About Our Projects
Our projects are constantly changing because our primary focus lies in building the capacity of communities to produce creative solutions to the complex challenges of an ever-changing world. By fostering the development of innovators capable of solving their own problems and equipping them with the skills to train others, the effect is multiplied. Communities shift from an outward focus, to an inward one as they tap local wisdom to source answers from within. We become obsolete in the process, furthering our goal of dignity, not dependence.
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Women, Water & Leadership: ACE Academy
educate a man, you educate a person
educate a woman, you train a nation
- African Saying -
This is the face of women changing the landscape of water in their communities
In partnership with an award winning social enterprise, Global Women's Water Initiative (GWWI), 2017 brings the launch of an advanced program serving the graduates of GWWI's Women & Water Academy. Over a 4 year period, these women stepped out of their comfort zones challenging themselves and each other, learned technical, practical and soft skills and passed their knowledge on to other women in their community.
The impacts of their efforts far exceeded their goals proving the premise of the UN Sustainable Development Goal #5, Gender Equality, that educating and empowering women has a multiplier effect in communities & drives economic growth and development. With a focus on water and sanitation (UN Sust. Dev. Goal #6), their work on resources critical to survival of people and planet lies at the core of sustainable development. The videos and statistics on the outcomes of their efforts showcase their accomplishments better than anything. Take a look and see just how amazing they are.
Ready to take it to the next level, they've asked for more and we've answered the call. By leveraging the strengths of GWWI & C Change, we've crafted the ACE Academy (Advocate, Collaborate, Engage) that aims to advance grassroots women to the highest levels of leadership in government, business and their communities.
you can help!
INVEST IN WOMEN INNOVATING
LOCAL SOLUTIONS
Project Partners
Strengthening Women's Leadership in the WASH Sector
GWWI Director & Multi-Award Winning Social Entrepreneur
From 2012-2016, GWWI trained 12 teams of women representing 12 Community Based organizations from Uganda, Kenya & Tanzania as full service WASH (Water, Sanitation & Hygiene) experts. As technicians, trainers, entrepreneurs and leaders, this is what they accomplished:
Building Sustainable Communities
Infusing Human Centered Design into Project Based Learning
For the past 16 years, the Leadership Institute for Ecology & the Economy has been at the forefront of developing leaders in sustainability. Long before most communities grasped the importance of the interconnectedness of economic prosperity, social equity and environmental sustainability, the Institute was grappling with these complex relationships within its programs and amongst its 450+ fellows.
In an effort to develop leaders more capable of driving the social transformation required to bring about a just, resilient and sustainable world, the Institute engaged C Change to transform their project based learning component to better equip students with tools to solve the complex problems of today’s world.
Supporting Local Sustainability
Leaders in Designing Local Solutions
By infusing Human Centered Design (HCD) into the project based learning experience, teams learn a proven, replicable, human-centered method for innovative problem solving that can be used in any environment (work, community, government, business, etc.).
This shift moves teams from trying to validate their solution to a perceived problem to going out into their communities to understand the perspectives of those who actually face the problem every day. This empathy based approach fuels solutions that deeply resonate with the people you’re looking to serve, resulting in creative solutions rooted in people’s actual needs.