What is Sustainable Aid?
Aid work is no longer about throwing food at impoverished children with flies on their faces. Instead, aid is becoming increasingly self-critical, collaborative, and economically focused. This class will explore these changes as well as give attendees a strong grasp on what it means to create and work on sustainable projects in the field.
This class is not about emergency aid or environmental sustainability, though we will talk about the latter briefly.
See the syllabus for more details.
The Class:
This summer, Hannah Davis and Alyssa Davis of the Ghana Sustainable Aid Project are running a course on sustainable aid. This is for people who:
-are going into international development-related fields
-are thinking about starting their own nonprofits
-want to make their current nonprofit more sustainable
-are looking to volunteer abroad in an economically sustainable way
-want to understand what to look for while donating to an organization
-anyone who is curious about the field of "smart aid," aid reform, or just interested to see how aid is changing
-are going into international development-related fields
-are thinking about starting their own nonprofits
-want to make their current nonprofit more sustainable
-are looking to volunteer abroad in an economically sustainable way
-want to understand what to look for while donating to an organization
-anyone who is curious about the field of "smart aid," aid reform, or just interested to see how aid is changing
Hannah Davis:
Hannah is the founder of the Ghana Sustainable Aid Project, an organization which strives for a new kind of aid: aid that is sustainable, collaborative, and innovative. GSAP aims to create programs from ideas that come from within the community, and to create programs that long-term will not have to rely on donations. In 2010 GSAP received an $100,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for one of its most successful projects: a toilet that was born of a Ghanaian idea and realized using technology from a Ghanaian engineer and an American engineer.
Alyssa Davis:
Alyssa is the co-founder of ethically sustainable jewelry company Pokuasi, and joined the Ghana Sustainable Aid Project in 2009 as the Head Designer. She has a background in design and management and is currently working on her engineering degree at Cooper Union School for the Advancement of Science and Art.