Projects
We welcome proposals for new projects from institutions and ministries of higher education in the developing world. We also welcome project proposals from the developed world. If you currently have or would like to have a project that involves supporting capacity building in a developing world institution of higher education, AHED might be in a position to work with you on the project by providing volunteers to participate in it.
Please contact us by email at inquiry ( at ) ahed-upesed.org, with a brief description of the proposed project, the name of the contact person, and the name, nature and location of the institution of higher education where the project will be located. If the project is within the mission and means of AHED, we will request a more detailed description of the project.
There are no current placements
If you wish to submit an application for our data base, please fill out an application and shall put it on file and notify you when a placement becomes available for someone with your qualifications. Before doing so, would you please consult our pages for the qualifications necessary to volunteers for AHED placements.
Current Projects
Indonesia
The State Islamic University in Yogyakarta has established a Centre for Disabilities Studies and Services. It is the first university in Indonesia to provide services for disabled students. The Centre’s goals include developing awareness of inclusive education both within and outside the university and implementing changes in the university to accommodate disabled students. The AHED volunteer, Marion Steff, PhD, will spend a year at the university (August 2009- July 2010) to assist the university develop capacity in this area through activities such as workshops, fundraising, lectures and research. See Conversations with Volunteers for two video clips from a pre-departure interview with Marion and for monthly newsletter from the Centre for Disabilities.
Rwanda
AHED currently has a project at the National University of Rwanda to assist NUR in upgrading the quality of its registrar’s office. AHED’s two volunteers, Gudrun Curri, who was a registrar at Dalhousie and Carole Dence, who was a registrar at Carleton. Misses Curri and Dence will be spending six months at NUR spread over a year and a half. They were at NUR in June for a two week exploratory posting and shall return for a longer stay in October, 2010 and then again in 2011 for a two month period. A registrar’s office is a key service at a university. It not only provides a university with current information about its student body, but also provides the institution with information that allows it to plan and adminster its academic programmes.
Nigeria
Kwara State University (KWASU) in Nigeria is establishing a Center for Innovation and International Studies which will coordinate international affairs, academics, and partnerships to strengthen the services provided by the institution. Once established, the Center will be the focal point for all international services at KWASU including; management of partnerships and projects, logistics and protocol for visiting delegations and scholars, services and programs for international students, internships, research collaborations, and study abroad opportunities for staff and students. In a joint project between KWASU and AHED, Nancy Hannemann, the Director of Global Education at the University of Alberta will spend one year (June 2010-May 2011) at KWASU to assist in establishing the Center as the founding Director. The establishment of the Center will allow KWASU to consolidate vital functions in an organized, robust organ of the University to ensure the development of the international services as well as the enhancement of the reputation of the University both nationally and internationally.
Completed Projects
Liberia
I. John Waterhouse and Michael Keating served as consultants to Dr. Emmet Dennis, the president of the University of Liberia in Monrovia, Liberia. John is the former Vice President – Academic at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia and Michael is the senior fellow and associate director at the McCormack Graduate School’s Center for Democracy and Development at the University of Massachusetts Boston. John and Michael provided Dr. Dennis with revised five year and senior management plans and a programme for visiting academics for the University of Liberia. This project was funded by the McCall – MacBain Foundation.
II. James Cranston, the former Chief Information Officer at Simon Fraser University, to the University of Liberia did an assessment of the University of Liberia’s Information Technology needs. The report has been submitted to Dr. Emmet Dennis, the president of the University of Liberia.
III. Between June 10 and June 25, 2010 AHED mounted a Summer Workshop in Science at the University of Liberia. This project involved upgrading the teaching skills of the science faculty at UL and explored with UL what it needs as volunteers in science. Many developing countries’ universities and high schools cannot afford to purchase laboratory equipment, and if they could, they do not have the trained personnel to look after the equipment. The project demonstrated how interesting scientific experiments can be done using locally purchased chemicals and equipment. We had three volunteers for the project, Adam Cohen, an assistant professor of chemistry at Harvard, Ben Rapoport, a medical student at Harvard and a graduate student in the Computing Science Department at MIT, and Elizabeth Wood, a graduate student in Environmental Engineering at MIT. The McCall – MacBain Foundation funded the project. For a local media report on the project. This project was funded by the McCall – MacBain Foundation.
Liberia is in dire straits. The country has recently gone through two devastating civil wars and is now trying to put itself back together. The country had a per capita income of about $1200 US in 1980 and now it is just over $130 US. 64% of the population lives on $1 or less a day. 46% of the population does not fulfill its daily caloric requirements and 19% of children are underweight for their age, both signs of malnutrition. Rice is the stable for the country, but Liberia imports 95% of it. Before the civil war the University of Liberia had 1400 faculty members; it is now down to 370. Many of the young people from the militias that fought in the civil war have flooded into University. Enrollment, which is now open, has burgeoned from 9500 before the civil war to over 16,000 today. During the civil war, the books in the library were burned; the class room chairs and tables were destroyed; and the laboratory and computer equipment was stolen. The University of Liberia needs everything. AHED hopes to be working with it over the long run to support its renewal so that it can begin to provide the necessary doctors, engineers, agronomists, computer scientists and information technologists that Liberia needs for its development.
