Advancing Leaders Fellowship
In June 2015, 11 Global UGRAD alumni were selected to participate in World Learning’s Advancing Leaders Fellowship program out of a pool of 159 World Learning alumni representing 31 programs and 57 countries. Founded in 2013, the Advancing Leaders Fellowship program recognizes the ideas, talent, and vision of World Learning alumni by providing comprehensive training in social innovation, project management and leadership. The program supports selected high-achieving fellows with grants and a network of mentors and peers so that fellows can implement an original social innovation project in their home communities. The fellowship program is supported by the Newman’s Own Foundation, former World Learning trustees, Judy and Bob Huret and many other individual donors to World Learning.
Participants engaged in a virtual training course hosted by Moodle Rooms and Blackboard Collaborate, receiving training on social innovation, project design, project implementation, monitoring and evaluation, proposal writing and fundraising. The participants submitted weekly homework assignments and received feedback from World Learning staff with expertise in these topic areas. The certificate of completion that the successful participants earned at the end of their training marks their growth and achievement in critical areas of project management. Moreover, participants had the option of submitting a proposal for a grant award of up to $5,000 for a socially-innovative community engagement project. Thirty-two participants submitted project proposals for grants on topics including youth empowerment, public health, English education, social justice, and disaster relief. Seven participants were selected for project funding and one of the awardees is 2015 Global UGRAD alumnus, Ping Ann Oung, from Cambodia.
Ping Ann’s project, “Media & Ethics,” is a media literacy training program that uses documentary films and educational workshops to raise awareness and minimize the potential harm caused by unethical and manipulative content shown on television and social media. Topics such as online bullying, body image, gender inequality, and violence against women are some of the issues that will be covered in this project. The five documentary films created through this project will be broadcast on social media websites and National Television of Cambodia. After the five documentary films are produced with the consultation of senior journalists, five workshops featuring these films will be conducted in the provinces of Pursat, Battambong, Banteay Meanchey, Siem Reap and Sihanoukville. These workshops will reach 300 to 500 high school and university students.
Ping Ann is currently a senior in the Department of Media and Communication at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia and a reporter and documentary film producer for National Television of Cambodia. He will travel to San Francisco, California for the Advancing Leaders Fellowship Award Event on October 21st, 2015. At the award event, he will give a presentation to World Learning alumni, staff, donors, faculty and friends and meet his mentor who will provide guidance to him throughout the implementation phase of his project.
Congratulations, Ping Ann!