PROJECTS

Highlight: Recently Funded Projects

U.S. Embassy Public Affairs Sector Funded Project 2022: Using Story-Making to Teach Entrepreneurship and Leadership.

Summary

We implemented a 15-week, executive-style program, with meetings during each weekend, that provided workshops on decision making, leadership, and entrepreneurship, and then used storytelling to reinforce and enhance the lessons learned from these workshops. The program goals were to increase participants’ knowledge of decision making, leadership, and entrepreneurship, and to increase the participants’ self-confidence and resilience, decrease their fear of failure, create a support network among program participants, and for participants to develop an initial business plan for a start-up business. We found the women’s knowledge related to decision making, leadership, and entrepreneurship improved significantly as did their self-confidence and resilience. We also found the women reduced their fear of failure significantly. Each woman developed a business plan for an entrepreneurial enterprise, and we provided seed funding to four plans – plantain agribusiness, art and deco business, money transfer business, and cassava agribusiness. In exit interviews, all the women would recommend the workshop to other participants and were uniformly satisfied with their experience.

U.S. Embassy Public Affairs Sector Funded Project 2024: Creating a Women’s Cooperative to teach STEM through Storytelling

Summary

We implemented an executive-style program, with meetings during each weekend, that provided workshops on decision making, leadership, entrepreneurship, and Scratch coding through storytelling. The program goals were to increase participants’ knowledge of decision making, leadership, and entrepreneurship, enhance the participants’ resilience when they experience a barrier, decrease their fear of failure, and create skills to teach STEM and computer coding to primary school children through storytelling. Based on a pretest-posttest design, we found that the women showed significant improvement in each topic covered throughout the duration of the project. In exit interviews, all women would recommend the workshop to other participants.

U.S. Embassy Public Affairs Sector Funded Project 2026: Empowering a Women's Cooperative to Create Summer Camps to Teach STEM to Vulnerable Youths Using LEGOs (on-going)

We propose to offer workshops on STEM using LEGOs and create a collaborative enterprise between Linking Lives and the women’s cooperative to launch summer camps to use SCRATCH coding and LEGOS to teach STEM to vulnerable youth. We will develop and deliver a series of workshops to create lesson plans to teach STEM using storytelling and LEGOs. One important value provided by the women’s cooperative is for them to be role models for the female students.

Linking Lives will offer "how to" workshops to create a new enterprise – Summer STEM camps for vulnerable youth -- and go beyond class instruction to register the business with the Rwanda Development Board. Linking Lives and the women’s cooperative will develop a business plan, a marketing plan to promote the “summer camps”, a financial model, including pricing to sustain this enterprise, and assess the alternatives in the marketplace that are available for teacher/student services to support teaching STEM in the classroom. All profits from the camps will be assigned to the women's cooperative.

“The linking lives study abroad program is so unique because it allows you to continue to be involved after the official study abroad program is over. I interned with Dr. Brinberg for 8 weeks and during that time, we recruited for the future programs, finalized our grant proposal, and submitted that grant to funders. It was so rewarding working with a strong group of ladies on the project, as well as gaining the skill of being able to write a grant proposal. Our group ended up receiving funding in October and even after the internship, I was able to continue to work on the program and eventually help implement it in Rwanda. Myself and another woman in the group were able to go back to Rwanda for two weeks a year later, and see our grant through. Ultimately, it ended being a year and a half experience, not just a semester one. The things that I learned went so far beyond what I learned in the classroom during my abroad semester, and the internship is what linked the semester to following through with the grant. I learned so much from Marjie and Dr. Brinberg as well as from the women in my group. This is easily one of the most rewarding, enlightening, and unique experiences I’ve had in my college career.”

Emma, Summer 2021 Intern

Interns will also develop marketing materials, run social media platforms, prepare for program recruitment, and help manage alumni relations.

The Linking Lives Summer Internship program will prepare students for a career after graduation by helping them to gain valuable experience and skills in:

Working with International Organizations
Grant Writing
Marketing, Social Media, and Recruiting
Managing Alumni and Partner Relations
Teamwork and Communication
Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making
Time Management and Organization