuals in at-risk communities with the capacity to foster positive change:

“There are a lot of great people in the most at-risk communities in the region,” he said. “We need to unleash their potential and look for strategies to engage them to participate and become protagonists of the positive changes those communities require. Developing volunteerism and training volunteers at the community level is one key strategy to achieve this.”

Creative’s Outreach Centers provide opportunities to engage young people and foster volunteerism.

President Hernández publically recognized the importance of Outreach Centers in his closing remarks. He also praised Youth Against Violence, and requested that the other Central American governments support the youth movement in their own countries.

Creative co-sponsors & helps organize the conference

In addition to Hernandez and Stadthagen, other experts from Creative spoke at the conference to share best practices and experience in the field. Creative has been working in communities throughout Central America to develop tools, techniques and practices that engage both policymakers and communities in the prevention and reduction of violence.

Creative also co-sponsored and helped organize the conference. By sharing its network of contacts working in education and prevention activities in the region, Creative helped ensure that the conference was comprehensive and inclusive.

The conference provided the opportunity to share a variety of experiences and lessons learned, deepen alliances and create new alliances between attending organizations. The Conference also allowed Creative’s staff, partners, and allies to further their knowledge on Prevention and share their successful approaches.

“Creative has a very solid Education practice. Joining our experience in prevention and citizen security with our experience in education issues such as [school] drop-out, an important risk factor for violence for example, is important for developing more effective prevention programs,” explains Stadthagen. “The fact that this Conference explored the nexus of prevention and education was a great opportunity.”

Guillermo Céspedes, former Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles and currently the Deputy of the Proponte Más program, spoke about Creative’s secondary prevention project in Honduras.

Funded by USAID, Proponte Más will identify and work with 800 families and 8 to 17 year olds who are empirically at the highest risk of joining gangs. It is based on a successful pilot of 100 families in the Honduran capital.

During a separate panel session, Fabian Bendersky, a clinical psychologist from Argentina and Creative consultant, discussed the large and untapped potential of sports for prevention and reduction of violence among youth.

Soccer programs Bendersky has organized in El Salvdor have proved effective in teaching empathy, developing self-discipline, improving critical and reflecting thinking, increasing self-confidence, decreasing violence and absenteeism and improving young peoples’ ability to meet the challenges of daily life.

Sun shines on Proponte Más inauguration

June 21, 2016

2 min read

Honduras boasts the most spectacular tropical storms—complete with a dark, brooding sky, thunder, lightning and sheets of rain. When they roll into the capital, our neighborhood becomes a dark mass and the air stifles the soul.

This was the weather in June, when palettes of gray and black subdued the buzz of energies around our Proponte Más office in Tegucigalpa. All at once, the rains abided and the sun was bright—then another rainstorm took out the electricity.

In the span of two hours, the office shifted from excitement and activity to holding its collective breath. Storms and no electricity… This was our new Proponte Más office on June 9, two hours before its inauguration.

Then, the sky transformed from dark to light: the sun embraced the cumulus clouds to provide the perfect light by which to inaugurate the building and host an open house focused on the celebration of family.

During a speech at the open house, the U.S. Agency for International Development Mission Director, James Watson, focused his words on the distinctive focus of the Proponte Más project: how it creates stronger family structures while building and reinforcing community family services, and how it empowers communities themselves to create the necessary mechanisms to reduce violence. His main message was on the importance of the program in building a new cadre of professionals for family counseling systems.

The family tree on the wall of the new Proponte Más office represents an essential component of family counseling work.

After the speech and ribbon cutting, invitees were given a flair for the uniqueness of the project: we welcomed them to sit in our living room with a cup of coffee to review Proponte Más’ family tree—an essential component of the family counseling work. They were then invited to plant new growth in our flower and herb garden to symbolize the roots we were developing in the community with Honduran families.

The skies remained coated in the sun’s rays as the guests sipped Honduran coffee and enjoyed crepes made with local ingredients.

At the close of the day, Mother Nature had one last surprise for us: the earth shook (6.2 on the Richter scale)—just a gentle reminder that while we planted roots, the earth around us can be fragile. It encourages us to dig our roots just a little bit deeper.

Robyn Braverman is the Chief of Party of Proponte Más, which is supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

13 Honduran Outreach Centers to get financial boost

June 15, 2016

By Karen Ives

2 min read

Thirteen Outreach Centers catering to at-risk youth will receive $83,000 from the Tegucigalpa, Honduras, government, the USAID-Honduras Youth Alliance program announced.

The funding will support the Outreach Centers through the 2016 year by enabling repairs and improvements to the buildings, supporting expanded operations and services and increased volunteers, as well as assisting with the implementation of Microsoft Academies.

The agreement was signed by Nasry Asfura, Mayor of Tegucigalpa, and Salvador Stadthagen, Director of USAID-Honduras Youth Alliance, and represents a first step for deeper and longer-term support from the municipal government for Outreach Centers’ violence prevention activities in the city.

“The current Tegucigalpa municipal government has made a remarkable improvement to the infrastructure of the capital of Honduras, and also now wants to concentrate efforts in the social development of the city’s most vulnerable neighborhoods,” says Stadthagen.

With the support of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Alianza Joven Honduras uses grants and technical assistance to enable the government, private sector and affected communities to address violence and reform the justice system. Alianza Joven Honduras focuses on six cities— San Pedro Sula, Choloma, La Ceiba, Tela, Puerto Lempira and Tegucigalpa—that are experiencing the most violence. It is implemented by Creative Associates International.

Violence remains a serious issue in Tegucigalpa, where homicide rate in 2015 was 73.3 per 100,000 people. The World Health Organization considers 10 per 100,000 an epidemic.

Tegucigalpa’s Outreach Centers are designed prevent violence by providing support and opportunities to vulnerable youth in the city’s most at-risk communities. Each Outreach Center benefits an average of 300 children and youth and guides them in their transition towards adulthood.

The network of Outreach Centers in the capital is doubling in size this year, as a seventh new building has been developed with support from Price Philanthropies Foundation, a foundation associated with PriceSmart, a U.S. wholesaler with a strong presence in Honduras. Six of the 13 Outreach Centers are currently in development, joining the seven currently operating in the city. The private sector has been an active supporter of the Outreach Centers.

The support provided through the agreement with the Tegucigalpa municipal government, which will be disbursed in two parts in July and October, makes possible the implementation of Microsoft Academies in three of the new Outreach Centers.

These Microsoft Academies and the Outreach Centers themselves give children and youth opportunities for creative uses of free time, as well as academic and career support.

In addition to helping establish Outreach Centers, other programs in the country are focusing on preventing crime and violence, including Proponente Mas and Jovenes Contra la Violencia.

The USAID-Honduran Youth Alliance, has developed valuable and close partnerships for the prevention of violence with the Municipalities of San Pedro Sula, La Ceiba, Choloma, Tela and La Lima.

Although the USAID-Honduran Youth Alliance had worked with the Municipality of the Central District in one Outreach Center (Nueva Capital), this is the first comprehensive agreement covering the whole of the Outreach Center network in the capital.

Former USAID Assistant Administrator joins Creative as Senior Vice President

June 8, 2016

2 min read

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Former USAID Assistant Administrator joins Creative Associates International as Senior Vice President

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]WASHINGTON, D.C. – Earl Gast, a global development expert with more than two decades of experience managing results-driven programming, will join Creative Associates International as a Senior Vice President.

In this new role, Gast will oversee the Education Division—which is Creative’s oldest unit—and the Economic Growth Division, the organization’s newest division. Together, these two divisions have projects in eight countries.

Creative Chief Operating Officer Pablo Maldonado said the Education and Economic Growth Divisions have grown their project portfolios, including new programs in Nigeria and Nicaragua, during the past year and are expected to continue that upward movement.

“Earl’s deep experience will greatly benefit our clients, host governments, implementing partners and beneficiaries,” says Maldonado. “It is this type of high-caliber talent that allows Creative to develop innovative, locally focused programs that result in positive changes for beneficiaries.”

Former USAID Assistant Administrator

Most recently, Gast was a Senior International Advisor at Covington & Burling, LLP, in Washington, D.C., where he co-led the firm’s Africa Practice since December 2014.

Previously, he was a senior U.S. government executive with 24 years of experience in international development and foreign policy.

Appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate, in April 2012 he was sworn in as the Assistant Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Africa Bureau, USAID’s largest bureau, which at that time had program resources of more than $8 billion covering more than 40 countries on that continent.

During his tenure as Assistant Administrator, Gast initiated new partnerships and Presidential initiatives, including Power Africa and Trade Africa, and leveraged funds from multiple global organizations to achieve greater scale and results. He also worked across U.S. government agencies and with the White House to draft the President’s Strategy for Africa.

Gast earned awarded a master’s degree in political science and Middle East studies in 1987 from The George Washington University. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Maryland in 1984 with a bachelor’s degree in history and criminal law. In addition to his native English, Gast speaks Russian and Arabic.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Central American conference on violence reduction to feature 4 Creative experts

June 7, 2016

2 min read

A conference focusing on preventing crime and reducing violence in Central America will feature four experts from Creative Associates International, which has programs in three of the target countries.

Called the Regional Prevention and Education Conference, the two-day event is expected to draw 250 elected officials, policymakers, program implementers and the media to discuss best practices in these areas, as well as the development of an official conference declaration. It is part of the Central American Integration System (SICA in Spanish), an organization comprised of the region’s countries.

Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who will host the conference in Tegucigalpa as the chair of SICA, said in a prepared statement that Central American countries need to share their experiences of what works in crime and violence prevention and how they can be implemented elsewhere.

“During the conference, we want to share the successes of each one of these best practices that we have had in Honduras, which have led to a bringing about peace and tranquility and reducing the rate of delinquency,” President Hernandez said in a statement.

He called for a regional approach to reducing crime and violence.

Creative has been working in communities throughout Central America to develop techniques that engage both policymakers and communities in the prevention and reduction of violence.

Guillermo Cespedes, former Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles, will speak about Creative’s secondary prevention project in Honduras called Proponte Más.

Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Proponte Más project will identify and work with 800 families and their youth ages 8 to 17 who are empirically at the highest risk of joining gangs. Using the Youth Service Eligibility Tool (YSET), youth are evaluated based on a series of nine risk factors at a family, peer and individual level domain.

It is based on a successful pilot of 100 families in the Honduran capital.

Salvador Stadthagen, the former Ambassador of Nicaragua to the United States and currently the head of Creative’s Alianza Joven Honduras project, will discuss community empowerment. Funded by USAID, the project has had significant results in the target communities with the highest concentrations of at-risk youth.

Joining Stadthagen on the community empowerment panel is Juan Jose Hernandez of Creative’s Crime and Violence Prevention Project in El Salvador. Hernandez is one of the leading developers of successful outreach centers in neighborhoods with high rates of crime and violence.

Creative’s outreach centers are important to high-at-risk communities in El Salvador, Honduras, Panama and Guatemala.

Fabian Bendersky, a clinical psychologist from Argentina and Creative consultant, will discuss how sports plays a role in supporting at-risk youth. He will be joined by a representative from the Youth Against Violence organization, which is supported by USAID and Creative.

In addition to its speaking roles, Creative is one of the sponsors of the Regional Prevention and Education Conference. Apart from the government of Honduras, the host, other sponsors include the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the U.N. Development Programme.

Positive youth development succeeds in D.C. & beyond

May 2, 2016

4 min read

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Positive youth development succeeds in D.C. & beyond

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]There are three things young people wanted and needed when they first walked through the doors of The Latin American Youth Center in 1974 Washington, D.C., said the center’s President and CEO Lori Kaplan. Jobs. Education. And connection.

Today, through a network of services and opportunities in these and other areas—including mental health, housing and more—the center supports more than 4,000 young people each year in their transitions to successful adulthood.

It is “a whole system that really exemplifies everything we’ve been talking about in positive youth development,” said Bonnie Politz, Senior Youth Consultant for Creative Associates International, speaking at the Society for International Development’s Youth in Development Workgroup meeting on April 26 at the Latin American Youth Center.

A positive youth development approach focuses on building young peoples’ skills and assets and engaging them as key actors in their own development and youth programming.

Now at the forefront of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s youth programming, this type of an approach emphasizes building healthy relationships with caring adults and role models; empowering youth and seeking their contributions; and providing safe spaces and integrated support systems for young people across different areas of their lives.

“It is not just a question of what happens to young people within the doors of a youth center, but what happens to young people throughout their lives,” said Kristen Brady, Director of the Youth Department at FHI360 and Co-Chair of the workgroup.

Creative’s Politz urged that practitioners think about youth development across an integrated spectrum, including workforce readiness, education, health and mental health, family systems and more, rather than as siloed sectors with disparate goals.

A toolkit of opportunities for different youth & risk levels

The Proponte Más program in Honduras reaches youth most at-risk of joining gangs and works with families to build healthy habits and relationships that reduce risk. Photo by David Snyder.

In any given community, different youth will face very different levels of risk. A positive youth development approach means adapting and tailoring interventions to meet the particular needs of each young person, said presenters.

“You just have to have enough opportunities in your toolkit of options,” said Kaplan, explaining that an out-of-school and out-of-work young person will require more intensive educational and workforce support services than an A-level student who may instead need help navigating higher education options.

In Latin America, for example, where gang violence runs high, less than 1 percent of youth will actually become perpetrators of this violence. A one-size-fits-all approach will not succeed at reaching those youth most at-risk of joining these groups or those who are already involved.

Rather, programs like secondary prevention family counseling that are tailored to reduce risk factors among this high-risk population and reintegration programs for former juvenile offenders will be most effective, explains Enrique Roig, Director of Citizen Security at Creative.

“We are getting much better at identifying those most at-risk youth for gang involvement or violent behavior and matching them up with positive youth development services, and being able to measure the impact and reduction in risk factors,” says Roig.

Meanwhile, a larger youth population living in an at-risk areas will benefit from access to a safe space and a holistic network of opportunities including vocational trainings, mentorship, and life skills courses provided by neighborhood Outreach Centers.

Through 200 Outreach Centers in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama, more than 70,000 at-risk youth in the most challenging neighborhoods have benefited from these services and access to a safe place to grow and learn away from the violence. The Outreach Centers were launched by Creative and supported by USAID, the private sector, local organizations and municipal governments.

Long-term support & a caring adult

Evidence shows that youth can more easily navigate their transitions to successful adulthood with the support of a caring adult role model, like this Outreach Center Coordinator in Cojutepeque, El Salvador (pictured above). Photo by Erick Gibson.

The challenges a young person faces as a 14-year-old will be very different from what she encounters as a teen mother, or a twenty-something job seeker, explained the presenters. Youth need long-term support to surmount these challenges throughout their transitions to positive adulthood

A caring adult or role model has proven to be instrumental in helping youth achieve this successful transitions, said Politz.

“We’re developing all through our lives,” she added, noting that youth face episodic and ongoing problems, like a family crisis or poverty, all of which they can more successfully navigate with the guidance of a caring adult over time.

In Creative’s Proponte Más program in Honduras, for example, trained and certified family counselors work in close partnership with high-risk youth and their families to establish and build these positive relationships that can help reduce youth risk factors.

At the Latin American Youth Center, the Promotor Pathway program pairs caring adult mentors with young people using “a long-term relationship-based strategy to meet the multiple needs of the region’s most vulnerable youth.”

These “promotors” support the youth as they navigate crises including substance abuse or the criminal justice system and help to connect them to the appropriate support services. Long-term support is a critical element in the program’s success.

“We were never about opening and closing a case,” said Kaplan. “It’s about support systems in communities where young people can grow and thrive.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][list_category_posts_widget title=”RELATED STORIES” cat_id=”246,132″ order_by=”date” numberposts=”3″ excerpt=”yes” excerpt_size=”15″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Experts raise questions for “MOOCs” & online education at CIES

March 9, 2016

4 min read

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Experts raise questions for “MOOCs” & online education at CIES

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Vancouver—With more technology than ever before in the hands of millions in the developing world, massive open online courses have been offered up as part of the solution to overcoming the major education barrier of access, particularly in developing countries.

But technologists and educators have much more to explore to ensure that these platforms and classes actually reach these audiences, explained experts on a panel titled “MOOCs and online education: What model for developing countries?” at the Comparative and International Education Society conference on March 8.

Research has shown that MOOC users in both high and low income countries are majority male, highly educated and employed. Limited Internet connectivity and a lack of technology know-how are among many reasons low-income populations may lack access to MOOCs.

To reach more learners with content relevant to their lives and country contexts it might be time to think beyond the “MOOC,” said Jacqui Deelstra, a Technology for Development Associate at Creative Associates International’s Development Lab.

“How do we move beyond what is defined as a traditional MOOC and really provide a good learning experience?” she posed. “What does it mean now to utilize online and mobile tools for training and capacity building?”

CreativeU: Designing for the learner

CreativeU_Logo While MOOCs have expanded access to high quality content to some learners, the main providers of MOOCs and online education are located in developed, English-speaking countries. Course content from these institutions may not be suited for local contexts and may preclude non-English speaking learners from participating.

“Anyone in the world can go online and learn how to do computer programming from a professor at MIT. That’s amazing!” said Deelstra.

But for a fruit vendor in rural Tanzania looking to set up shop in the local market, she explained, a Stanford University business course might not provide the best instruction.

Through the responsive e-learning platform CreativeU, Deelstra and her colleagues are addressing this need for locally relevant, easy to comprehend e-learning content. For example, CreativeU offers business trainings tailored to local artisans and small and medium-sized business owners in Western China and vocational skills courses designed for at-risk youth in Nicaragua.

“What we really focus on at CreativeU is creating customized iterations for people and organizations who want to focus on capacity building…Those who own small and medium enterprises in [Western China] and youth in Central America have different needs and need different content.”

CreativeU learning modules are offered in local languages and packaged in easy to digest 7-10 minute modules that build on one another. The idea is that learning meets the user where they are, in a format that is easily accessible and with content that is relevant to their lives, said Deelstra.

“We really look at who our user is when designing” courses, she said.

Unlike traditional MOOCs, CreativeU’s courses are often delivered in conjunction with in-person instruction, amounting to a multifaceted blended learning experience that may support learning better than technology-based methods alone.

The outcomes to date are promising, said Deelstra.

“We’re seeing how this can really be affective in a lot of different contexts in developing countries.”

Daniel Wagner, Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and expert in MOOCs and online education, agreed.

“I’ve been following Creative for some time now and they are clearly one of the leaders in this area,” he said.

Wagner added that MOOCs and online education have the potential to play a significant role across sectors like health and workforce development with courses that dispatch critical health information or equip user with sought-after job skills.

Efforts to expand equitable access to these learning tools, he added, is linked directly to conversations around the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.

“There are a lot of panels [at CIES] on the SDGs. It struck me that we’re also talking about the SDGs here in a very significant way…This all connects and it connects in an interesting way through the conversation around MOOCS,” he said.

Pending: Standard definitions, comparisons & more

In a quickly changing technology landscape and with ongoing hurdles to equitable access, questions and challenges around MOOCs and online education abound, said panelists.

For example, panelists discussed whether there is a need for a standard definition of a MOOC to allow for comparison and research on best practices, or whether an e-learning approach can be “MOOCish,” as Wagner termed it.

Educators and technologists will also need to determine what combination of online and in-person education is most effective.

“We all know what kind of things are important but it is getting the mix right,” said Wagner.

The field is also grappling with the issues around brand name education. Is a course more valuable if it certified by a big name university or is it more relevant and beneficial to users to receive content and courses from local institutions and instructors?

As education and technology experts seek to answer these questions, said Wagner, it will be critically important to keep up with a constantly evolving field.

“We need to be paying attention to who is using technology today and for what purposes…What will we be talking about in the next year or five years around MOOCS?” he posed. “We’re not even at the end of the beginning.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][list_category_posts_widget title=”RELATED STORIES” cat_id=”257″ order_by=”date” numberposts=”3″ excerpt=”yes” excerpt_size=”15″][/vc_column][/vc_row]