(Note: This is part of an example of a proposal submitted by Ethical Conflict Consulting to the United Nations.)
The United Nations
UNDEF: Program to Increase Democracy in the world while focusing on low and middle income universities and other institutions
Title: Increasing professionalism and democracy in workplaces via project-based learning and co-op start-ups
Quantity: US$300,000
Time: 2 years
Project manager: Dr. William A. Brant
Key Contact: Charles E. Jacobs
Implementing partner: Dr. Blanca Torres Mendoza, MD.
University of Guadalajara representative: Prof. Maha-Visnu Mayapur Hernández
Democratic Context: This project’s focus on democracy is the set of decisions made by workers during hours spent at work. We provide training programs to increase collaboration and sharing by project-based learning. Learners initiate cooperative start-ups, enhancing democratic styles of management with owners as workers. The challenge is to prepare learners to start cooperatives through mutual access, intercommunications and publications of their chosen projects on functional websites for businesses.
Project Summary: Ethical Conflict Consulting (ECC) recruits students from the University of Guadalajara to participate in labor education through collaborative project-based learning to form 8 cooperative businesses. ECC implements training programs for team building, project-based learning and functional business websites. Students share productive work activities in their industry and publish online for their group’s collaborative website. Through methods in professional ethics, each group’s projects focus on increasing safety, efficiency, democracy and fairness at workplaces in the same industry.
Through collaboration, eight groups of ten to twenty students each agree on a set of industry-related projects to complete in six months. Projects have the common themes of professionalism in their industry of choice, differing by region, use of history and STEEPLE analyses with demographics and comparisons between other Latin American cities. Lastly, participants control the websites and start eight cooperative businesses.
The first focus of the project in on the university health science center at the University of Guadalajara for starting co-op businesses among interested students.
