Browsing by Subject "Sierra Leone"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Developing a Social Media Strategy for a Small Non-Profit Organization: More Conversation, Less Marketing
    (2017-11-17) Lawler, Audra J.; Hook, Sara Anne
    Right Sharing of World Resources (RSWR), based in Richmond, Indiana, is a successful microfinance organization that empowers marginalized women in Kenya, India and Sierra Leone. Although established in 1967, RSWR remains a small organization compared with other NGOs and has not had the time or expertise to update its website or to take advantage of the power of social media for outreach and public relations. The first project was to complete a total redesign of RSWR’s website as well as a new branding campaign. This project is to develop and implement a social media strategy that will allow RSWR to better communicate its message to its target audiences, such as donors, volunteers and the public at large. Building on the methodology used for the website redesign project, I interviewed key players and investigated social media best practices, specifically the social media approaches of small firms and non-profit organizations. Among my findings are that an organization should have a written policy and limit the number of people who can publish social media content. A social media strategy must be dynamic and there should be at least one person dedicated to content management. Content must be fresh, sincere and purposeful, never arbitrary or perfunctory and should be consistent with RSWR’s overall branding efforts and public persona. This same methodology for developing a social media strategy could be used by nearly any small entity that has to be very judicious in how it communicates through 21st century technology.
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    How Civic Entrepreneurship Addresses Social Justice Issues for Women Around the World
    (2018-02-27) Hook, Sara Anne; Lawler, Audra
    This presentation will provide a retrospective of nearly ten years of a faculty member’s activities with microfinance/women’s empowerment projects throughout the world, including working with a variety of community partners both here and overseas and in collaboration with undergraduate students funded by IUPUI as Service Learning Assistants. The faculty member was first the leader of a successful microfinance/women’s empowerment project in Mexico. More recently, she has been assisting a microfinance/women’s empowerment organization that concentrates its efforts in Sierra Leone, Kenya, and India. These civic entrepreneurship efforts directly address the social injustice of limited employment opportunities and insufficient financial resources that hamper the advancement of women in many countries. Through partnerships with non-profit organizations, higher education institutions can meaningfully deploy their intellectual resources towards endeavors that promote greater social justice for disadvantaged populations. Being part of these activities is integral to shaping student perceptions of themselves as engaged citizens of the greater community. These projects have given the faculty member’s students opportunities to contribute their skills and talents in foreign language translation, writing, public speaking, web design, information architecture, and communications technology. Photographs and testimonials of women from these countries proudly showcasing the results of the loans that they have received are both inspiring and humbling for the faculty member and her students. After attending this session, participants will be able to support how properly planned and deployed civic entrepreneurship projects address social justice issues throughout the world, articulate the important role of partnerships between higher education and community organizations in promoting social justice, promote quality microfinance projects as an effective and long-lasting approach for economic development that empowers women and builds community, and highlight how even small non-profit organizations can provide students with meaningful real-world experiences to use their skills and talents to address social justice issues.
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    Law, Technology and Civic Entrepreneurship
    (2017-03-10) Hook, Sara Anne
    My research centers on the interrelationship between law and technology, both how the law is applied to new technology and the impact that technology has on the law and its practice. During the past year, I published and/or presented on such diverse topics as the extent to which copyright, patent, and trademark law protects websites, apps and GUIs, legal and ethical issues related to social media, and legal considerations for 3D printing. Through my national professional organization, I have advocated for modernization of the U.S. Copyright Office and for an alternative dispute process for small copyright infringement claims. The emerging area of law known as electronic discovery (e-discovery) has been a particular focus of mine for the last decade. E-discovery deals with how to handle digital evidence in all formats before and throughout litigation and sits perfectly at the intersection of law, technology and data science. My recent activities have included efforts to develop a robust and full-featured predictive coding system that will streamline the e-discovery process so that it is less time-consuming and costly and reduces the potential for errors. A passion of mine is microfinance/women’s empowerment, inspired by the work of Muhammad Yunus and my experiences teaching an entrepreneurship course here at SoIC every year since 2003. For six years, I was the leader of a successful microfinance/women’s empowerment project in Mexico and I am now completing a second year of being a project leader and “champion” for microfinance/women’s empowerment projects in Sierra Leone. As part of my efforts, I have been working with graduate students to redesign the website and social media/communications approach for the microfinance organization that oversees and administers these projects.
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    Microfinance/Women's Empowerment
    (2017-12-02) Hook, Sara Anne
    A review of Sara Anne Hook's activities to support microfinance/women's empowerment projects in Mexico, Sierra Leone, India and Kenya. Includes contributions from graduate students Shilpa Pachhapurkar and Cori Faklaris and undergraduate student Audra Lawler.
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    Microfinance/Women’s Empowerment in Sierra Leone: Civic Entrepreneurship, Advocacy and the Power of Partnerships
    (2017-04-11) Hook, Sara Anne; Tonsing, Betty
    This poster will highlight microfinance/women’s empowerment projects in Sierra Leone, administered by Right Sharing of World Resources (RSWR) and funded by the Rotary Club of Indianapolis. This example of civic entrepreneurship will demonstrate how providing women with the opportunity to start their own small companies contributes to building a support system and sense of community and addresses the need for social, economic and political stability in a country recovering from civil war and devastating disease. The poster will feature the results of efforts to redesign the RSWR website and develop a social media marketing strategy.