Blog prompts (due Sunday 5/2 – as a team):

1. Identify two SPECIFIC funding sources for the design phase of your project and two SPECIFIC funding sources for the dissemination (implementation / distribution / commercialization) phase of your project. For each funding source, explain why this is a good fit for your project, and what SPECIFIC aspect of your project might the funding source support.
2. Identify five specific partnerships that you need to forge to advance your project forward with the ultimate goal of positively impacting Lehigh University AND ten other universities. Describe exactly how each partnership might help you achieve scale and why that entity might be willing to work with you.

 

1. Design Phase:
   • Davis Projects for Peace Grant
     • This grant will fund our travel to Sierra Leone which will allow us to speak to families and children, do qualitative research, test our screener, and further our partnerships. Our venture aligns with their mission of advancing research that promotes peace anywhere in the world: We encourage applicants to use their creativity to design projects and employ innovative techniques for engaging project participants in ways that focus on conflict resolution, reconciliation, building understanding and breaking down barriers which cause conflict, and finding solutions for resolving conflict and maintaining peace.
   • Lehigh University CORE Grant
     • This grant provides beginning research programs at Lehigh with $60,000 dollars to get them off the ground before they receive more funding sources. This grant will help with initial costs of the project, including funding the necessary tools for organizing and reporting our data. This grant is a good fit for our project because it is affiliated with Lehigh and is meant to support research programs conducted out of the school to ensure their early success. 
2. Implementation Phase:
   • The Simon’s Foundation Grant
     • This grant of $300,000 will help us to cover costs of paying staff to administer the screener over the first few years of its implementation. They are willing to work with us because their mission aligns with ours: to improve the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of autism spectrum disorders by funding innovative research of the highest quality and relevance.
   • Autism Speaks Grant
     • This $60,000 grant will also help to cover implementation costs and the salaries and staff we will need to expand our screener throughout the country. Autism Speaks funding, “seeks to be a catalyst for research breakthroughs that improve lives today and deliver a spectrum of solutions in the years ahead.” This directly aligns with our project goals. 

2.

• Sierra Leone Autistic Society 
  • Sierra Leone Autistic Society will help us to ensure the cultural appropriateness of our screener, as they have experience with Autism in children in Sierra Leone. They will help to ensure our access to families and children with Autism. Through our partnership, we have also provided them with communication materials and access to our knowledge on Autism research. The mutuality of our partnership, as well as their personal goal of raising awareness and opportunities for children with autism connects our overall missions. 
• World Hope International
  • World Hope International is dedicated to high-impact interventions that improve the health of the global population. They have connections and resources in Sierra Leone that they can leverage on our behalf. Their experience with grassroots projects that have positive impacts on local populations will prove to be invaluable as we try to implement and expand our work. They will be willing to work with us because our project falls under their goal of implementing projects that improve global health. We have previously met with a member of the organization and they expressed their interest in further discussions as to how they can help us.
• University of Makeni
  • The University of Makeni will help us to achieve scale through the collaboration of both local and foreign researchers and research materials. They will provide us with materials when visiting Sierra Leone, as well as assist us with developing relationships in the community. We can consult them while developing our screener for culturally sensitive opinions and experiences. They will work with us because they are interested in our research and the topic of Autism in Sierra Leone, and this makes them want to be involved in our venture. 
• GSIF/Lehigh University
  • GSIF and Lehigh University provide us with knowledge, grant money, and more. This partnership is interested in our project due to its potential for direct impact on the people and children of Sierra Leone. They are also interested in the success of our project advertising the school and program. 
• Sierra Leone Ministry of Health & Sanitation/Ministry of Education
  • The Government of Sierra Leone will assist us in the expansion of our screener throughout the country. They are also providing us with access to doing fieldwork in Sierra Leone. They are willing to partner with us because in recent decades, they have been working to improve the quality of life and education for their population. With increased knowledge of Autism in the population and how it affects children that our screener will provide, they can continue to make progress in these sectors. Inclusive education and teacher training will allow for all children to have equal opportunities in the classroom.

 

In order to further all of our partnerships, the main thing we need to do is increase our communication with them. By doing our fieldwork this summer, we will be able to speak directly with our partners which will help us to develop both our venture’s success and our relationships. Open communication ensures that there is a level of trust and transparency between our team and our partners which will lead to our overall success. Once our screener is officially developed, we need to continue to communicate with these partners so that they can help us reach our goal of 100% of children under 5 being screened for autism by 2026. The Sierra Leone Ministry of Health/Education partnership would be especially beneficial at this point because they can use government oversight to ensure the continued use and success of our screener. This partnership also requires more work than some of the others because we currently have very few connections with them. By keeping all of our partners in our line of communication, we will see success.