How MPA Programs Can Help Build Town and Gowns: US Perspective

Courtesy : http://patimes.org/mpa-programs-build-town-gowns/

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By William Hatcher
November 10, 2015

Colleges and universities are key economic, social and political assets for communities. The relationship between communities and institutions of higher learning, what has been termed town and gown, is vital to local public administration. However, many communities struggle to build and maintain effective town-and-gown partnerships.

Previously, I have discussed the reasons why town-and-gown partnerships are difficult to sustain.Conflicts arising due to taxation issues, land-use decisions and traffic congestion are just a few reasons. In the area of economic development, local communities often do not partner with their colleges or universities, which in many areas are the largest employers. In a recent ICMA survey of local economic developers, a majority of communities reported having a college or university in their jurisdiction. However, only 25 percent of the communities claimed to have a partnership with an institution of higher learning. This shocking percentage needs to be changed for local governance.

Public administration should be concerned with fostering strong town and gowns because the partnerships have the potential to strengthen the local economy and administrative decisions. Members of the local college or university can offer their expertise to local economic and political decisions, which can mean policy will be based more on evidence. By helping communities make sound administrative decisions, town-and-gown relationships build local policy capacity. Given this, public administration as a field should help foster effective town-and-gown partnerships.

Master of public administration (MPA) programs are well-suited to take a leading role in helping cultivate town and gowns in our communities. They have expertise from their faculty and can also access students, who can be incorporated into meaningful service learning projects in the community.

MPA faculty can offer local communities a wealth of administrative expertise. First, faculty members can build local capacity and strengthen town-and-gown partnerships by conducting meaningful applied research for local communities.

Second, faculty members can construct beneficial service learning projects for their students to work with local partners. Past work on fostering town and gowns has discussed the effectiveness of meaningful service learning projects.Here are just a few examples of potential project areas:

• Faculty and students can help communities construct effective local budgets by offering training seminars to officials and citizens.
• Faculty and students can help communities construct performance measures and implement those strategies.
• Faculty and students can help communities conduct comprehensive planning by coordinating public participation meetings that build a local vision for development. 

Finally, MPA faculty can serve as formal and informal advisors to local officials. By being “go to” advisors, MPA faculty can help build the reputation of their programs in the community, which in turn helps students obtain internships and employment.

In other words, MPA programs can help strengthen town-and-gown relationships by helping build local administrative capacity by linking their institutions with the organizations in the community, in particular local governments and nonprofits.

The literature on MPA programs shows this may be difficult. For instance, Wodicka, Swatz and Peaslee detailed the successes and challenges of partnering with local governments on service learning projects. Turnover in local government can affect service learning. When there are changes in leadership on both sides, it is difficult to maintain such partnerships.Nonprofits, at times, may be more willing to involve students in service learning projects.

Organizations outside the community can also help build local town-and-gown partnerships. In these cases, MPA programs can play a role by working with regional and national associations to promote town-and-gown relationships. For instance, the International Town & Gown Association (ITGA) has helped local governments realize the importance of collaborating with institutions of higher learning. Here are a few examples:

• The City of Fairfax, Va., and George Mason University are working together to build a sustainable downtown.
• The City of Greensboro, S.C., is working with its local colleges and universities to draft effective transportation policies.
• Lastly, many communities and universities are partnering to address the problem of binge drinking on college campuses. 

The literature on public administration has paid little attention to the topic of town and gowns. Nevertheless, as discussed, there is a wealth of literature on how to build local administrative capacity. We need to use this knowledge to help our local communities and universities build closer ties.

By doing so, we help strengthen local capacity. We serve our students. We demonstrate our worth to not just our home institutions but also our local communities.

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Author: William Hatcher, Ph.D. is an associate professor and director of the Master of Public Administration program at Georgia Regents University (soon to be renamed Augusta University). He can be reached atwihatcher@gru.edu.  (His opinions are his own and do not necessarily represent those of his employer.)

Courtesy : http://patimes.org/mpa-programs-build-town-gowns/

How we helped women become agents of change for urban development in India

Article courtesy - How we helped women become agents of change for urban development in India - See more at: http://blogs.adb.org/blog/how-we-helped-women-become-agents-change-urban-development-india#sthash.cNRhJzNq.dpuf

By Prabhjot R. Khan on Fri, 16 October 2015

A female community leader in Bhopal, India.

Sixty-year-old Iqbal Bano heaved a sigh of relief when her slum was finally upgraded after 30 years in the sprawling Indian city of Bhopal.

Iqbal is one of several women who decided to defy their traditional role as water and garbage collectors and became involved as community leaders in an ADB-supported urban development project covering four large cities (Bhopal, Gwalior, Indore, and Jabalpurin) in Madhya Pradesh, one of the country’s poorest states.

The 10-year project rehabilitated and expanded the water supply systems, and improved wastewater collection and treatment systems so for instance women would have more time to perform tasks other than just fetching water. It also included a number of special features that helped mobilize women’s participation in the development and upgrading of their own communities:

• We developed guides for mainstreaming gender in the project, including an overall gender mainstreaming strategy that was drafted in collaboration with the Water for Asian Cities Program of UN Habitat, a gender action plan to ensure responsiveness to women’s needs, and a gender field manual that spells out how to integrate gender in the Municipal Action Plan for Poverty Reduction.
• Community mobilization focused on women with assistance from NGOs, and community group committees—73% of whose members are women—were trained in pro-poor governance and collecting baseline information for planning and preparation of project reports.
• The project converged with other slum improvement platforms such as the Madhya Pradesh Urban Services for the Poor Program by giving priority to the slum areas it covered.
• We secured a commitment from the municipal government to implement the gender action plan by mainstreaming gender across project initiatives and providing community organizers and sociologists with gender expertise.

Participating in the urban development project, we learned from the beneficiaries, helped women like Iqbal build their self-esteem and self-determination in the face of challenges from their husbands, and other men in their communities.

“Initially we faced a lot resistance from men, who told us to better stay at home,” recalled Nai Basti-Ranjhi, another community leader. “But we were determined because we were the ones facing the hardships in that we had to leave our small children every day without care and hence risk their lives to collect water.”

The efforts of the women—and collaborating men—paid off. Since women were the ones that really knew what the community needed and which solutions would work, project implementers were able to incorporate their feedback into the design, and soon water, sanitation practices and environmental conditions, as well as in hygiene practices at the household and community levels, all improved.

Better access to reliable and quality water services has significantly reduced the workloads of women, who now have more time to attend to other tasks. Safety and health risks stemming from practices such as bathing, washing clothes and defecating far away from home have also been reduced, if not eliminated.

Likewise, participation in the project transformed the role of women from just beneficiaries to becoming true agents of change to help increased understanding of gender issues in water and sanitation, and strengthened institutional capacity in ensuring that men and women could benefit equally from water and sanitation investments.

- See more at: http://blogs.adb.org/blog/how-we-helped-women-become-agents-change-urban-development-india#sthash.cNRhJzNq.dpuf

CHILD BEGGING IN INDIA – CAUSES, CURRENT SITUATION AND SUGGESTED REFORMS

Poverty is not an accident. Like Slavery and Apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings. ~ NELSON MANDELA

CHILD BEGGING IN INDIA – CAUSES, CURRENT SITUATION AND SUGGESTED REFORMS:

Children comprise 50% of the earth’s population currently. Extremely vulnerable children can be seen begging on the streets and this is a glaring reality in every corner of our country. Even Norway, which is considered as one of the richest countries in the world is not free of this evil business. Every country has laid down laws to tackle this issue but success has been minimal. Though our Constitution expresses concern for upbringing children in safe, secure and healthy manner through various provisions but on the ground, all of those are still a long shot looking at the current state of affairs. There are not many studies on child beggars in India, however, with the limited ones available, let us explore the reasons and possible solutions for this in detail:

CAUSES OF CHILD BEGGING:

1.       Abject Poverty leads adults of families into begging and they also coerce their children into this business.

2.       Orphaned & abandoned children and the ones who run away from their native places due to poverty or any other reasons.

3.       Refugees.

4.       Religious sanctions provided by Indian culture & religion, where people believe feeding beggars outside religious places or the ones carrying a God’s picture in a steel bowl with oil is an act of good karma and wards off evil.

5.       Malnutrition.

6.       Juvenile Delinquency & Drug addiction.

7.       Manipulated and exploited by Adults.

8.       Organised Gangs/Begging mafia working who kidnap, buy & sell children (Human Trafficking) and maim them for this purpose.

9.       Psychological & Physical coercion.

10.   Easy money with no labour.

11.   Cross generation begging since no education prevails in many generations of beggars.

12.   No knowledge of their rights and rehabilitation provisions and afraid of their gang-lords.

13.   Nexus between organised gangs and law enforcers.

14.   Failure of Govt. schools to retain children.

15.   Failure of Governance to implement policies for such children effectively.

 INTERNATIONAL, CONSTITUTIONAL & LEGAL PROVISIONS (INDIA) FOR CHILDREN BEGGING:

 1924: The League of Nations adopted the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which established children’s rights as means for material, moral and spiritual development; special help when hungry, sick, disabled or orphaned; first call on relief when in distress; freedom from economic exploitation; and an upbringing that instills a sense of social responsibility.

1948: The UN General Assembly passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which referred in article 25 to childhood as “entitled to special care and assistance.” In 1959 the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which recognized rights such as freedom from discrimination and the right to a name and a nationality. It also specifically enshrined children’s rights to education, health, care and special protection. 1979 was declared as the International Year of the Child.

1989: The UN General Assembly unanimously approved the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which entered into force the following year.

1990: The World Summit for Children was held in New York. The leaders signed the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children as well as a Plan of Action for implementing the Declaration, setting goals to be achieved by the year 2000.

1999: The Convention concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour was adopted.

2000: The UN Millennium Development Goals incorporate specific targets related to children, including reducing sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

2002: The UN General Assembly held a Special Session on Children, meeting for the first time to specifically discuss children’s issues.

INDIAN CONSTITUTION:

Article 15 (3) enables the state to make special provisions for children.

Article 24 explicitly prohibits child labour and hazardous employment of children.

Article 39(f) further directs the state in its policy towards the well-being of the children.

Article 39 ( c ) provides that children of tender age should not be subject to abuse and should be given opportunities to develop in a healthy manner.

Article 45 makes provision for free and compulsory education for children.

Article 47 states that it is the duty of the state to raise the level of nutrition and standard of living and to improve public health. The courts in India have stated that a child cannot be treated as an inanimate object or like a property by the parents.

Exposure and abandonment of children by parents or others is a crime under section 317 of IPC. Kidnapping is a crime under sections 360, 361, 384, 363, 363 A (kidnapping for begging), 366, 367, 369 of IPC.

There are certain crimes against children which are punishable under special and local laws such as immoral traffic prevention act. The child labour act banned child labour in hotels, restaurants and as domestic servants. The Government of India passed the Children Act 1960 to introduce uniformity and to establish separate child welfare boards to handle cases relating to neglected children.

In 1974 the government adopted a National Policy for Children. The Indian legislature has enacted several legislations to improve and protect lives of children. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2000 and its amendment in 2006, and Right to Education Act 2009 are significant in this regard.

Bombay Prevention of Begging Act in 1959 made begging a crime, and extended to other States including Delhi.

CURRENT SITUATION IN INDIA:

In India, by official statistics, roughly 60000 children (the real number is estimated to be much higher) disappear every year and an estimated 300000 child beggars in India. Even some people of the medical fraternity are also involved with the mafia gangs to help maim the children for a huge sum. In spite of a number of policies and laws set up for these purposes of helping such children, the govt. has been a big failure in curbing this due to lack of political will.  Apart from that, the unholy nexus between the begging gangs/mafia and the law enforcers is a big impediment in removing this social evil. Also, there is no coordination at all between the policy makers, bureaucrats and law enforcers as well as civil society and the lack of public awareness in this matter has led to an even more deteriorated situation than before.

REFORMS NEEDED:

· Compulsory schooling for all children which has already been laid down in Law via the RTE Act but the implementation and awareness needs to be spruced up in a major way and also the corruption involved in it need to be checked by a stringent body/mechanism in place.

· Sympathetic teachers and child friendly environment in schools because govt. & MCD schools lack these and that is the reason that the children dropout or abandon studies completely for life. A routine report and regular inspections/meetings need to be carried out for this purpose.

· No alms drive to educate the public.

· Adult guardians as well as those who criminally (mafia/gangs/traffickers) coerce children in to this trade need to be caught upon information gathered, and punished to make an example of to the others in this dirty business.

· Strict and speedy sentences meted out to the criminals as a punishment for kidnapping and maiming of children.

· Welfare policies for child beggars and their families such as monetary help, health and residence etc. 

· Good and more number of orphanage/ shelter homes for children without close relatives and advertise this everywhere for awareness.

· Railways should become more watchful as most of beggars are trafficked through this route and one can see a huge amount of beggars on the railway stations.

· Help to lower income/ poor including temporary emergency assistance and long term skill development for stable income and occupation.

· Increasing awareness of the general public of child helpline numbers and NGOs and Govt. Homes and Laws to help such children.

· Providing an incentive to parents along with counselling to send their wards to schools.

· In depth and a lot more studies and research into this issue to understand it in totality and issues with current schemes & policies. Increased coordination between the civil society, policy makers and implementers/law enforcers to bring their experience and authority to the table and work out a detailed and holistic plan to tackle this menace and eradicate it completely.