Update from Future Generations President, David Nygaard

This summer, Future Generations staff has been actively engaged in promoting the use of high-speed internet (broadband) throughout West Virginia’s communities by equipping fire and rescue squads with public computer centers. A team of community interviewers recently conducted household surveys to assess computer and broadband use throughout the state. For two weeks in July, the interviewers along with the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Emily Carlson traveled to each of the 28 partner locations, where the computer centers are being established, to learn from community members about their computer and broadband use. These surveys will establish a baseline on which to develop our training courses that will begin in September in these fire and rescue stations.

In August, Master’s Degree students visit the United States, some of them for the first time, as a critical step in the second term of their degree program. The India Residential held in February was the last time students were together. Students have already started to arrive for the one-month residential which is split up into four sections.  During the first week students will visit North Mountain in Pendleton County (where our West Virginia headquarters is based) and explore the Upper Potomac River.  They will also work with faculty to develop their practicum community change initiative that is the culmination of the degree.  This is something that they pursue throughout their two-year study period. 

The students then spend two weeks learning about conservation in the Adirondacks in New York. From there, the students journey to the Claggett Center in Frederick, MD where they will participate in a Leadership and Organizational Dynamics course. And the residential concludes with a visit to Washington D.C. where students are immersed in peacebuilding concepts and social change and conflict transformation. While at the nation’s capital, students will visit the Mall, a must for anyone’s first visit to Washington, D.C. and end up at the Lincoln memorial as they have been studying the leadership qualities of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.  Of course it was at the Lincoln Memorial where King gave his “I have a Dream” speech.

In other news, I am pleased to announce that we have received a $1.5 million grant from USAID under their Child Survival and Health Grants Program to support a project in rural Peru.  Country Director, Laura Altobelli, will use this funding (allocated over a four year period) to work in an area of Peru that holds the highest maternal and neonatal mortality rates in Latin America, as well the highest levels of chronic malnutrition in Peru.  The project will strengthen community-based health promotion through linking Primary Health Care services, communities, and local governments to improve maternal-neonatal-child health.

For more information on our programs, visit www.future.org or www.future.edu, or if you would like to contribute to the Future Generations annual fund to support these programs, please click here.