Outreach International interns Stephen Donahoe, Lisa Ash, and Allie Petrie

Interns Create Program for Advocacy

Since 2001, Graceland University students have had the opportunity to experience Outreach International’s community development work in Nicaragua, one of Central America’s most impoverished nations. Outreach International employs a unique approach to helping end poverty through the Participatory Human Development Process. Put simply: helping the poor to help themselves. For this reason, the students do not go to provide aid, but merely to observe.

“Our work began when we got back,” recalls Stephen Donahoe, who went on the site visit in January 2006. Stephen and his fellow participants, Lisa Ash and Allie Petrie, were so impressed with the empowering effect of Outreach’s work they founded an Outreach International club at Graceland and held several fund-raisers for the organization. After realizing numerous successes in raising funds and awareness, they found themselves in an internship through American Humanics during the summer of 2007.

During their internship, the three Graceland seniors created a program for advocacy that would allow people to get involved at a deeper level than donations. The result was Sustainable Good, and along with a Web site (www.sustainablegood.org), a program called 12 Months to Sustainable Good was launched. Through this program participants receive monthly e-mails that keep them informed on the work of Outreach International, issues affecting the poor, and how to take action to end poverty.

The interns also sought to deepen donor relationships through educational resources. This included a redesign of the Hunger Challenge packet to make it more youth friendly and creation of PowerPoint presentations about each of Outreach’s programs for volunteers to use in educating others about the work being done, all of which is to be made available online. Additionally, they planned and taught a class at SPEC. The class, Act Up!, dealt with ways for participants to improve poverty awareness in their communities through guerilla marketing-style projects. Class members put ideas into practice during the week, and also shared a presentation with all 1,200 SPEC attendees. Outreach International president Matthew Naylor challenged SPEC youth to raise $10,000 to aid a community in Zambia. At the end of the week more than $13,000 had been raised.

Though no formal internship program existed at Outreach International previously, due to the overwhelming success realized by the three interns, there are plans for more summer internships in the future, with a winter internship having already taken place. According to Matthew Naylor, Outreach has “grand plans” for the future and looks forward to “expanding and deepening” their work by reaching new people and strengthening relationships with those already involved. The work performed by the interns helped bring Outreach closer to those goals.

More than 650 people have signed up for the 12 Months to Sustainable Good program. To take the Sustainable Good challenge, visit www.sustainablegood.org.  For information about future Outreach International internships, e-mail: Matthew Naylor.

—Tom Anderson reporting
May 2008 Herald