DC event: Social Media Workshop for Social Empowerment

The Washington Association for Professional Anthropologists presents a discussion of how to use technology to create social networks that promote community education and empowerment.

Speakers: Shanyn Ronis and Kayla Sousa

When: 17 October 17, 2013, 7:00 pm

Where: Sumner School, Rotating Gallery G-4; corner of 17th St and M St NW, Washington, DC

Social media can be a powerful tool for promoting events, expanding the public profile of organizations and causes, and raising funds. This presentation will provide an overview of how to devise a cohesive, successful social media strategy across various platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, E-mail campaigns, Linked-in, Crowd-Sourcing Platforms, and organizational websites. It will explore how this strategy should be used to enhance fundraising efforts and create lasting relationships with donors.

Shanyn Ronis is a sociocultural anthropologist trained at the George Washington University and the University of Chicago. She has worked for the past five years in domestic politics, managing campaigns in Virginia and working on the independent expenditure committees for Colorado State House races. She has also worked throughout Latin America and Western Europe. In 2013, she founded the Education Global Access Program (E-GAP) in order to create a development strategy that relies heavily on anthropological methods of ethnographic assessment and grassroots community empowerment, and that works with local forms of knowledge. E-GAP was established through a partnership of anthropologists, teachers, IT professionals, and globally-minded volunteers. It currently has projects in Peru, Guatemala, and India.

More information and to RSVP: WAPA Presents: Social Media and Fundraising Workshop

Washington, DC event on disaster response

Trends in Natural Disaster Response and the Role of Regional Organizations

Monday, April 22, 2013, 2:00 — 3:30 pm
The Brookings Institution, Saul/Zilkha Rooms, 1775 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC

Global demographic trends suggest that more people are living in areas vulnerable to sudden-onset natural disasters even as scientists predict that the frequency and intensity of these disasters are likely to increase as a result of the effects of climate change. These trends, coupled with recent high-profile mega-disasters like Hurricane Sandy and the drought in the Sahel, are raising global awareness of the need to build the capacity of national governments, civil society organizations and international actors to prevent, respond to and recover from natural disasters. The Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement’s third annual Review of Natural Disasters outlines these major disasters in 2012 and key response opportunities, in particular the role of regional organizations. Although regional mechanisms are playing increasingly important roles in disasters, there has been remarkably little research on their role in disaster risk management.

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