AEIF Sample Proposal #3

Project Title:
Vote for the future!

Where will this project take place?

Alumni Island

Which Category does your project address?

Civic Participation

What is the challenge or need that your project will address? What innovative
methods will you use?
Describe the specific need or challenge that your team will address with this project. (3-5 sentences)

In the last few presidential elections, voter turnout has been very low; only about 15-18% of voters went
to the polls. The same goes for local elections. The majority of citizens of Alumni Island, 60% are youth,
between the ages of 15 and 30. Based on the most recent census data (2014) and voter registration date,
very few citizens between the ages of 18 and 30 only 10%- have registered to vote because they do not
understand the voting process and basic government functions or their rights as citizens. Upon review of Comment ["1]: Concise explanation of the
challenge your team will address. Good use of
the curriculum of civics classes, voting and elections is a short lesson and is not discussed at great length
statistics!
in classrooms, thus students do not comprehend the importance of their right to voice their opinions and
what is legal in terms of activism/freedom of speech, etc. In advance of next years elections, we will
develop curriculum for secondary schools and hold one-day seminar at three universities about the
importance of voting and civic participation. We also plan to share information on citizen rights and
responsibilities and the role of law enforcement.

Briefly describe the specific solution or approach to address the need or challenge and explain why it is
innovative. (3-5 sentences) (include quantitative information where possible)

Our team and volunteers, with collaboration from civil society organizations and universities, will design a
campaign to educate high school and college students on their rights and explain the voting process. We
plan to develop a new curriculum that will accompany current government courses in secondary schools
to better explain how to better participate in civic matters. We hope that more than 40% of all registered
voters between go to the polls for the elections in March 2017. We hope to see a significant increase in
the number of youth registering to vote (with 30% or more registered) and going to the polls. For the
public and universities students, we will hold seminars with information about voting, civil rights and the
role of law enforcement.

Disclaimer: This sample AEIF proposal is intended to provide an example of a strong, well-written project idea.
It does not guarantee selection for the finalist phase or indicate funding approval.
How will the project impact your community? What changes (in people, institutions, attitudes,
practices) do you think you will see?
Comment ["2]: Ambitious goal! How will you
know if the government is less corrupt because of
Who will be involved? this project?
Beneficiaries: Describe who your target groups (or communities) are. How many people will directly
benefit from your project?

The target audience of our project is youth ages 15 to 30 who are enrolled in high school, university, and
technical schools. Even though the voting age is 18, if we can educate youth early on about the Comment ["3]: Clear description of target
importance of voting, they are more likely to go to the polls to cast votes in elections. audience!

The secondary audience will be parents of the youth; especially those in high school who live with their Comment ["4]: Why will the general public want
to attend this seminar? What is in it for them?
families, as the information about voting will trickle down to them through the seminars.
The indirect audience is the political officials. When they see that more people are casting votes, and
especially youth, who are leaders of tomorrow, they will be more responsive and transparent. They will
also begin to target their political campaigns to youth since they will be more educated voters.

Local partners: Please list your project partners and explain their specific responsibilities. Please note if
you have an existing relationship with the partner organization(s) and how they are committed to
working on this project. If not, how do you anticipate establishing a partnership with the
organization(s)?

Members of the alumni team have contacts or work with the following organizations:

Ministry of Education: a team member works on secondary education curriculum and will help us create
and distribute the program on civic participation that we will develop to accompany current curriculum.
We have a connection to an official who works on tertiary education and civic studies. We hope to not
only receive materials from them about voting, but to also deliver to them our curriculum that can be
used in the future classes at the universities.

National Police: We will contact the public outreach section of the national police to request information
on citizens rights to gather in public spaces, and the role of the police in everyday life. We hope to invite
a representative of the National Police as a guest speaker during the seminars.

National University: two members of the alumni team are faculty at the National University; one in the
capital city campus of Alumnia in the international relations department and the other in the city of
Exchangetown in the political science department. With their expertise on politics and voting, they will
help design the program and make further connections at the universities.

Regional Intergovernmental Organization (RIO): As a member country of the RIO, Alumni Island should
follow the organizations goals of having elections characterized by equality, universality, political
pluralism, confidence, transparency and accountability. We plan to reach out to the Elections
Observations Office in this organization to request materials on the fundamentals of voting and elections.
We also hope they will send speakers to our university seminars who can share information on conducting
effective elections. While RIO has never observed an election on Alumni Island, they have assisted other
countries in the region and can share experience of those elections with the seminar participants, as well
as general info on voting process in other places.
Office of the National Census: we will reach out to get the latest data on population, demographics and
voting.

Alumni team: Describe the roles and responsibilities that individual members of the alumni team will
play in implementing this project.
(Note: Listing alumni team members by name in this section does not fulfill the competition requirements.
This section is to explain how each member will contribute to the project. In order to qualify as having
four team members, you must invite team members to the Team Members section.)

The alumni team will be divided into the curriculum design team and the seminar teams who will meet Comment ["5]: Good idea to have sub teams for
each of the components of the project and one
monthly with each other as the volunteers and partners to report on progress and next steps.
overall coordinator.
Sandra Smith: coordinate the curriculum and seminar teams. Has experience in project
management and is a retired professor from the university system
John Jones: Works at the Ministry of Education and will provide contacts within the ministry.
Michael Miller and Rose Roberts: works at both National University locations. Will develop new
curriculum about voting and citizens rights.
Caroline Collins: With event planning skills, and a connection to the private university, she will
make sure all the seminars run smoothly.
Lance Lewis: As the main promoter for this project, will create social media channels - Facebook,
Twitter - to share information about upcoming seminars, election news, voting process and
registration.
Anthony Andrews: will work on promotion and also support the seminar team. As student at the
university he will motivate other students to participate in the seminars.
Trent Tatum: will organize the agenda, print materials, room set-up and logistical preparation for
seminars.
Volunteers: we will see university student volunteers from each location to help plan and execute
the seminars.

How and when will you implement your project?

Implementation Plan and Timeline: How will you actually make this happen? Outline the proposed
steps for implementation, including the timeframe for each major activity. List proposed dates (month,
quarter, etc.) for each major activity. Please Include quantitative information about participants and
activities. Include the specific responsibilities of the alumni team.

July 2016: We plan to start this project a few months before schools begin classes. That will allow
us time to collect information and develop the curriculum.
August: team hired web designer to start working on website to have info about voting,
Early September: Submit curriculum to Ministry of Education for approval
o Seminar team reserves space to hold seminar, begins researching information for
Facebook page
Mid to late October: Ministry of education approves curriculum and education campaign
o Seminar team begins to plan agenda for seminars for January 2017 Comment ["6]: Is this timeline realistic to submit
Early November: curriculum booklets are printed and distributed to high schools. a new curriculum and have it approved by the
Ministry of Education?
November- December: Curriculum team trains teachers/professors on the new curriculum
o Seminar team finalizes logistics for the seminars Comment ["7]: How long will this training be? Is
January 2017: new curriculum is introduced in classes so students are aware of voting at least 2 the team qualified to train the teachers? What is the
role of the Ministry of Education in this training?
months prior to elections
Late January to early February: the three seminars take place at the universities, one each week. Comment ["8]: Is three weeks this enough time
to carry out three seminars? Do you want to have
Late March: presidential elections are held more time in between each seminar to be able to
Early April: alumni team will review voter turnout as indicated by the ministry of interior and plan for the next?
begin the analysis of the evaluations. How many participants are expected at each
seminar?

Communication Plan: How will you promote your project? Please include social media, print news, or
other forms of media you intend to use to share information about your project to 1) beneficiaries and
2) the public.

We will promote our awareness campaign through a variety of media. Since we are targeting schools, we
will promote the curriculum to the ministry of Education. Once we have their approval, the curriculum will
be distributed to 50 public and 15 private secondary schools across the island, reaching about 5,000
students and 100 teachers of history, social studies, government.
For the seminars at the universities, we will distribute flyers with information on upcoming seminars to
professors so they can pass along to students. Team members who work at universities will post flyers in
hallways and student centers. We will also set up a simple website and a Facebook page to inform the
public about the seminars. We will keep the Facebook page updated with relevant articles from around Comment ["9]: How will information on these
the world, statistics, quizzes/polls about voting or civic participation, any policies or news from the RIO, platforms be kept updated during and after the
project?
and other information from the new curriculum. Team members will post on the Facebook page new to
join a Facebook group about it.

We will place an advertisement in the local newspaper a week in advance of each seminar to promote to
the public.

Evaluation: How will you evaluate success/impact of the project? Explain any tools or methods you
might utilize to measure results. (i.e. surveys, interviews, focus groups, meetings, analytics, metrics,
etc.)
We will reach a large portion of the, roughly 65%, of secondary schools on the island. After we have
completed the project and after next years elections, we can see total increase in voter participating in
certain school districts, as many of the schools are polling stations.

At the end of the new curriculum being taught, students will be asked to fill out an evaluation form on
what they learned. They will be asked again after the elections to see if their perspectives about their
rights, voting, law enforcement have changed.

After each seminar, participants will be asked to fill out an evaluation form. When we register people for
the seminar, we will randomly select people to participate in a small focus group at each location. This
way we can interview people more in depth about any impact the seminar had on their voting habits,
understanding of their rights, civic participation, etc.

Once all of the evaluation is collected, the team will analyze the results, we will share the report with the
Ministry of education and the Ministry of Interior. We will also use the analysis to improve curriculum in
the future and to plan future seminars.

Sustainability: How do you plan to ensure that the impact of the project continues beyond the initial
year of funding?
We will assess the impact of this project for the next few years. We expect this voting education campaign
to conclude in January 2017. Presidential elections will be in January 2017 and local elections in August.
We will be able to see how many more people go to the polls to cast their votes in both of these elections
and judge if our program was successful or not. We will continue to add information on our social media
channels after the project to continue to encourage people to vote and learn about their rights.

Total funding requested: Alumni can request from $5,000 to $25,000 in support of their
project. Please enter only whole numbers in USD (i.e. "5,000").
$17,880