World Savvy
Report date
January 2021
What has been most instrumental to your progress?
The buy-in and support from our school partners in Rochester and Faribault was incredible and key to running the program despite challenges. Originally, World Savvy (WS) and Somali Community Resettlement Services (SCRS) had intended to run blended sessions with students from both schools together; however, we quickly discovered that transportation was a challenge for these communities and would prohibit continuous participation for many Somali youth. Therefore, we switched to running site-based programming, hosted at their schools. The support and coordination by the schools in pivoting to this new plan was instrumental in enabling us to conduct meaningful work with students.
The strength of this partnership and collective commitment to supporting Somali youth was further demonstrated in our response to COVID-19 impact on the project. SCRS staff and WS quickly shifted the SALs to an online format and refined our communication protocols to ensure continued communication, student engagement, and a high-quality SAL experience
The strength of this partnership and collective commitment to supporting Somali youth was further demonstrated in our response to COVID-19 impact on the project. SCRS staff and WS quickly shifted the SALs to an online format and refined our communication protocols to ensure continued communication, student engagement, and a high-quality SAL experience
The Steering Committee funded by this grant was integral to the development of this program. It met initially in January 2019, with many members from a great cross-section of the communities; parents, students, community members, and a few administrators from across both communities. The steering committees offered valuable insight and direction as we solidified planning with SCRS.
Additional meetings had been scheduled for Spring/Summer 2020; however the Steering Committee was unable to meet due to COVID-19. However, SCRS facilitated communication with the committee to ensure updates on student work and the partnership were provided.
Additional meetings had been scheduled for Spring/Summer 2020; however the Steering Committee was unable to meet due to COVID-19. However, SCRS facilitated communication with the committee to ensure updates on student work and the partnership were provided.
The students at Rochester and Faribault were incredible to work with. Despite adjustments to the programming to account for issues such as transportation, and then additional changes due to COVID-19, the students have jumped right into their Knowledge to Action projects (World Savvy’s project-based learning tool), and worked in teams on year-long projects with the general goal of creating more supportive and inclusive communities. Students engaged in Action Labs centered around building leadership and design thinking skills as well as Action Labs focused primarily on their Knowledge-to-Action projects. Student project topics included Climate Change Awareness, Bullying and Racism in Schools, Access to Equal Sports Opportunities and Gender Inequity in Sports.
Key lessons learned
We experienced several challenges to conducting our work as it was originally envisioned in our proposal with SCRS. Transportation between communities was a key barrier to participation, causing us to have to shift our strategy and conduct site-based programming as opposed to programming that brought both communities together on a regular basis.
The slow pace of change is schools was another challenge. Despite the collaboration from school administrators in hosting site-based sessions and providing support, engaging a wide team of educators for work beyond the steering committee proved challenging. Educators and schools are already stretched thin with everything they are expected to provide for students, and engaging them in ongoing programming proved difficult. COVID-19 and the additional pressures this put on educators meant we were unable to engage any educators in the work this year, despite numerous meetings with school leaders. We are still hopeful that by utilizing student projects, we will be able to engage educators in Rochester and Faribault and encourage them to institute some of the student solutions to make their schools and communities more inclusive and equitable.
The slow pace of change is schools was another challenge. Despite the collaboration from school administrators in hosting site-based sessions and providing support, engaging a wide team of educators for work beyond the steering committee proved challenging. Educators and schools are already stretched thin with everything they are expected to provide for students, and engaging them in ongoing programming proved difficult. COVID-19 and the additional pressures this put on educators meant we were unable to engage any educators in the work this year, despite numerous meetings with school leaders. We are still hopeful that by utilizing student projects, we will be able to engage educators in Rochester and Faribault and encourage them to institute some of the student solutions to make their schools and communities more inclusive and equitable.
N/A
Reflections on the community innovation process
While all aspects have been vital, being resourceful in our partnership and being able to shift plans and roles in order to conduct high-quality programming has been most important to making progress in this work. Despite challenges such as transportation barriers, organizational capacity, limited participation from educators, and then COVID-19, WS and SCRS were able to pivot our strategies to still deliver high-quality programming to students, enabling them to understand, analyze, and begin to address issues that are important to them as they relate to equity and inclusion in their schools and communities.
Progress toward an innovation
The ease with which Somali students identified a range of issues in their schools and communities as they relate to equity and inclusion reinforced that WS and SCRS were spot on in our assessment that these are key issues for them. We have learned more about how these issues reach into so many areas of life – as evidenced by projects being so specific as to include topics like barriers to participation in sports (a video that shares more about this work can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/xzfcK-G3i24).. While COVID-19 impacted our ability to continue this work in the spring and include educators in the final month of this project, we feel strongly that Somali student-led solutions to these issues are vital for these communities and look forward to continuing our collaborative efforts with SCRS and seeing some of these projects become reality.
What it will take to reach an innovation?
We are confident that we largely achieved what we set out to do – develop with SCRS a way to dynamically engage Somali youth around problem-solving and advocating for what they need in their communities. As we iterated on different aspects of the program to overcome challenges such as transportation and then COVID-19, we feel confident that we hit upon an engaging way to get students excited about being changemakers in their communities.
One additional step that we feel would be vital for the continued success of this program is educator engagement. Though we were limited in our ability to engage educators in Rochester and Faribault due to numerous factors, we feel strongly that additional collaboration with and support from educators would be the final step to empowering students and providing them with the resources needed to make the solutions they designed to their chosen issues a reality.
One additional step that we feel would be vital for the continued success of this program is educator engagement. Though we were limited in our ability to engage educators in Rochester and Faribault due to numerous factors, we feel strongly that additional collaboration with and support from educators would be the final step to empowering students and providing them with the resources needed to make the solutions they designed to their chosen issues a reality.
What's next?
World Savvy and Somali Community Resettlement Services are currently exploring additional funding opportunities to continue engaging youth in this manner in Rochester and Faribault. In addition, World Savvy is exploring partnerships in other parts of Minnesota (St. Cloud, Willmar, and others) with substantial Somali student populations to replicate and iterate on the work completed because of this grant. This project has not only demonstrated the need for and the efficacy of this type of work, but also prepared World Savvy to be a more responsive, empathetic, and prepared partner in this work moving forward as we collaborated with SCRS and worked together to address challenges and ensure the success of student participants.
If you could do it all over again...
Knowing beforehand about some of the logistical and capacity pieces that would come up would have been invaluable in developing the structure of the program from the beginning as opposed to adjusting midstream. This was our assessment during our interim report last spring – and wow, was this driven home once COVID-19 hit! Although we are proud of our ability to pivot and do great work with students despite these challenges, these will be significant learnings to keep in mind when conducting similar work across communities in the future (and preparing programming for potential virtual delivery). This will impact the ways in which we engage partners and develop programs moving forward, with flexibility, innovation, and thoughtful problem-solving at the forefront.
One last thought
World Savvy is deeply committed to evaluation to support continuous improvement and inform the complex work of educating for global competence. Evaluation was embedded in this program and examined how the SALs furthered students’ skills and knowledge to identify community problems and work on developing solutions change.
Highlights include:
-students strongly agreed that the SALs helped them identify problems in their community and feel empowered to make change by taking positive action;
-students agreed the SAL experience helped them examine a difficult problem and conduct research; and
-students strongly agreed the SALs helped increase their knowledge to develop solutions to identified problems.
Responses to, “What else would you like us to know about your Student Action Lab (SAL) experience?” included, “It is really helpful program for students to find solutions for the problems they have in the community” and “It is helping us to stand up for ourselves and be a leader.”
These data show that the SE MN SALs helped students identify community problems, develop solutions to these problems, and foster feelings of empowerment to take positive action throughout the year.
Highlights include:
-students strongly agreed that the SALs helped them identify problems in their community and feel empowered to make change by taking positive action;
-students agreed the SAL experience helped them examine a difficult problem and conduct research; and
-students strongly agreed the SALs helped increase their knowledge to develop solutions to identified problems.
Responses to, “What else would you like us to know about your Student Action Lab (SAL) experience?” included, “It is really helpful program for students to find solutions for the problems they have in the community” and “It is helping us to stand up for ourselves and be a leader.”
These data show that the SE MN SALs helped students identify community problems, develop solutions to these problems, and foster feelings of empowerment to take positive action throughout the year.