Communiqué

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IN THE FIELD Student Focus Travel Grants Support Student Research Each year, the Ash Center provides travel grants to HKS students conducting field research for their Policy Analysis Exercises or Second Year Policy Analyses. This winter, the Center supported 19 students on projects that are advised by Ash-affiliated faculty or that explore topics aligned with the Center’s research and programmatic agendas. Through the Program on China and Globalization Fund and the Hui Fund for Generating Powerful Ideas, the Center’s China Programs also provided travel funding for 12 Harvard students travelling to China for research projects over the winter break. Brendan Brady The Role of Decentralization in a Peace Settlement in Myanmar Iris Braun Innovation in Delivering Social Safety Nets and Financial Inclusion: Should India's Administration Leapfrog to Mobile Payments? Charles Data Alemi Improving Customs Revenue Collection in South Sudan Clio Dintilhac and Amri Ilmma Informing or Reminding? Potential Strategies to Increase Compliance Rate for CCT Program in Indonesia Philip Dy and Tori Stephens Bridging the Humanitarian Divide: Improving Coordination between Local Governments and International Actors Mabel Josune Gabriel Fernandez Raskin (Rice for the Poor) Program Reform Ruixi Hao* Effective Philanthropy: What Private Foundations in China Can Learn from their Western Counterparts? Jessica Huey and Rohan Mascarenhas Federal Highway Administration: State Use of GARVEE Bonds and Other Innovative Finance Delivery Tools Victoria Kabak and Christine Kidd The Right Youth, in the Right Place, for the Right Reasons: Improving Juvenile Probation in Massachusetts Stephen Leonelli* Universal Periodic Review: A New Tool for China’s LGBT Movement? Luhang Li* Electric Vehicle — Solving Beijing's Endemic Pollution Problem Xi Liu* Girls' Dream Project Mary Rose Mazzola Certified Batterer Programs' Effect on Domestic Violence Recidivism Reetu Mody Community Reinvestment for Those Most Impacted by Incarceration Liliana Olarte Creating Good Jobs in Indonesia Joanna Penn Structuring Public Opinion: Lessons from Scotland's Independence Referendum for Britain's Membership of the EU Reshma Ramachandran* China Policy Tools for Increasing Access to Affordable Biologic Medicines Rivan Royondo Diagnosing Factors Impeding Learning in Indonesia’s Remote Rural Areas Yunjung Song Tax Privacy: Taxpayers’ Big Data Disclosure for Public Use in Korea He Tian* Industrial Upgrades in Coastal China Yuman Wang* The China Development Bank's Strategic Options in Africa Zou Xun* Communicable Diseases and Reproductive Health among Migrant Workers in Factories and Plants Jingyi Zhang* Consumer City: The Impact of Amenities and Mixed Land Use on Housing Price in Shanghai Yinan Zheng* Accelerating the Implementation of the Upcoming Waste Charging Policy in Hong Kong Nada Zohdy Advising External Actors on Supporting Civic Participation in the Arab World * Travel grant provided by the Ash Center’s China Programs TOP Reetu Mody at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, California ABOVE LEFT Philip Dy and Tori Stephens with Mayor Manuel Que of the Municipality of Dulag in the Philippines ABOVE RIGHT Lance Li at the Suzhou Automotive Research Center at Tsinghua University in China RIGHT Iris Braun with the JPAL Gwalior Field Team in India BOTTOM Brendan Brady meets with U Htay Oo, Vice- Chairman of the Union Solidarity and Development Party, in the capital of Myanmar 14 <strong>Communiqué</strong> Spring 2015 www.ash.harvard.edu
IN THE FIELD Student Focus Marshall Ganz’s Students Spread the Power of Community Organizing Across the Globe Kanoko Kamata, former Roy and Lila Ash Fellow and MPA ‘12 Fifty nonprofit leaders, social movement activists, and public-sector officials from across Japan convened in Tokyo in December 2014 to learn some of the leadership strategies and organizing techniques employed successfully in the US and elsewhere. Hosted by Community Organizing Japan (COJ), the event was something of a novelty in a nation reputed to have little tradition of civic engagement. Participants were encouraged to step outside their comfort zones, engaging in the dynamic storytelling, strategizing, and team-building exercises fundamental to the practice of community organizing. Kanoko Kamata, an HKS alumna and former Roy and Lila Ash Fellow at the Ash Center, founded COJ in 2013 and invited HKS Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Ash Center affiliate Marshall Ganz to collaborate with her and her team of local coaches in leading a series of community organizing workshops over the past year. Kamata first encountered community organizing while a student in Ganz’s course on Organizing: People, Power, and Change at the Kennedy School. “I was very new to the idea and I was skeptical about its usefulness in other countries besides the US,” says Kamata. “But the more I learned about community organizing, the more I understood that it’s fundamental to human society for people to come together and solve problems.” In Ganz’s semester-long class, students learn not only the theoretical and historical significance of collective action, but are required to create their own organizing campaign by mobilizing a constituency to achieve a shared purpose and clear outcome. The multiday workshops that Ganz works with local leadership to conduct in Japan and elsewhere around the world including Jordan, China, Colombia, and Canada, offer participants an introduction to leadership, organizing, and public narrative. Based on Ganz’s teaching, a research project with the Sierra Club, and development at scale in the 2007– 2008 Obama for President Campaign, the workshops provide participants with an opportunity to experience fundamental organizing practices and explore their utility in meeting challenges they face in their own communities. Five practices are central to Ganz’s coursework on community organizing. The first involves what Ganz calls “public narrative”: a “story of self,” a “story of us,” and a “story of now.” The story of self explains why the organizer is called to leadership and it can be a challenge for those unaccustomed to sharing their personal histories in a public setting. “The story of self was a particularly interesting concept for the COJ attendees,” says Kamata. “Some people were hesitant at first because people in Japan don’t expect to tell their story, but it was exciting for them to see how this practice can build relationships quickly and deeply.” The story of us is an answer to the question: what values as a community call us to action? The story of now is the challenge to our communal values that demands present action. “Say you are sick due to environmental hazards in your neighborhood,” says Kamata. “That’s the story of self—it’s what motivated you to care about the environment. The story of us is that the environment is important to everyone in the surrounding community and the story of now is that we need to act immediately to protect the environment.” The four other practices developed by Ganz include building relationships, structuring collaborative leadership, strategizing how to turn available resources into power to accomplish clear goals, and achieving measurable outcomes “on the ground.” Students in his organizing class at HKS learn organizing and leadership skills with which to replicate the training and share effective organizing practices with a wider audience. “Learning to be a leader and an organizer is a skill,” says Ganz. “It’s a lot like riding a bike. You can read 10 books on the topic, but how do you really learn to ride a bike? You get on it. You fall. And, then you find the courage to learn from your failures and try again. That’s how you master any skill and that’s how you learn organizing.” Many of Ganz’s former students put these skills to work after they graduate, including those who have gone on to become organizers themselves, such as Nisreen Haj Ahmed, co-founder of Ahel in Jordan; Predrag Stojicic, co-founder of Serbia on the Move in Serbia; and Cecilia Barja, who represents Colombia for Fundacion Avina and is a leader of Narrativa Publica in the Amazon. Ganz remains connected to them as well as other Harvard alumni through the Leading Change Network, a community of educators, researchers, and practitioners committed to developing organizing leadership and empowering people to act on their values. For his students that opt not to pursue a career in organizing, they leave his class with a valuable understanding of leadership, group dynamics, and the role of collective action in strengthening democracy. Mick Power, a current HKS master’s in public policy student, says of his experience in Marshall’s class: “Students in Marshall's class are required not just to learn, but to organize, so being part of a group of student leaders working to end racism, homelessness, religious intolerance, violence, and inequality in their communities was a weekly inspiration. I think the fact that so many of his students are still working in the teams and communities that they discovered through his class is a testament to Marshall's genuine passion for teaching, and to how much of himself he gives to his work and his students.” C www.ash.harvard.edu Spring 2015 <strong>Communiqué</strong> 15
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Page 5 and 6: IN THE NEWS Ash Center Faculty Appo
Page 7 and 8: While the founders of the American
Page 9 and 10: Much of this breakdown, argues Kraf
Page 11 and 12: areas and mitigating reoccurrence.
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Page 19 and 20: RESEARCH BRIEF Governance and Polit

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