Top header image: Youth participating in a circle of conversation for the Sport 3 Methodology.
2025 Global Signature Grants support social good in Brazil, Nepal and Uganda
Global Signature Grant supports projects committed to collaborative knowledge
CEHD is focused on deepening its global relationships. This means listening and responding to the needs of global partners and fostering significant relationships to strengthen international engagement, sustainability, and reciprocity.
In this spirit, the college awards the Global Signature Grant, a grant that supports initiatives or projects that demonstrate CEHD’s commitment to global engagement, meaningful relationships, and sustainable development goals. The grant offers funding for travel, research, or project-related expenses. Here is a sample of some recent projects.
Sport-for-development and peace
Mitchell McSweeney, an assistant professor in sport management in the School of Kinesiology, sought to understand pedagogies in the sport-for-development and peace (SDP) field, where sport is intentionally used to achieve social aims. His project, “Decolonizing Sport-for-Development and Peace Pedagogy,” took place from November to December 2024. The project consisted of a partnership with an SDP organization, Instituto Fazer Acontecer (IFA) in Bahia, Brazil, to investigate the design and implementation of its Sport 3 Methodology that it uses in multiple municipalities.
The project goals were to better understand pedagogical approaches in SDP, critique and produce alternative approaches to didactic, teacher-led pedagogies in the SDP field, and analyze how IFA’s Sport 3 Methodology diverges from traditional pedagogies used in SDP.
“So far, the results of the project point to how IFA’s Sport 3 Methodology challenges traditional pedagogical approaches in the SDP field,” McSweeney says.
The methodology is implemented by “socioeducators” in collaboration with youth, rather than in a top-down fashion. “The methodology is adaptable to each municipality, where socioeducators and youth engage in dialogue and problem-posing together to discuss community issues, social inequalities, and engage in sport in a way that is more inclusive and collective rather than competitive and exclusionary,” McSweeney says.
There are two unique features of this study, McSweeney says. First, the SDP field has been criticized for unequal relationships between funders, particularly their cultural views, which leads to program designs overlooking local conditions and contexts. “IFA is unique as its partnerships with municipalities enable local knowledge, youth perspectives, and socioeducators to design and implement the Sport 3 Methodology according to their social context and lived experiences,” he says. “Second, the project used a collaborative, participatory action research design. As such, the project worked in partnership with IFA to deepen connections with the local community and organization through research itself.”
McSweeney says the Global Signature Grant program is critical for deepening global engagement in CEHD. “I am honored to have received the grant to carry out this work which has led to future opportunities to engage with my community-based partners and produce collaborative knowledge that emphasizes reciprocity of research,” he says. “The grant was essential for carrying out this research and has enabled a long-term relationship with the organization while supporting their SDP activities through research.”
Leveraging migrant workers’ skills back home
Nepal is one of the poorest countries in Asia, and it relies heavily on its citizens finding work in other countries and sending money back home. In 2024, South Korea hosted about 48,000 Nepali workers, and most of them will return home after their visas expire, typically three to five years.
Nepal is hopeful that these returning workers can leverage the skills they acquired in South Korea to boost the country’s economic growth. “Development and Integration of Nepali Migrant Workers Returning from South Korea” by Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development Associate Professor Sehoon Kim (PI) and Professor Bhaskar Upadhyay (Co-PI) studies this matter.
“Our project focuses on two groups,” Kim says. “One is those who are preparing to return in the near future, and the other is those who have recently returned to Nepal from Korea.”
A number of those who returned home to Nepal tried their hand at opening a business. “We were trying to find out what their experience was, and what some of the challenges they faced were,” Upadhyay says. Although many business ventures ultimately failed, there were several successes. “A number of returnees got together and opened a Korean restaurant,” Upadhyay adds. “There is another woman who makes and sells pickled vegetables.”
CEHD international researchers in Nepal
Of those still working in South Korea, Kim and Upadhyay were interested in the skills they were learning and how useful they thought they were.
Agricultural skills transfer easily to Nepal, because that country is agriculture-based. Another useful skill is motorcycle repair. “In Nepal, there are hundreds of thousands of motorcycles, maybe a couple million,” Bhaskar says. “Because that’s the mode of transportation for many people.”
Upadhyay says their goal is to expand their research to create a model that can be universally useful in reintegrating foreign workers from anywhere who come back to their home country. “This is one of the things we appreciate and value about the Global Signature Grant,” he says. “It’s a wonderful grant that allows us to collaborate and explore.”
Intimate partner violence in Uganda
Department of Family Social Science Assistant Professor Ronald Asiimwe sought to understand the complex realities surrounding intimate partner violence (IPV) in Uganda and to identify culturally relevant strategies for addressing it. With IPV prevalence estimated at 56 percent among ever-married women and 44 percent among men in Uganda, Asiimwe’s project, “Voices from the Field: A Positive Deviance Approach to Understanding Stakeholders’ Perspectives on Addressing Intimate Partner Violence in Uganda,” was critical and timely. He engaged in this project in partnership with Makerere University and the Uganda Counseling Association during the summer of 2024 in Kampala, Uganda’s capital.
“The main goal of the project was to explore Ugandan stakeholders’ perspectives on IPV and to identify culturally sensitive approaches to mitigate this growing public health concern,” Asiimwe says. “In the long term, the project aimed to lay the foundation for stakeholder-informed and culturally grounded interventions that strengthen family and community responses to IPV in Uganda.”
Asiimwe and his team conducted interviews with 23 Ugandans with varying professional backgrounds. Preliminary findings revealed that perceptions of IPV, along with solutions, varied widely depending on sociocultural norms, gender roles, and institutional-based perspectives.
“Mental health professionals generally viewed IPV as a psychological and behavioral issue requiring therapeutic interventions, while religious leaders framed it as a moral or spiritual problem, often encouraging prayer and repentance,” Asiimwe explains. “In contrast, law enforcement and legal professionals viewed IPV primarily as a criminal act requiring legal redress.”
CEHD international researchers in Uganda
Interviewees also emphasized the need for interventions that are culturally sensitive and family-centered to address the mental health needs of both victims and perpetrators—rather than focusing solely on the victim, who is often the woman.
“Many participants highlighted that imprisoning male perpetrators and sending women to shelters was not sustainable or culturally responsive, particularly given the socioeconomic context where men are often the primary providers,” Asiimwe says. “Several shared cases in which women returned to the police to retrieve their abusive partners from jail, citing that the man was still the family’s financial provider. These insights highlight the urgent need for approaches that balance accountability with family and community realities.”
Asiimwe calls the Global Signature Grant an exceptional initiative that empowers early-career researchers, particularly those conducting innovative international research. “This program provides a vital opportunity for emerging international researchers to collect pilot data and develop their research agendas. I am deeply grateful for this support," he says. "Secondly, the program’s mission aligns strongly with CEHD’s commitment to fostering equitable, sustainable, and meaningful global partnerships that prioritize local voices and collaborative learning.”
- Kevin Moe
Photos Courtesy of CEHD International Initiatives