Global Grassroots 2011 Year-End Magazine Global Grassroots 2011 Year-End Magazine | Page 45

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Global Grassroots 2011

Columbia University Masters student, Julia Oakley spent ten weeks in Rwanda working as an unpaid volunteer to carry out an intensive impact assessment of our Academy for Conscious Change. She worked closely with our Rwandan staff and visited our graduate's operations, assessing 26 teams across Rwanda to provide Global Grassroots with invaluable analysis on our impact, and critical recommendations for improving our programs.

The following is an excerpt. Download our full Impact Assessment here.

The social impact of Global Grassroots via its trained and funded ventures is approximately 32,500 Rwandans... Most teams are able to measure their social impact in some form, and all operating Global Grassroots ventures have visible signs of positive impact on their communities. Some, like Let Us Build Ourselves and Construct the Family, work intensively with their target populations; others, such as Light In Our Home, have more of an indirect but possibly widespread social impact. Certain teams have the potential to expand their social impact, whether through more effectively reaching their target population or by following-up more concretely with their trainees, whom they expect to consequently train others. Global Grassroots should support teams to maximize their potential social impact on one hand, but continue to prioritize self-initiated growth and idea generation on the other. Global Grassroots' strategy of participatory development in fostering the creativity and levering the inner knowledge of local persons is its strongest asset and its key to sustainable social impact.

2011 Impact Assessment