Slosberg Travel Grant

Faith Toran, India 2017

Faith’s MA thesis focused on a contemporary reappraisal of the participatory turn in development practices. In particular, her thesis used the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) method popularized in the ‘90s and her field research undertaken in Tamil Nadu, India with a waste management educational initiative, kNOw PLASTICS Educational Programme, designed around “participatory methods of environmental education for social justice.” Faith also collaborated with WasteLess India, an educational research organization focused on sustainable waste management based in Auroville, which is using ‘participatory’ approaches that help to change the harmful habits that affect the way we make, dispose of and think about waste. While with WasteLess, Faith worked as an Education and Communication Coordinator for 6 months. In efforts to address the challenges of the participatory paradigm of development (generally highly theoretically supported, but lacking support in practical theory), Faith engaged the WasteLess team in a wider scope of ‘participatory’ communication, conducting a PRA session yielding a model of participatory communication that proved to be an enjoyable and creative method for the students to generate their own knowledge about waste. It also served as practical data for the participatory paradigm and aligned with the WasteLess aim of targeting the future generation with fun and engaging educational activities concerning waste management, to bring about behavioral change and instill positive habits early on in a child’s life.

To improve development practice and theory, Faith advocates for “another communication” for development, and suggests that good communication must take place in order for development to be experienced. Based on her field research experiencing and facilitating PRA, Faith believes PRA may be used as a prerequisite to gather baseline information on worldviews and knowledge in a development context in order to facilitate a process that is local in context, while being empowering and genuinely participatory.

Viviana Alvarado Pacheco, Belize 2017

Viviana’s MA thesis focuses on the application of international refugee law on the climate migrants in the Caribbean, particularly small island states that are completely independent from a mother country. She had the opportunity to collaborate with the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center (CCCCC) in Belize, which is an NGO that coordinates the Caribbean region’s response to climate change, working on effective solutions and projects to stabilize, and ultimately reverse, the environmental impacts of climate change and global warming. Viviana used her field research, specifically from San Pedro and Monkey River, as a proxy for the possible effects of climate change on small island states. This research ties directly into the second chapter of her thesis which compares available data on preventative and migration policy action in small island states without any colonial mother country. 

Elyse Elder, South Africa and Zambia 2016

Elyse’s MA thesis focuses on fighting poverty through community learning. Her hands-on research occurred during an internship at Lifeline Energy, an NGO in Cape Town, South Africa that provides education to millions of people, particularly in farming communities, through the distribution of radio programming via solar and wind-up radios and MP3 players. Her project work brought her to rural Zambia where she acted as project coordinator and liaison between Lifeline and its on-the-ground partner, Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO). This allowed her to observe and efficiently introduce new ideas into risk-averse and largely uneducated rural populations. “What is clear,” she reports, “is the importance of a communal approach to education within these farming communities. Radio and MP3 listening groups allow them to feel comfortable and grow in confidence. Cooperative members became sensitized to the COMACO model through Farm Talk radio even before they joined. Once a member, continual initiatives, like the program I helped formulate, shepherded them through the transition process and now each farmer is an expert in conservation farming.”