Deep Dive

The Deep Dive is like a plunge into deep waters. Fellows “dive in” to specific local contexts to help tackle a local community’s problem through their expertise and knowledge. At the same time, Deep Dives give Fellows true in-depth insight into that community, as well as an experiential understanding of the local manifestations of a global problem.

Though each Deep Dive is tailored to the specific local context, a typical Deep Dive brings small and multi-disciplinary groups of Fellows together for about six months and includes three phases:

  • online preparation
  • on the ground, hands-on implementation
  • reflection and further action in home countries.

This in-depth engagement is a way for Senior Fellows, who have work experience and expertise in specific areas – from medicine to technology to arts to apply their skills and make an impact in a context that is often very different from their own. They then take back that experience and apply it to their own communities, work and actions.

Deep Dives may take place anywhere in the world, one place at a time, in partnership with local communities or organizations.

We are always seeking to develop long-term partnerships for the Deep Dive, so if your organization is interested in becoming an Institutional Collaborator, please contact us!

Deep Dive 2015: Chile - Public, rural education and indigenous people in Chile: an opportunity for global citizenship education 2.0?

The Deep Dive 2015 too us to Mañiuco, a rural community outside Temuco, Chile. In collaboration with the Mañiuco Community Education Project Team and the school community, we explored the contexts of public, rural schooling and indigenous peoples in Chile to build bridges towards a new level of global citizenship education.

A team of passionate fellows, young and old, embarked on an amazing mutual learning experience. Hear the Deep Dive team talk about their experience at Mañuco School in Chile - click here!

Deep Dive 2013: Haiti - What Are The Possibilities And Limitations Of International Support For Community Development?

In 2013, the Melton Foundation partnered with Noumenm, a community-based project developed by a Melton Fellow, Pedro Poblete, and his local partners to address the needs of the village of Bassin Thomas in Haiti. The Melton Foundation and Noumenm also teamed up with America Solidaria, an organization working in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Side-by-side, the Fellows learned, thought about, and experienced the possibilities and limitations of international aid – including their own efforts – in community development. By the end of a week on the ground in Haiti, Fellows had repaired motorcycles, learned about sustainable agricultural practicies, and taught workshops on preventing and treating cholera.

 

View their experience in our photo album on Facebook, read a selection of Haiti Stories from the Deep Dive participants, ...

  • ... and find out more about what happened here! (click to expand)

    Starting in March, the team of Melton Fellows took up a serious challenge: developing plans to address concerns that the community of Bassin Thomas village in Haiti identified as important, such as better ways to manage their school. The community identified these needs working with Noumenm (a grassroots project co-initiated by one of our Senior Fellows which supports local communities to foster community resilience and self-empowerment).

    In addition, América Solidaria, an international non-profit organization based in Latin America with operations in Haiti that dedicates its resources and efforts to work against poverty and exclusion, identified capacity-building needs for their volunteers.

    While planning how best to partner on these challenges, Fellows prepared for the experience by learning about the implications of international aid – both in general and in Haiti particularly. This included online preparation sessions, with renowned experts like Nigel Dower, Honorary Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen and former President of the International Development Ethics Association; Brian Concannon, Director of Institute for Justice & Democracy with a long history of promoting human rights literacy in Haiti, and Jonathan M. Katz, the only Associated Press reporter to be present in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake and author of The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster.

    Then, it was June and time for the Fellows to pack their skills, passion, and bags and travel to Haiti. Along with more than 100 teachers, community leaders, farmers, youth, local and international volunteers from América Solidaria, and Techo (a nonprofit that works across the American continent on housing, poverty and social injustice), the Fellows worked hand-in-hand, on the ground to share and adapt their knowledge to the community’s context. In turn, they learned basic Creole, the challenges of village life, and how the community’s needs related to larger global problems of infrastructure, aid, poverty, and more.

    This Deep Dive made an impact in the village, providing tools for the community to use, and expanded the perceptions of our Fellows. Equally important, connections on a very personal level were forged. Months after the Deep Dive in Haiti, Fellows keep in touch with their project partners, exchange updates and new ideas, and spread the word about a very different Haiti in their communities back home.

 

You must be logged in to use this feature

Click here to log in and continue

close ×

Sign In

Passwords are tough to remember.

Have you forgotten yours?

Are you a member of the Melton Foundation and aren't registered yet?

Sign Up Today!

close ×

You must be logged in to use this feature

Click here to log in and continue

close ×