Forsiden / About Act Now
About Act Now
Act Now is the Strømme Foundation’s exchange program for youth. We wish to contribute to a greater understanding about poverty, its causes, and how it can be fought. You will be taught about development work, experience a different culture intensely, and come under the skin of people’s reality. Your experiences will affect you strongly, and you will thus be able to contribute to positive processes of change in your surroundings.
The Strømme Foundation is a development organisation built on Christian values. Human worth, justice, participation and sustainability are strategic building blocks in our fight to eradicate poverty. Our ambition is to “help people to get going”. After the “help to self help” principle we support people in their battle to get out of poverty. Education and micro finance are the Strømme Foundation’s most important tools in this work.
The Strømme Foundation co-operates with local partner organisations in Norway, Asia, Africa and South America through four regional offices. These partner organisations are familiar with the local conditions and know how the help will best reach the people. We work together to give children schooling and families a stable income in a long term perspective.
The Act Now program starts in the middle of August with a 6 week spring course at Hald International Centre, together with 70 other Norwegian and international students from 12 different countries. As a student of Act Now you will also be given an academic introduction to themes including aid, development and cross-cultural communication.
After the preparation course you will have a seven month placement with one of Strømme’s partner organisations in the South or in kindergardens and schools in Norway. Here you will be part of the working fellowship and participate in the organisation’s daily work. You will be allocated a placement based on a holistic evaluation of your personal qualifications, language skills, the team composition and the practice placements’ desires. The activities will vary according to the profile of the placement places. While some Act Now’ers will be connected to loan projects for poor women, others will participate in sports activities or work with children at risk. Perhaps you will realise that you learn as much as you contribute with?
In the middle of the placement abroad the participants in each region will meet up for a week’s follow-up course. The study year ends with a spring course at Hald International Centre, where debriefing and information work are central themes.
A year as an Act Now student will affect you for life!
For questions or more information, please contact the Act Now staff. Click here