CIAT Bioversity Alliance (International Center for Tropical Agriculture and Bioversity International)
The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) recognizes today’s global challenges of poverty, malnutrition, climate change, land degradation, and biodiversity loss call for new research, solutions, innovations, and stronger partnerships that can deliver higher impact. To respond to these challenges, Bioversity International and CIAT created an Alliance to deliver research-based solutions harnessing agricultural biodiversity and sustainably transforming food systems to improve the lives of people globally. The Alliance is a member of CGIAR, the world’s largest agricultural research and innovation partnership for a food-secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources.
CIAT works in collaboration with hundreds of partners to help developing countries make farming more competitive, profitable, and resilient through smarter, more sustainable natural resource management. With projects in more than 50 countries across the tropics, CIAT assists policymakers, scientists, and farmers respond to some of the most pressing challenges of our time, including food insecurity and malnutrition, climate change, and environmental degradation. This global research cuts across four key themes: big data, climate-smart agriculture, ecosystem action, and sustainable food systems, all contributing to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. CIAT also helps coordinate HarvestPlus, which seeks to improve nutrition and public health by developing and promoting bio-fortified crops rich in vitamins and minerals through evidence and technology.
Cielo Global Health Media
Cielo Global Health Media is a nonprofit video production firm striving to raise public awareness of urgent global health issues. Gary Strieker, founder, executive and veteran CNN correspondent, brings more than 30 years of broadcasting experience to his health films, news-gathering, and support for initiatives targeting disease and poverty worldwide. Established in 2006, Cielo produced the award-winning documentary film series on The Carter Center’s pioneering efforts in preventing, controlling, and eliminating tropical diseases in Africa. Ten years later Cielo premiered its first season of Global Health Frontiers on PBS featuring twelve inspirational stories about advancing resources, science, and other skill sets that bring badly-needed medicine to the hundreds of millions suffering from disease and poverty. The PBS Evening News has consistently featured segments of the series on the PBS New Hour to highlight key and globally impotent health issues.
The Friends of the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site
Friends of the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site, acting in cooperation with the National Park Service and the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site, is an organization dedicated to accomplishing educational, interpretive, conservation, research, planning and park improvement projects and programs in Plains, Georgia. Through on-site and virtual educational programs, the site aims to use the legacy of President and Mrs. Carter and the partnerships they forged through The Carter Center over the past several decades in global health, agriculture, peacemaking and human rights to educate and inspire young people to pursue civic engagement and become social change agents in their communities. Among the 80,000 visitors to the site each year, are 10,000 students from Georgia and beyond.
Future Generations Graduate School and University
Future Generations University and Graduate School began in 2003 after a wave of organizations started across the world in response to a 1992 UNICEF initiative to learn about environmentally sustainable and socially equitable development. Future Generation University is now an American accredited university offering a Master’s degree program as well as other degree and certification programs specialized in applied community development. From their home communities, students engage faculty and classmates around the world, using modern learning management tools and there are alumni from 40 countries. There are currently five country programs focusing on Vietnam, Afghanistan, Haiti, China, and India.
Global Fund for Children
Global Fund for Children helps children and youth reach their full potential and advance their rights by partnering with local organizations around the world. As the only global nonprofit dedicated to discovering, funding, and coaching truly community-based organizations that empower children and youth, it champions bold ideas that would otherwise go unheard. In the last 20 years, Global Fund for Children has invested $43 million in these bold ideas, helping nearly 700 grassroots organizations scale and deepen their work and thereby improving the lives of more than 10 million children and youth worldwide. Education, gender equity, youth empowerment and freedom from violence and exploitation are the four focus areas of the Fund.
The Listen Campaign
The Listen Campaign is a global annual media campaign for positive publicity of vulnerable and disadvantaged children and the projects that alleviate their difficulties. The Listen Campaign is presently under development and, when launched, will use the power of creative artists, the media, and creative industries to campaign for the needs and rights of the world’s vulnerable and disadvantaged children – especially those who suffer from the scourges of poverty, disease, natural disasters, war and exploitation. For a preview of what is to come, consider this video as introduced by Samuel L. Jackson. A unique platform of traditional, new, and social media will be constructed and, in collaboration with internationally celebrated artists from film, music, and the arts, content such as documentary series and features for TV and cinema focused on the problems faced by children will be developed and broadcasted. In its first decade, the campaign aims to double the world’s media coverage of the problems faced by vulnerable and disadvantaged children as well as highlight the projects that alleviate these problems, by providing $4 billion worth of media exposure. The Listen Charity expects to generate $1 billion of new funding for children’s projects in a decade and will provide grants, loans, and investments to children’s charity projects and social enterprises that address these issues.
No Limit Generation
No Limit Generation was founded in response to the critical need for child well-being training and resources on the front lines of humanitarian crisis and vulnerable communities. It is designed as a holistic platform for recovery, support, and healing that supports anyone working with vulnerable and at-risk children. The organization provides critical training that equips aid-workers & caregivers to better protect, support, and heal displaced children. Their evidence-based, trauma-informed toolkit features a series of short, accessible videos that supports existing child well-being interventions.
PeaceTech Labs
PeaceTech Labs aims to reduce violent conflict and build peace around the world by using technology, media, and data to accelerate and scale peacebuilding efforts. PeaceTech Labs leverage low-cost, easy-to-use tech and local partnerships to put the right tools in the hands of the of the people best positioned to make a difference: activists, peace-builders, and NGOs in some of the most violent places on earth. A spin-off from a program with the U.S. Institute of Peace turned D.C. not-for-profit, the work takes many forms, including the PeaceTech Accelerator for startups using technology to tackle social issues. PeaceTech Labs has worked in 81 countries, mainly fragile states and post-conflict countries, to build peace, build capacity, and leverage technology for sustainable peace. In the US, together with Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, PTL has launched the first degree program in Peace Engineering. In South Sudan, the peacebuilding radio program has reached over 4,000,000 people and 92% of them now feel confident in their ability to positively influence issues in their community. PeaceTech Labs’ work with local peacebuilders has demonstrated technology’s potential to prevent and stop violence while also fostering peace.
Rosa Parks Museum
The Troy University’s Rosa Parks Museum is the nation’s only museum dedicated to honoring the legacy of the civil rights icon and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Its mission is to provide a platform for scholarly dialogue, civic engagement, and positive social change. Located in downtown Montgomery, Alabama, at the site where Ms. Parks was arrested, the museum contains historically significant artifacts, works of art, court documents, and police reports. The museum also provides educational programs and scholarly resources for K-12, adult, and lifelong learners. It hosts diverse audiences during sponsored cultural events, educational programs, and temporary exhibitions designed to raise awareness and promote cultural appreciation, acceptance, and peace.
Same God Film
SAME GOD, directed by Linda Midgett, follows the journey of Dr. Hawkins while exploring contemporary inter-faith issues embedded in American society and encouraging solidarity. In December 2015, the political rhetoric against Muslims was escalating. Dr. Larycia Hawkins, an African-American political science professor at Wheaton College — a prestigious, evangelical school outside of Chicago and alma mater to the film’s director — wanted to show support for Muslim women. She posted a photo of herself in a hijab on Facebook. “I love my Muslim neighbor,” she wrote, “because s/he deserves love by virtue of her/his human dignity… we worship the Same God.” Within days, Wheaton’s Provost suspended Dr. Hawkins, eventually moving to terminate her tenure. SAME GOD explores the polarization taking place within the evangelical community over issues of race, Islam, and religious freedom. This award-winning film premiered in 2019 and has received rave reviews from leading critics, including Rolling Stone, as well as nominated for numerous independent film awards.
University of Memphis
The University of Memphis was founded in 1912 and, with an enrollment of approximately 21,000 students, it awards more than 3,000 degrees annually. The highest priority of the University is student success, access, and affordability. Being among the top 20 national universities for low-income students, University of Memphis has a substantially higher proportion of undergraduate students who are the first in their families to go to college compared to the national average. This focus on opening access to higher education for low-income and first generation students demonstrates how focused the University is on supporting the most vulnerable students. University of Memphis is ranked 11th in the nation among non-profit universities in terms of total number of African American students that earn a Bachelor’s degree.
The current goal of the University is to improve the six-year graduation rate from a record of 52% in 2018 to 62% by 2025. The University is home to several highly nationally ranked schools, including the Fogelman College of Business and Economics and the Kemmons Wilson School of Hospitality and Resort Management, named the Holiday Inn founder. It is also home to the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, which is ranked as one of the best value law schools in the nation. The University also hosts several centers of advanced research such as the FedEx Institute of Technology, where world renowned researchers solve complex problems affecting society.