Since 2010, Global Communities and Peace Corps have had a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), working together to help strengthen communities’ capacities across the globe. Collaborating in the placement, training, and support of Peace Corps volunteers in development projects managed by Global Communities, the agreement has helped volunteers receive training and support from staff and experts, and helped Global Communities expand the reach and quality of its programs. But the partnership between Global Communities and Peace Corps predates 2010; in 2009, Peace Corps volunteers began assisting with programs in Rwanda.

Rwanda

In Rwanda, Global Communities with support from USAID and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) worked together with the Peace Corps on the Higa Ubeho program ("Be determined and live"). The program increased the capacity of local health and educational institutions to provide services to vulnerable populations such as orphans, child-headed households and people living with HIV and AIDS. Goals included promoting health awareness, improving food security and increasing access to key community services such as education and psychosocial support for hundreds of thousands of Rwandans. Peace Corps volunteers supported these efforts, embedding with local NGOs to help achieve these goals.

In 2011, Global Communities began implementing the USAID Ejo Heza program (“Brighter future”) which aims

Peace Corps Rwanda Country Director Jen Hedrick, and representatives of Global Communities Rwanda and the local government, awarding a graduate of the Community Finance Initiative: Phase 1, a Certificate of Completion at a ceremony in Ngororero District.

Aaron Williams, former Director of Peace Corps and Michael Doyle, former CEO and President of Global Communities (then CHF International) signing the MOU at Peace Corps headquarters in September, 2010.

Global Communities: Partnership with Peace Corps

Peace Corps volunteers with Internal Savings and Lending Group participants under the Higa Ubeho program.

to improve the livelihoods and food consumption of 75,000 of Rwanda’s very poor, particularly women. The program also aimed to improve financial access and literacy through community finance initiatives, which would create savings and loan groups, educating members on basic financial literacy and improving their access to credit. Peace Corps volunteers played a huge role in expanding this methodology and driving its success. Volunteers replicated the community finance initiatives in their communities, becoming trainers of trainers, thus helping expand the program beyond the original scope of Ejo Heza. Volunteers also helped coordinate efforts in Kigali, working alongside Global Communities staff.

Higa Ubeho ended in 2015, after assisting over 75,000 vulnerable households in 23 districts and creating more than 5,000 new community-based service points. Ejo Heza is also scheduled to close down shortly. However, Global Communities is building off the success of these programs with the Improved Services for Vulnerable Populations (ISVP) Program, known known as USAID Twiyubake, which aims to assist 50,000 vulnerable households in 12 districts. The partnership between Peace Corps and Global Communities on these initiatives has been so successful that plans are currently underway to expand the model to include aspects beyond financial inclusion, including nutrition and other community support to vulnerable residents.

Ghana

Currently, Global Communities works in 10 of Peace Corps’ 69 host countries, including Ghana, where we are working to improve sanitation and health throughout the country. The five-year USAID project, Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) for Health, leverages the support of various WASH and government institutions in the country to create long-lasting, community-led change in sanitation behaviors. These include improved use of household sanitation like latrines and hand-washing, improving water supply, and strengthening governance and policies related to these fields. By 2020, the WASH for Health project will have reached over 700 rural communities across Ghana, dramatically improving health outcomes in some of the country's poorest areas.

Global Communities is also implementing the USAID/Ghana Resiliency in Northern Ghana (RING) program, an integrated project and partnership effort under USAID’s Feed the Future initiative. Designed to contribute to the Government of Ghana's efforts to sustainably reduce poverty, the RING project aims to improve the livelihoods and nutritional status of vulnerable households in targeted communities of 17 districts in the Northern Region. This is being achieved through three complementary project components: increasing the consumption of diverse quality foods, especially among women and children; improving behaviors related to nutrition and hygiene of women and children; and strengthening local support networks to address the ongoing needs of vulnerable households.

Peace Corps volunteers are currently assisting with both programs; one is embedded with Wash for Health, and the other volunteers as a program manager for RING. In addition, Global Communities regularly works with up to 30 volunteers across the country, working closely with them to support both WASH and RING activities in their communities. By working with Peace Corps volunteers, Global Communities is able to strengthen existing programming and broaden its impact.

Global Communities is an international non-profit organization that works closely with communities worldwide to bring about sustainable changes that improve the lives and livelihoods of the vulnerable. Development is not something we do for people; it is something we do with them. We believe that the people who understand their needs best are the people of the community itself. Please visit our website at www.globalcommunities.org for more information.

Mother and child partaking in nutrition program, Ghana RING.

Child demonstrates hand-washing during WASH activities on Earth Day.