Coro Pittsburgh develops leaders to strengthen communities. We give people tools and trainings to help them tackle the most difficult and important community issues they face. Most of our work is local—strengthening civic engagement in South Pittsburgh, supporting school-community relations in the Hill District, gathering women from greater Pittsburgh to foster gender equity. This past fall, however, we got an opportunity to think bigger. The U.S. State Department contacted us about their Community Solutions Program, a professional development program for the best and brightest global community leaders working in the fields of transparency and accountability, tolerance and conflict resolution, environmental issues and women and gender issues. The program matches global leaders with organizations across the United States to collaborate on projects and leave them better positioned to make lasting change in their home communities. Coro was matched with Khin Sandar Nyunt from Burma (Myanmar).
Sandar became a full-time, pro-democracy activist in Burma the day she finished college and has been on the front lines ever since. During the past five years, she has worked with Nobel-prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi; led numerous trainings & public actions; and helped her country move from being one of the most isolated, repressive nations on earth to an emerging democracy. She also came to Pittsburgh for four months to learn how Coro fosters civic engagement and to share her insights with us.
As part of the Community Solutions Program (CSP), Coro applied for and received a competitive grant for Coro’s Director of Programs, Michael Sider-Rose, to visit Burma. From May 14-28, Michael will be leading civic engagement workshops and learning from democracy advocates. His two goals are (1) To share Coro’s methodology as a means to foster democratic engagement in Burma and (2) to begin a cross-national dialogue on best practices in civic engagement. While the contexts of Burma and Pittsburgh have stark differences, we share a great deal, including a desire to find constructive ways of crossing boundaries so that we can solve community problems. Upon his return, Michael will be sharing what he learned and how he coped with 100-degree heat. Stay tuned.
For more information about CSP, please visit http://www.exchanges.state.gov/non-us/program/community-solutions
For press inquires please contact:
Michael Sider-Rose, Director of Programs, Coro Pittsburgh, 412-258-2672, msider-rose@coropittsburgh.org
Nicole Mechem, Senior Program Officer, IREX: 202-628-8188. nmechem@irex.org
Anna Griffin, Public Affairs, Department of State: 202-632-6452, eca-press@state.gov
Photo Credit (Pagoda in Yangon): By calflier001 [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.