ENGAGING INTERNATIONALLY TO MAKE IMAPCT LOCALLY
Leadership and Administrative Skills
Norma Samuel
Urban Horticulture Agent & Associate District Extension Director
UF/IFAS Extension
The Villages
Abstract
In 20218 an estimated 44 million persons living in the U.S. were considered foreign born. These persons bring with them a rich heritage/culture of food, song, dance, and other traditions and values that may influence their participation and implementation of extension programs. The author has been engaging in international extension work with University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Extension since 2008; led multiple extension team projects to the Caribbean, completed an ACDI-VOCA assignment as an international volunteer in Ghana; served four years as the Chair of the Caribbean Agricultural Extension Providers’ Network (CAEPNet); and is currently serving a second two-year term as President of the Board of the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS). GFRAS is an international nonprofit based in Switzerland that advocates for extension and rural advisory services at the global level. The author serves as a mentor to the newly formed GFRAS network, the North American Agricultural Advisory Network (NAAAN) based at Colorado State University serving the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The author has been instrumental in directly training and or organizing and facilitating trainings at country, regional and or global levels in areas such as extension competencies, extension methods, agriculture disaster risk management, safe and effective use of pesticides, and revitalization of the extension and 4-H youth development programs in The Bahamas. UF/IFAS Extension faculty participating in some of these international opportunities indicated they have made modifications to their programming based on their experiences working with similar cultures locally. Persons attending this presentation will benefit from the author’s wealth of experience on international extension engagement. They will learn: how to justify to local policy makers and other stakeholders the reasons for engaging internationally; tips to develop, implement and evaluate an international extension program; opportunities for engaging internationally; and most importantly, how to translate lessons learned abroad to the local context.
Authors: Norma Samuel
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Norma Samuel Urban Horticulture Agent & Associate District Extension Director, University of Florida/IFAS Extension, Florida, 32162