Local Community Projects Research Articles

Walmart Foundation grants available for local community projects

The Walmart Foundation is currently accepting applications for funding under its Spark Good Local Grant program, which it established to support nonprofit organizations operating within the service areas of individual U.S.‐based Walmart stores, Sam's Clubs and logistics facilities. These grants are smaller and more locally focused than the foundation's national programs, which tend to fund a broader range of program areas, and range from $250 up to $5,000 each, the foundation said.

Walmart Foundation offering grants for local community projects

Walmart Foundation offering grants for local community projects

Imagining Decent Work towards a Green Future in a Former Forest Village of the City of Istanbul

This paper addresses issues pertaining to the future of work and sustainability through the lens of a case study of ecological deterioration and how it destroys and creates green jobs in a forest village of Istanbul. As elsewhere in major urban centres of developing countries, the hyper-expansion of city regions due to authoritarian developmentalism fosters the state-led construction sector in Turkey. Growth-driven economic policies continue to have adverse effects on the environment, resulting in deforestation among an array of ecological damage. Based on a qualitative analysis of oral history interviews and observations informed by a larger interdisciplinary research project, we observe resilience in the forest village under scrutiny as certain types of work are abandoned, and new forms are created by adaptation to the ecological and social conditions. The perceptions of changing conditions by locals vary across existing ethnic, gender, and class hierarchies in the local community. Moreover, our findings indicate that the types of work available in the village prior to urban transformation were not all decent or green. In face of ongoing ecological deterioration in a (formerly) forest community, participatory micro-initiatives, and grassroots, utilizing local community projects emerge that nevertheless pursue a green and just transition. We focus on one such initiative, the Community Fungi platform, to demonstrate the possibility of working towards a collective imagination of a green future inspired by past but unforgotten sustainable communal practices, in the context of the forest village under scrutiny in this paper.

Channels for Financial and Non-financial Remittances from the Ghanaian Diaspora toward Development

This chapter deepens the discourse on diaspora and development in countries of origin. It proposes a shift from focusing narrowly on inflows of foreign currencies to also considering other forms of remittances such as goods, skills and ideas, which help maintain emotional bonds between family and communities across generations. Ghana acknowledges the diaspora’s beneficial role in development and has established gateways to facilitate the flow of resources. However, these formal gateways are skewed toward financial remittances, seen as the essential source for the State’s developmental agenda. With its varied composition and resources, the Ghanaian diaspora uses multiple channels to contribute toward their families and local community projects through individual contributions and resource pooling. Thus, the Ghanaian diaspora’s engagement reflects a participatory approach that has received limited State recognition but is appreciated and encouraged by recipients within Ghanaian communities. The chapter recommends government provision of secure channels for financial transfers while recognising cultural remittances and social connections as crucial for sustaining families, especially for reducing poverty and ensuring food security, which are specific and immediate concerns for communities.

Interconnected learning between university and the workplace: a socio-cultural perspective of graduate employability in the UK

ABSTRACT Undergraduate students have been shown to spontaneously form communities of practice and social networks that support their learning and identity development. This study considers the translation of this participatory learning into professional employment following graduation. Thirteen former biological sciences students from a single UK university were interviewed following their successful transition into graduate level scientific employment. A thematic analysis of the interview transcripts revealed that these students did not learn new workplace practices from more experienced peers de novo, rather they negotiated changes to their existing university practices and hence were able to participate as newcomers to the joint enterprise of their workplace community of practice. Hence, students’ capacity for know how and know who knowledge has important implications for their employability, and this should be encouraged by maximising students’ exposure to co-participatory learning both within the university and in collaboration with local community projects.

Contribution of PRME in education, research, and outreach in Brazilian higher education institutions

PurposeThis paper aims to assess the contribution of the UN’s Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) in higher education, covering education, research and outreach in Brazilian higher education institutions (HEIs) after becoming signatories.Design/methodology/approachTeachers representing Brazilian HEI signatories to the PRME were interviewed. The IRAMUTEQ software was used for content analysis, descending hierarchical classification and similarity tree, allowing to quantify the quality variables originating from the professors’ beliefs and opinions.FindingsThe PRME helps Brazilian HEIs to review or create disciplines related to responsible management education and adopt transdisciplinarity for sustainability. The signatories’ PRME-influenced research is interdisciplinary, focusing on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Social responsibility is promoted through local-community projects, while partnerships, initiatives and innovative pedagogies from foreign-signatory HEIs provide international experiences for teachers and students. However, within one initiative, which had 170 signatories in 2008 and over 800 in 2020, indicators should be formulated to analyze and enhance HEIs’ sustainability profile. The PRME contributes to educating young people and adults in Brazil via education, research or outreach; however, this contribution needs to be assessed.Originality/valuePrior studies have not collected data through interviews to consider professors’ perspectives on the PRME’s contribution to signatory HEIs in Brazil. This study interviewed professors involved with the PRME to broaden their understanding beyond bibliometrics and assess the alignment of the PRME and UN SDGs.

La fotografia quale strumento per il recupero dei luoghi

The need to reclaim heritage which has been abandoned or is falling into disuse represents a challenge for contemporary architectural practices, as well as a concern for owners and those managing requalification projects in local communities. It is within this framework that we can complement methodologies and techniques specific to planning procedures on different scales with photography, as a further tool available for those working on requalification projects, not just as a simple recording device, but as a catalyst and accelerator of rehabilitation processes. Through this, the attention to community values embedded in any architectural or landscape asset – be it unique or spread out on the territory – can become a part of engagement initiatives aimed at local communities during the entire process of requalification.

BRIDGING THE CITY: CONNECTING ART, PERFORMANCE DESIGN, ENVIRONMENT AND EDUCATION

This study explores knotworks and networks within art, participatory performance design, the environment and education specialists and institutions within the case-project “Nomadic Radical Academy”, realised in 2019 and 2020. The novelty of the research lies in its investigation of how international collaborations impact the performance pedagogy project at the local level. The project bridged a wide spectrum of actors in order to design an interactive space and participatory infrastructure involving a diverse variety of stakeholders. The projects were created by the author of this paper and involved the art venue Gallery Meno Parkas in Kaunas, local Kaunas schools and environment-friendly local art initiatives, families in Kaunas, Kaunas Municipality, The Lithuanian Council for Culture, a performance designer and international artists from the Baltic-Nordic region. The author created the performative milieu in the gallery space with the intention of educating children and young people about the environment and climate change through performance pedagogy methods. The research question is as follows: How are the knotworks and networks created during the planning and realisation of the international performance pedagogy project, and how do they target the local community and influence projects locally in real-time? The study materials were collected by arts-based methods and analysed by utilising reflexive research. The data collected during the planning and implementation phases are the author’s notes and reflections, notes from feedback and discussions with the involved artists and photos and videos. This research can be valuable to educators, performance designers and artists interested in knotwork- and network-building. This research focused on the planning and realisation of the project by involving international performance professionals in site-specific projects designed for local communities.

Schistosomiasis prevalence and low-cost diagnostics in rural Northwestern Madagascar: a pilot study

# Background Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease that affects the health of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Affordable diagnostic methods are necessary for developing countries to monitor schistosomiasis rates and treat infected individuals, particularly in, Madagascar, a country with the world’s fifth highest rate of schistosomiasis. # Methods We established the prevalence rate of schistosomiasis among the local population served by a clinic in rural northwestern Madagascar. Additionally, we compared different low-cost methods for schistosomiasis detection, including empirical diagnostic methods in use before this study. 500 patients were recruited in this study, of whom 380 received three tests—urine microscopy, point-of-care circulating cathodic antigen (POC-CCA) testing, and urinalysis to screen for *Schistosoma haematobium* and *Schistosoma mansoni*. # Results By combining these modalities, we recorded a schistosomiasis prevalence rate of 64.47%, which was significantly higher than the 4.84% of patients who were diagnosed and treated through previous empirical methods. # Conclusions Our results indicate that screening tests are a necessary component of schistosomiasis control programs. The clinic continued to use urinalysis strip testing and urine microscopy to detect schistosomiasis after this study and decided to discontinue the use of POC-CCA *S. mansoni* urine testing because of cost. Increased awareness of schistosomiasis resulting from this screening program led to the installation of multiple infrastructure projects in local communities to improve access to potable water, demonstrating community benefits of schistosomiasis screening that extend beyond the identification of infected individuals.

La regulación de los estados de ánimo como tema de diseño: entrevista con Pieter Desmet

Pieter Desmet is the founding co-director of the Delft Institute of Positive Design, chair of the TU Delft Department of Human Centered Design, and Director of the Delft Design Labs. After introducing cognitive emotion theory to the field of design research, he established the Design and Emotion Society. Full professor of Design for Experience at TU Delft, Desmet is also co-editor of Design and Emotion Moves (Cambridge Scholars, 2008) and co-author of Positive Design: An Introduction to Design for Subjective Well-Being (IJDesign, 2013). Pieter Desmet, who holds a PhD in the domain of Emotion Psychology, has been recently awarded a five-year personal grant to research about the nuances of human mood in human-product interactions. Besides his academic activities, he also contributes to local community projects, such as a recently developed sensory wellness neighborhood park, and a cultural ‘House of Happiness’ located in Rotterdam. In this interview, Desmet discusses the background to positive design, as well as the practical and ethical challenges that arise from using such an approach. He also refers to his latest research initiative: Design for Mood Regulation. Finally, Desmet explains how he transfers the knowledge he develops to companies.

Editorial and News

Editorial and News

De la educación rural a la educación rural comunitaria: reflexiones desde el municipio de San Jerónimo Coatlán, Oaxaca

Se reflexiona sobre la importancia de transitar de una educación rural oficial a la educación rural comunitaria, esta última basada de manera central en el vínculo escuela-comunidad. Para este estudio se articularon los resultados preliminares de dos investigaciones más amplias realizadas en el Municipio zapoteco de San Jerónimo Coatlán, en la Sierra Sur de Oaxaca, por medio del uso de la etnografía educativa (Rockwell, 1991 y Piña, 1997) e implementación de talleres enmarcados bajo una metodología comunal (Pérez, 2018b) . Las reflexiones que sustentan el artículo son resultado de nuestro trabajo de campo (realizado entre marzo de 2018 y junio de 2019), y se dirigen hacia la construcción y compartencia de conocimientos en torno a la territorialidad y la vida comunitaria. Asimismo, se presentan las reflexiones centradas en mostrar uno de los retos emergentes frente a la educación y la escuela rural en este municipio, que consiste en fortalecer los sistemas epistemológicos propios con base en los proyectos comunitarios locales, de manera que la educación y la escuela se transformen efectivamente en espacios de diálogo entre lo nacional y lo local.

Technology Focus: Water Management (December 2019)

Technology Focus Recent trends in water management have taken a more-comprehensive and holistic approach toward the stewardship of water as a critical resource. The industry has broadened its view to address the complete life cycle of water, from the effect of water use, to the reuse or recycling of water, to the final disposal of•water. In unconventional reservoirs, the use of fresh water for fracturing fluids has been reduced greatly by the development of chemistries that facilitate the use of nonfreshwater sources and flowback fluids. In recent years, the participation of midstream water companies has changed the dynamics of water management, improving the processes by which water is conveyed and increasing the use of flowback or produced water. These companies are playing an increasing role in the infrastructure and operation of water management, sometimes owning and operating water pipelines and water-storage, produced-water-treatment, and produced-water disposal facilities.• Operators such as Southwestern Energy are taking a progressive approach in an effort to become freshwater-neutral, as outlined in paper SPE 187123.• This company, as an example, defines “freshwater-neutral” as a status in which the total water used is less than the sum of the alternative water and offsets. This company is using a combination of water-treatment technologies, aggressive water-reuse strategies, and conservation projects in local communities to achieve this goal. Technological advances have enabled a better understanding of the potential environmental impact of final disposal of produced water. This understanding derives from improved modeling and a deeper understanding of the relationship between water-disposal techniques and the environment, including the potential effect of injection wells on induced seismicity. Similarly, operators on the Norwegian Continental Shelf are using an environmental impact factor (EIF) to identify potential risks from specific produced-water discharges. The goal is to achieve an EIF known as “zero effects release.” The EIF can also be used to quantify the beneficial effects of different water-treatment methods. Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org. SPE 194575 A Case Study on Treating•Oil Contaminants and Heavy•Metal of Produced Water Through•Phytoremediation Using Reed-Bed Technology: A Success Story•of•15 Years of Operation of Heglig•Oil•Field•of Sudan by•Ajay Kumar, GNPOC Sudan, et al. SPE 191529 Fit-for-Purpose Water Treatment in Permian Shale—Field Data,•Laboratory Data, and Comprehensive•Overview by John Walsh,•CETCO Energy Services, et al. OMC 2019 1101 Analysis and Comparison•of Different Solutions for•Produced-Water Management—LCA•and Biodiversity Impact Assessment•by•Martino Pedullà, RINA•Consulting, et al.

Fostering Communal Identities: Communitarian Artistic Projects in Local Communities of Premodern China

Fostering Communal Identities: Communitarian Artistic Projects in Local Communities of Premodern China

Shaping the vision for service‐learning in language education

Language education has mobilized community‐based service‐learning's (CBSL) experiential paradigm in the United States and in international settings over the past 20 years, with the goal of enhancing the linguistic and communicative competence of language learners and advancing the intercultural competence that is necessary for global citizens to engage with a diverse world. This integration of language learning with local and online community projects has become an area of innovation that critically and reflectively engages diverse language speakers through collaboration. In this article, we take a holistic and critical approach to advance a language education agenda that emphasizes reflective capacity and translingual and transcultural competence, ultimately to build relationships. We begin by contextualizing this progression within the traditions of communal activity and activism for language rights. Since language use is increasingly intertwined with and shaped by migration and immigration, as well as the availability of technology, we also highlight new possibilities for community engagement through language. We discuss these implementations of CBSL, their convergences with ACTFL initiatives for prioritizing language education, and future directions for research.

Соціальне проектування в місцевих громадах Сполучених Штатів америки

Соціальне проектування в місцевих громадах Сполучених Штатів америки

Towards a model for facilitating and enabling co-creation using open government data

In recent years there have been initiatives in many countries which seek to encourage and facilitate co-creation using Open Government Data (OGD). This article describes a research project whose objectives were to investigate the factors that contribute to creating a vibrant co-creation ecosystem b uilt around the use of OGD and to build a model which participants can use as a framework for aiding in co-creation processes. To develop this model multiple case studies are used to investigate the nature of co-creation using OGD in the greater Dublin area. The different dimensions of OGD, as perceived by various stakeholders in co-creation projects, are explored with a view to establishing what facilitates co-creation activities. The stakeholders include the OGD publishers (in this case the four local authorities in the greater Dublin area) and various communities and community groups such as academics, volunteers, voluntary organizations as well as a number of government agencies and commercial organizations. Adopting a modified version of Activity Theory (AT) as a framework, the research uses a wide range of data sources including documents, analysis of web sites, participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Analysis of the latter is carried out using thematic analysis. From these, a model for encouraging, fostering and enabling the development of co-creation projects in local communities is proposed.

Exploring the role of employer forums – the case of Business in the Community Wales

PurposeCollective employer representation in the UK has changed in fundamental ways in recent decades. Collective bargaining has declined and instead, the authors have seen the emergence of a significant new form of collective organisation, the employer forum (EF), which promotes good corporate behaviour and typically focusses on issues of equality and diversity, social policy and community engagement. The purpose of this paper is to examine this new form of collective action through a case study on Business in the Community (BITC) Wales. It also compares this EF with traditional employers’ associations (EAs) in order to establish what is significant and distinctive about EFs.Design/methodology/approachBITC Wales is a “typical case” (Patton, 2014; Seawright and Gerring, 2008) that shares key characteristics and functions with other EFs across key analytical dimensions, and therefore provides insights into the wider population of EFs in the UK. In addition, the paper compares EFs, examined through a qualitative case study of BITC Wales, and traditional EAs, introduced and discussed in the literature review, along the same analytical dimensions. The aim of contrasting EAs with the case study on BITC Wales is to establish what is distinctive and significant about EFs and to consider the implications for employment relations in the UK.FindingsThe paper argues that EFs and EAs support employers in dealing with the challenges of managing the employment relationship and threats to profitability in different political contexts. The organisation of employers in EAs was a response to increasing trade union power and labour costs. EFs are helping employers to deal with a different set of challenges, including declining social cohesion in communities in which employers operate, reputational and legal risks posed by new equality and diversity legislation and expectations of good corporate citizenship by consumers and their own employees. EFs address these challenges by engaging in social projects in local communities, by promoting good corporate behaviour through benchmarking and codes of conduct, and by boosting the reputation of employers through award schemes and promotion of corporate social responsibility activities of member companies.Originality/valuePrevious literature has not examined EFs and their role in employment relations. This paper considers EFs as a new actor in employment relations.

Making responsible residents: On ‘responsibilization’ within local community work in marginalized residential areas in Denmark

This article explores how the local community projects in marginalized residential areas in Denmark attempt to make ‘responsible’ residents. It has commonly been argued that contemporary governance is inflected with responsibilization, often understood as the ambition to make citizens self-responsible and independent from the welfare state. However, much less attention has been paid to how such responsibilization is accomplished in practice. The article draws on interviews with local community workers and participant observation in local community projects, to explore the process of ‘responsibilization’ in practice. The article shows how local community workers use narrative accounts to assess residents and their (failed) responsibilities, as well as their own responsibilities towards residents. Building on this, it is shown how attempts to make residents independent from the welfare state become entangled with practices of care, through which local community workers assume responsibilities for residents, rather than making them independent as such. Lastly, the article shows how responsibilization is a fragile process, and how it is entangled with ongoing makings of accounts that demonstrate responsibilities, both for local community workers and residents.

Economic Assistance to Peacebuilding and Reconciliation Community-Based Projects in Northern Ireland and the Border Counties: Challenges, Opportunities and Evolution

The International Fund for Ireland and the European Union (EU) Peace III Fund have provided external economic resources to local community projects in Northern Ireland and the Border region to support intercommunal relations, community development, economic development, peacebuilding and reconciliation. The British and Irish governments, the EU, and the USA see the economic aid as their commitment to support the peace process, nurture the local voluntary sector, and build the peace dividend. The research findings demonstrate that the reality on the ground is more complex. Some believe that the economic assistance has created employment opportunities, built capacity, and localized peacebuilding knowledge. Others are more sceptical and perceive that the aid has created dependency, facilitated a competitive milieu, and has not transformed relationships in a sectarian environment.