Freedom Talks

Freedom Talks

Think Tanks for Labor Market Reforms

Think Tanks for Labor Market Reforms in Central and Eastern Europe

As a response to over-regulation in labour markets, the Lithuanian Free Market Institute (LFMI), in cooperation with five prominent classical liberal think-tanks, is working on creating a unique cross-country research on labor market regulation and the repercussions of existing government interventions on individual liberty, labour markets and employment.

#FreedomTalks

The Lithuanian Free Market Institute boasts an impressive record of implementing projects and programs within the Lithuanian context and beyond. They aim to achieve similar success with their new #FreedomTalks initiative. This initiative will engage vulnerable mid to late teenage populations from Lithuanias ethnic minority and disadvantaged communities in cutting-edge multimedia economic and civic learning as well as live youth debates designed to instill in the rising generation a belief in freedom and the creative human capacity necessary to develop into active moral agents. This program will build upon LFMIs international award-winning textbook Economics in 31 Hours and interdisciplinary course A Citizen in 31 Hours.  

Contribution to enhancing freedom 

The #FreedomTalks initiative recognizes that free moral agents, acting on behalf of themselves and their communities, are a necessary condition for prosperity and human flourishing. Through empowering local communities, amplifying voices of those who are often marginalized, #FreedomTalks inspires the rising generation to take responsibility for their own lives.  

Over the course of the project, LFMI hopes to influence 1200+ mid to late teenagers from ethnic minority and disadvantaged communities and initiate 30+ #FreedomTalks chapters that run independently. As a part of the project, they will impact many more through live online quizzes, social media campaigns, and their online multimedia platform.  

The #FreedomTalks initiative is exercising a promising approach to mindset change in disadvantaged communities that will help individuals move from seeing themselves as passive recipients to active participants.

Road Show Event Zurich

Road Show Event Zurich

Verein "Respektierung & Wahrung Natürlicher Lernprozesse"

Time 4

Time4 is an educational program for young people after their obligatory school years that commences between the ages of 15 and 25 years old. It offers an alternative path to the occupational training offered by the Swiss government and provides young people with a framework in which they can discover, refine and deepen their interests and hence supports them in their intrinsically motivated development and learning processes. 

Futurepreneurship

Futurepreneurship

Young Swiss professionals have increasingly the wish to be independent by starting an entrepreneurial venture and at the same time to have a positive impact in society through their professional work. The Swiss education landscape, however, offers only very limited opportunities for young professionals to gain first-hand experience in entrepreneurship and hence experience what it entails to be an entrepreneur. Most youths end up accepting employment with large corporations instead.

At the same time, there is a broad range of young and innovative companies in Switzerland with a business model targeting a positive impact in society, but lacking access to talented and skilled Millenials, due mainly to lack of time and experience in the hiring process.

Futurepreneurship supports young career starters (especially young women) through a training and internship program in their entrepreneurial career paths. Talented students experience the innovation sector through an internship of several months. An academy guides them through their work experience and enables them to acquire the necessary skill set for this work environment. The overall goal of Futurepreneurship is to transmit an innovative, entrepreneurial, and agile way of thinking to the participating students. To date, over 150 startups have participated and more than 200 jobs have been created. 85% of the interns stay either employed in the startup they worked for, in one of the participating organizations, or elsewhere in the innovation scene. 

Investing in Agricultural Enterprises

Investing in Agricultural Enterprises to Build Rural Prosperity in Colombia

Creative Capactiy Building

Creative Capactiy Building with Mining Communities in Colombia

To promote safer, healthier, and more equitable participation in regional mining economies in Antioquia, Colombia, MIT D-Lab, with support from the Rising Tide Foundation, has launched a 2-year program that trains Colombian artisanal and small-scale gold miners (ASGM) to develop sustainable solutions to ASGM-related health and environmental challenges. In addition, to promote economic diversification, the program enhanced the capacity for self-determination by sparking entrepreneurial efforts and yielding networks of businesses outside of the mining sector.

With over 15 years of inclusive innovation experience, MIT D-Lab has leveraged its in-house expertise and Colombian partnerships to implement a comprehensive program that generates opportunities for co-creating technology and business solutions with multiple stakeholders, including miners themselves.

The initiative utilizes a unique D-Lab methodology called Creative Capacity Building (CCB). Creative Capacity Building is an inclusive approach to human development that teaches a flexible method for problem-solving, exposing individuals to a framework that can be used to solve everyday challenges as well as provide concrete, hands-on skills to build and iterate technological and business solutions to those challenges.

Throughout the two-year program, miners will take part in a series of CCB trainings, both on technology and business design, and will have access to tailored coaching through local innovation spaces.
This approach allows participants to become active solution-finders rather than passive recipients. The expected results include, but are not limited to, the creation of technologies and businesses that produce economic and health benefits for artisanal and small-scale miner participants. At the close of the project, MIT D-Lab and its local partners Universidad Nacional, Uniminuto, and C-Innova will have trained 250 small-scale gold miners in CCB for designing technology and businesses. These participants are drawn from two mining regions in Antioquia Colombia: Andes and Bajo Cauca (locations with very different approaches to mercury use in mining). Ultimately, MIT D-Lab anticipates that 10-20 new ventures will emerge from these trainings, developing and offering new technologies and approaches that improve the safety, health, and livelihoods of people living in these communities.

Eradicate Barriers to Economic Freedom for Women

Although extensive data on economic freedom are available, much of it lacks on-the-ground expertise and the moral commitment to reforming discriminatory and oppressive policies that disproportionately affect women. Atlas aspires to change that by providing real-world examples that document how economic liberty empowers and elevates women by creating opportunity, growth, and prosperity. Their vision is to break down the legal obstacles that prevent women from equal rights and opportunities. Using their successful grant program Liberating Enterprise to Achieve Prosperity (LEAP) as a model, they're challenging their partners to (i) identify projects that would improve their country's rank on the Gender Disparity Index and other indices, (ii) create and implement reform strategies, and (iii) publicize non-governmental solutions that help reduce poverty among women.

Contribution to enhancing freedom

In too many countries, women find themselves enslaved by circumstance rather than free to make autonomous decisions. This project aims to reduce the opportunities and reasons for authorities to repress women as they try to better their lives. Solutions designed to improve the rights and living standards of women often focus on doling out more aid money, only to fail because local policies and customs prevent women from taking advantage of their own talents. This project would illustrate the value of targeting specific repressive public policies that make it impossible for women to forge their own paths out of poverty.

Atlas Network believes that institutional change is unlikely to last if imposed by outsiders who are unfamiliar with local customs. Change must be developed from within, both to ensure buy-in and, more importantly, as a means to discover the unique cultural mechanisms necessary for informal norms to transition smoothly to well-functioning formal systems. By working with local institutions to build support for change, the project is laying a lasting foundation for freedom to flourish.

Poverty Stoplight USA Launch

The Poverty Stoplight is a tool integrated in a technology platform that seeks to activate the potential of families and communities to lift themselves out of poverty. Poverty Stoplight is different from other anti-poverty programs in that: (i) the evaluations indicators are self-assessed by the individuals and families who participate, (ii) it includes measures of agency and organization, and (iii) it is designed to cover only those indicators that are actionable by the family members themselves. The goal of this two-year project is to establish Poverty Stoplight in the United States by recruiting, training, and supporting organizations that serve the poor and are ready to invest in an approach to poverty eradication based on self-sufficiency.

Contribution to enhancing freedom

Poverty is difficult to escape in part because welfare systems inadvertently serve to keep individuals dependent. Poverty Stoplight aims to help people participate in the market economy, rather than becoming trapped by programs that are overly bureaucratic and inefficient. The key of the approach is to trust families, respect low-income people, and know that they will make the decisions that will work best for them. Poverty Stoplight enhances the freedom of the individual to take advantage of opportunities to lift themselves out of poverty by enhancing their critical agency. To alleviate poverty in the US and beyond, it is essential that the discussion around poverty shift to the capabilities of the poor rather than their weaknesses.

Employment for Men and Women Experiencing Homelessness

Only 5% of all dollars allocated to fight homelessness are directed to jobs programs. Of the dollars that are allocated to jobs programs, the majority of assistance is not employer-driven. As the number of those experiencing homelessness has ballooned over the past 3 years, First Step Staffing has stepped in to bridge the gap between homelessness services focused on housing and more traditional workforce development programs that often leave the hardest to serve behind. They execute on this mission using an alternative staffing model that meets the hiring needs of local businesses while prioritizing staffing resources to those who have been most excluded from the workforce. They also provide supportive services, like transportation to and from work, that help people with obstacles to employment and advancement once in the workforce.

Contribution to enhancing freedom

As the majority of programs focus on providing the basic material needs of those currently experiencing homelessness, First Step Staffing takes a more foundational approach. Through equipping individuals with skills, resources, transportation services, and connections to potential employers, FSS is reducing the barriers that those experiencing homelessness must overcome in order to become the active protagonists in their own livesrather than the passive recipients of welfare.

When individuals are empowered to achieve greater personal prosperity through meaningful work, they are able to change both themselves and their communities through increased savings. The FSS approach achieves a multiplier-effect as individuals move from welfare recipients to working taxpayers in their own communities. 

FSS aims to employ a minimum of 5,000 men and women annually paying more than $60 million in earned wages. 

Proposal for Franchising of Self-Reliance Clubs

The traditional approach to fighting poverty in the United States is through the alleviation of symptoms rather than employing strategies that seek to enhance human flourishing. This approach sees the poor as objectsobjects of pity, compassion, and charityinstead of seeing the poor as subjects, the protagonists of their own lives. As Ismael Hernandez says, self-reliance is in eclipse todaythis directly affects outcomes in education, health, and security. The Freedom & Virtue Institute has created Self-Reliance Clubs (SRCs) with the goal to integrate efforts within existing school activities by adopting the initiatives and giving them new meaning, empowering students to meet their needs through work. This allows children to better understand work as a means of wealth creation and economic opportunity.

Contribution to enhancing freedom

Many of todays social programs contribute to a prevailing mindset of victimhood and dependency. If this mindset is to be shifted in the future, it must start with childrenthey must be sent a contrary message. A message that tells them they have what it takes to meet their needs, that they are agents of choice.

Through Self-Reliance Clubs, the Freedom and Virtue Institute will connect children to practical projects that connect reward to accomplishments. As the SRC follows students year after year, they continue a journey of engagement and discover that they are engines of wealth creation. 

The Freedom & Virtue Institute aims to launch over 200 SRCs and impact up to 5,000 students with their activities over the next three years. This will equip young individuals with character traits and virtues that facilitate enterprise and the love of freedom that motivates them to become free and productive citizens, entrepreneurs, and workers. 

Communicating Liberty

Communicating Liberty to Under-Serviced Audiences

Empower Americans

Urgent Policy Solutions to Empower Americans

Entrepreneurship Mini Quest Curriculum

Acton Children's Business Fair: Entrepreneurship Mini Quest Curriculum

AFF Writing Fellows Program

AFF Writing Fellows Program

In 2014, Americas Future Foundation (AFF) launched a program to train, mentor, and assist emerging writers in becoming lifelong advocates for classical liberal ideas in the media. The project aims to have reached 360 young writers over the project period, who are expected to publish approx. 1,500 pieces per year.

Impact Litigation Project

Human Rights Foundation - Impact Litigation

In authoritarian regimes, legal proceedings are a mere formality and courts are enforcers of discretionary rules used to harass, jail, convict, and impose arbitrary sanctions against critics of the regime. Those imprisoned for criticizing the regime have little recourse, as any judicial remedies involve appealing to the government-controlled courts that imprisoned them, to begin with. Dissidents, journalists, and public intellectuals operating in authoritarian regimes face this reality daily and find themselves targeted by governments and public officials who use criminal charges that bear heavy fines or prison sentences as a penalty for exercising basic freedoms. HRF is fighting the practices of these regimes by exposing their human rights abuses and submitting emblematic cases of arbitrarily imprisoned dissidents and pro-democracy activists to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD), the most prestigious semi-judicial body of the United Nations system. Over the course of this three-year project, HRF is planning to file 30 cases with UNWGAD.

Unleashing Prosperity

Unleashing Prosperity by Cutting State Regulations

US states have dozens of bureaucratic agencies generating new regulations, but few review the thousands of regulations that are already in place. Over time, these regulations have accumulated into vast codes too complex for people to navigate. Rules that are costly, complicated, ineffective, or outdated remain in force, stifling economic growth. Unlike the federal government, state agencies are not typically required to conduct benefit-cost analysis prior to rule-making, and they internalize few costs from creating increasingly more complex and onerous requirements.
Over the last few years, scholars from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University have researched successful efforts to repeal regulations to limit the compliance burden on citizens and businesses, and have assisted policymakers in seven US states in starting red tape reduction initiatives. These efforts are assisted by RegData, a Mercatus-developed software program that rapidly analyzes immense regulatory codes in ways not previously possible. Mercatus is using RegData to produce academic studies that give a snapshot of a states regulatory burden. The vision for this project is that armed with Mercatus groundbreaking research, states will reduce the burden of their regulatory requirements and create improved environments for economic growth, income mobility, and individual freedom. 

Entreprneurship development

Entreprneurship development and 21st century skills

Memphis, Tennessee has a storied history of segregation, institutional racism, and policies that have disenfranchised people of color for centuries.

At one time, Memphis, Tennessee was the lifeblood of the slave trade that dominated the economy of the South. Economic growth for people of color in the city is largely limited. Less than 1% of all business revenue in the city of Memphis comes from businesses owned by African Americans and Latinx individuals, yet 70% of the population belongs to these demographics. The poverty rate for African American children within the city is a staggering 52.2%. The 25 largest African-American owned businesses in Memphis collectively employ 1,200 people in a city with a labor force of over 400,000. The wealth gap between white families and black families decreases from a factor of 13 to a factor of 3 when a black family has a business owner. Furthermore, black business owners net worth is on average 12 times higher than black non-business owners.

LITE has produced a model that effectively develops key 21st-century skills in minority youth, giving them the skills to lift themselves out of poverty and stimulate their local economy through business solutions. We differ from other self-empowerment entrepreneurship programs in two key ways: First, we teach practical application, not abstract concepts. Many programs teach students theoretical solutions to problems and miss the key experiential learning, and self-empowerment that comes with creation and execution. Through LITE, students launch a business that can generate revenue and demonstrate an ROI. 17% of our Innovation Fellows from our first cohort (2013) are still generating revenue from businesses they launched through our High School Finalist program six years ago. Secondly, we provide long-term support that maximizes the potential for success. Most youth programs offer interventions up until the age of 18 or through interventions lasting less than six months. According to a study by Richard Fairlie with the GATES experiment, entrepreneurial education programs have no long-term effect on business success when those interventions are less than six months. Our pipeline provides eight years of support for each student with targeted programming aimed at building the next generation of self-empowered workers, entrepreneurs, and leaders.

Disadvantaged Students Transportation

Markets and Government Services: Disadvantaged Students Transportation

The project goal is to implement markets and demonstrate the benefits where markets are seldom employed. The initial focus has been the procurement of government services, one of the fastest-growing areas of government. Heavily bureaucratic, administrative allocation processes are universally regarded as the only option. 

Markets are not used because no one knows how to organize them to solve the underlying social problems. The research strategy is to choose a simple, special case to serve as an exemplar of many cases, and to craft and implement market modifications of the administrative processes used. The strategy addresses why markets have not automatically emerged and what dimensions of the regulations might be replaced by special forms of markets and new technologies.

The initial effort is focused on administrative procedures used for procuring school transportation for disadvantaged children. The allocation issues involve economic environments theoretically identified as common causes of poor (or impossible) market performance: public goods, service quality issues, coordination complexity, non-convexities, the nonexistence of equilibrium, poor information, and thin markets. The laboratory experimental and theory-guided design involves user preference integration, route designs that clearly define services to be procured, auction design that supports competition for coordinated service provisions, experimental testing, and implementation.

The research demonstrates that markets can be used. A new market-based process produced improved transportation services for the children (e.g, 53% travel time reduction) for the same cost, support from teachers and families as well as upper levels of administration and government. Robustness analysis (a form of external and internal validity test) demonstrates close relationships among theory, experiments, and actual field performance.

This program is ideal for economists with an interest in harnessing the energy and motivation of private enterprises to solve social problems. By nature, social problems emerge in areas where social, political, and legal arrangements have not evolved as support for private enterprise. Solutions can involve conflicts among deeply held scientific beliefs and philosophies. Resolutions can require new technologies, new forms of markets, demonstrations that can require basic science, technical advances, and political skills. The Rising Tide Foundation program is designed to support such work.

More on this grant

Libertarian Principles

Libertarian Principles in Social Mobility Policy

Through this project, Archbridge Institute has commissioned a study to introduce classical liberal thinking into the academic debate around social mobility, which currently focuses strongly on equality and not opportunity. The study will be composed of 10 research pieces from Latin America and Europe. The publication will be distributed in print as well as through events with relevant institutions in the US, Latin America, Europe. 

Communicating Liberty to Under-Serviced Audiences

Today there are over 50 million youth aged 14 to 26 in Americaover 16 million are African American or Hispanicand there are tens of millions more youth in Latin America and Spain. Traditionally, this audiencenearly one-third in the U.S.--has been under-engaged by free-market-oriented organizations. FEE plans to employ a multifaceted outreach strategy through their new Revolution of One and FEE en Espanol programs that engages these audiences through media, in-person workshops, online learning, accessible resources, and community partnerships to educate and inspire young African Americans, and Hispanics to prefer freedom over coercion as their chosen method for social change and economic progress. Through this FEE is working to drive a generational shift away from faith in politicians toward a freer, more prosperous, and more peaceful society achieved through the adoption of and a life-long belief in the freedom philosophy."

Contribution to enhancing freedom 

Traditionally, African American and Hispanic audiences have not been widely reached by free-market think tanks. Through various educational avenues employed by FEE, new audiences will be introduced to the principles of freedom in new, creative ways. FEE aims to engage 10% of the African American and Hispanic youth population in the United States which they expect to create a widespread shift in the way young people view freedomrendering large government programs, in the long-term, unattractive.  

Over the course of the two-year project, FEE hopes to engage more than 39 million young people through their Revolution of One and FEE en Espanol programs. This will inspire a new generation of youth as they are empowered to see themselves as the active protagonists of their own lives. 

Liberty in Action

There is often a disconnect between classical liberal theory and its application in the real world. At the same time, there is a prevailing tendency for individuals to look towards government as the normative solution to complex social challenges. The Liberty in Action project from Universidad Francisco Marroquin will provide a collaborative hands-on, multidisciplinary student experience that will develop bottom-up solutions to social challenges using classical liberal principles. Through the CoLab," students will drive innovative solutions to existing social problems in Guatemala that are private, voluntary, and free-market.

Contribution to enhancing freedom

Each individual is unique, inherently social, and has the capacity for creative activity. The Liberty in Action project, through the CoLab, will place an emphasis on these defining aspects of the human person in order to develop bottom-up solutions to complex social challenges where top-down bureaucratic programs and schemes have typically served as the default. 

The program will impact the landscape of freedom in two tangible ways: (1) Students at UFM will increase their appreciation and understanding of market principles through active and experiential learning, and (2) projects developed through the CoLab will accelerate human progress through market-based solutions that reduce the scope and desire of government intervention. 

In the long-term, UFM aims to cultivate a mindset shift by demonstrating the viability and practicality of market-based solutions to complex social problems. They aim to reach thousands through market-based interventions that materially improve human lives. 

Scholarship Program

High-quality tertiary education provided by private institutions is nearly inaccessible to the vast majority of the population in Latin America. This erects a barrier to disadvantaged youth in Latin America that proves hard to overcome. Fundacin Educacin, through providing scholarships to young and promising students from low-income families, seeks to unlock the potential of select disadvantaged Latin American youth, cultivating new perspectives that serve as a catalyst for job creation, increase in innovation, and greater economic growth. Students that receive support from Fundacin Educacin sign a so-called Compromiso de Honor through which they commit to voluntarily repay their bursary so that new students can be supported. Rising Tide will finance the tertiary education of 15-20 students over the next three years.

Contribution to enhancing freedom

Access to quality education is foundational for advancing freedom and prosperity. Through this scholarship program, Fundacin Educacin is equipping high-capacity underprivileged youth with the resources they need to realize their potential in the marketplace. As they only partner with local universities and technical schools that are firmly steeped in principles of entrepreneurship, the free market economy, and democracy, scholarship recipients will be inculcated with classical liberal values throughout their tertiary education.  

As students complete their education, Fundacin Educacin expects 95% of their scholarship recipients to find well-paid employment with a 98% graduation rate. These students will contribute to the prosperity of their own families as well as their countries' economic and social progress.

The Wildlife Tourism College of Maasai Mara

The Wildlife Tourism College (WTC) in Kenyas Greater Maasai Mara region, one of the last major wildlife refuges on earth, aims to develop an innovative, sustainable, long term method of wildlife conservation which simultaneously maintains economic freedom and mobility for the Maasai people. The WTC is part of a broader initiative in the Mara region to preserve, sustain, and scale the triple-use Pardamat Conservation Area (PCA), where wildlife, livestock and people live together in harmony. The campus merges a teaching College - targeting the 80% of unemployed among Maasais from 18 to 35 years of age paired together with an educational tourism camp for international students and volunteers where profits realized go directly to supporting the College and the community . The hoped-for success of the triple-use conservation area counts on sustainable socio-economic growth through education, employment, and for-profit tourism, all of which the area lacks significantly.

Contribution to enhancing freedom

This project is an example of a non-governmental/private sector solution to a tragedy of the commons situation, that had resulted in a loss of biodiversity and wildlife in PCA, which is in turn linked to income loss and limited potential of economic development for the local Maasai community. Based on market mechanisms, a system is developed together with the local communities, that results in socio-economic development through participation in the tourism industry and conservation of the biodiversity and wildlife in PCA. results in socio-economic development through participation in the tourism industry and conservation of the biodiversity and wildlife in PCA.

Teach a Child

Teach a Child - Africa, Education for Life. Scholarships for AIDS orphans

Teach a Child Africa (TaC) was founded in 2007 by two Kenyan women, Pamela Steele and Margaret Oriaro, both of whom lost many relatives to the AIDS pandemic. Its mission is to provide access to good quality secondary education to the most talented orphans from AIDS-stricken Western Kenya, particularly from the province of Nyanza, where HIV/AIDS has left close to 500,000 children fully orphaned. Rising Tide  is financing 20 4-year scholarships for high-school education. 

Accelerating DDD’s Cloud Computing

Accelerating DDDs Cloud Computing Training and Employment

Digital Divide Data (DDD) is a non-profit, social enterprise committed to building long-term and scalable solutions to youth unemployment.

In Cambodia, Laos, and Kenyacountries where DDD operates the biggest challenge is the lack of access to quality jobs in the formal sector. Because of low educational attainment and inadequate professional skills, the underserved youth in these countries often find themselves unemployed or employed in the informal sector. Moreover, they remain in the intergenerational poverty that keeps them from escaping subsistence living. In response, DDD pioneered the Impact Sourcing model as a means to provide youth with access to higher education, professional skills development, and formal employment in the IT sector.

In 2017, DDD launched an ambitious initiative in Kenya to harness the potential of emerging technologies to upgrade its associates IT skills and thus boost their employability. DDD founded the Kenya Cloud Center of Excellence to train, employ, and certify youth in cloud computing services. After 6 months of intensive cloud training, associates become certified Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud engineers. An AWS Certification opens a whole new area of opportunity for DDD associates and is a credential they can continue to leverage throughout their careers.

With support from the Rising Tide Foundation, DDD is training 240 young Kenyans in cloud computing administration skills, who would otherwise not have access to specialized IT training and subsequent job opportunities. With their AWS training and certification, these youth are in-demand applicants in the job market due to the limited qualified labor pool in Kenya and worldwide for this particular technical skill. Upon their completion of the course, these youth are supported to secure jobs in the local IT industry and at DDD. Through DDDs Cloud Center of Excellence, youth in Kenya will enhance their employability in the tech sector and their ability to command a salary that can better help them support themselves and their families.

Enhancing Freedom Through Quality Improvements in Low-cost Private Schools

Despite the success of low-cost private education in the developing world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, governments often attempt to hinder their growth and flourishing. One of the most frequent criticisms is that the teachers within these schools do not have the same level of training and certification as those in government schools. Critics also argue that even if most research shows that the pupils in these schools outperform those in public schools, the quality of education remains low across both sectors.     

The University of Buckingham in partnership with the Association for Formidable Educational Development (AFED) in Nigeria, and the Centre for Teacher Accreditation (CENTA) in India is seeking to address this significant challenge by bringing an internationally recognised, educationally effective, technologically innovative, and affordable training programme for educators in the low-cost private sector. The programme will empower teachers and school managers and increase the quality of teaching and learning in these schools.

Contribution to enhancing freedom

The project will demonstrate to governments the commitment of the low-cost private sector to improving the quality of teaching and learning in their schools, and thus allow private school associations to argue the case for a more liberal regulatory framework. A leaner regulatory framework will empower educational entrepreneurs and school managers with the freedom to innovate and experiment.

These schools also operate under regimes where the Rule of Law is not necessarily observed, which increases the likelihood of bribery and corruption, as regulations tend to be arbitrarily applied. One way of reducing corruption is to reduce the purview of the state; this project will facilitate that process by showing that self-regulation within the private sector can lead to higher standards of education through international teacher accreditation.

The teacher training programme will improve teachers potential for living independent and self-determined lives by increasing their sense of self-efficacy and self-confidence, as well as their teaching skills and marketability. Better teaching and learning outcomes in these schools will also increase the dignity and self-respect of the children involved, and better their opportunity for obtaining gainful employment, further education study or entrepreneurship. Each of these will impact on their families freedom too.

Khaya Lam Land Reform Project

Khaya Lam Land Reform Project (2018-2021)

As a result of one of South Africas most notorious pieces of legislation, the 1913 Natives Land Act that was adopted more than a century ago, most black South Africans still do not have titles to property inland. To rectify the situation, the Free Market Foundation (FMF) launched the Khaya Lam project in 2013, which aims to bring about the titling of all the apartheid-era properties in which black families had and still have occupation rights, but not title deeds.

Khaya Lam believes that homeownership is an important key to wealth creation and economic empowerment; it is only through tradable title deeds that homeowners can reap the benefits of legally owning and occupying their homes. The Khaya Lam project is a significant step towards unleashing the dead capital accumulated under apartheid. Most importantly, it is a completely liberating action that will sweep away one of the last major vestiges of the iniquitous apartheid system the prohibition upon the ownership of land by black South Africans.

The primary purpose of the project is thus to redress the past injustices and restore dignity to families who were previously denied the fundamental right to own their own properties. The project continues the FMFs defense and promotion of property rights, especially for black South Africans. More specifically, this project puts into practice what the FMF has long espoused: property rights are a fundamental component of a free and prosperous society.

The total number of RTF transfers to date is 600 (100 in 2016 + 250 in 2018 + 250 in 1H2019). An additional 250 are in the process of being registered with the Deeds Registry and will be ready by December. Since the RTF sponsorship of 100 in 2016 and excluding the 1,500 RTF subsequently sponsored the project has raised approximately R5.2 million (approximately USD340,818).

SAILI Scholarships

SAILI Scholarships

The SAILI Scholarship Programme routes talented students through functional parts of the Western Cape public high school system. The programme is optimized to support as many students as possible, without compromising on exceptional student performance. The emphasis is on the identification of talent, system analysis to determine high-value schools for placements, student monitoring, and ongoing support of scholarship holders. Besides paying for school fees, uniforms, and school supplies, SAILI also provides workshops and mentoring for subject selection, career selection, and transition to tertiary. Rising Tide is supporting 25 students throughout their high-school education.  

EGBOK Mission Training

EGBOK Mission Training and Internship Training

Cambodia remains one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia. The roots of the challenges Cambodia is facing today are based on its history. An estimated 1.7 million people, or nearly 20% of the countrys population, perished during the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-79. The effects of the genocide are still apparent in modern times as Cambodia continues to rebuild its economy, education system, and social institutions.

EGBOK is offering vocational training and employment opportunities for the countrys underprivileged youths utilizing the economic driver of tourism to build a qualified local workforce for the thriving industry. EGBOK helps them to become self-supporting thereby breaking the cycle of poverty that exists throughout the country today.  

Empowering Women and Communities through Property Rights

West Bengal has digitized most land records and developed an on-line platform for citizens to access records and transfer rights from sale or inheritance. Unfortunately, many of the digitized records are inaccurate. Women are particularly affected, as their names are rarely listed as co-owners or heirs on older records, which means many are not able to legally claim land and leverage it to improve their economic and social conditions. Landesa is an international non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of the worlds poorest women and men by securing land and property rights and improving the institutional environment in countries around the world. They have identified an alternative path to securing property rights in West Bengal building the capacity of rural women who are members of self-help groups providing information and property records updating services, for which they will charge a small service fee. At the same time, community members will gain access to the information they need quickly and at a lower cost by working with a member of their community.

Contribution to enhancing freedom

This project will help to secure the land and property rights of up to 300,000 men and women living in the Indian State of West Bengal by scaling a new, entrepreneurial approach to strengthening land records. A strong and secure system of private property rights is widely recognized as part of the essential foundation of a free and prosperous society. It enables autonomous decision making, allowing individuals and families the freedom to choose how to use the resources they control to improve their lives and, in the process, enabling more and different kinds of entrepreneurship. Importantly, providing more secure rights to property devolves power and enables women and men to have a room, a home, a field, a factory of their own; a place largely free from the interference of those in authority, as is essential to protecting and preserving privacy and freedom (as Hayek says in The Road to Serfdom).

Enhancing Freedom Through Quality

Enhancing Freedom Through Quality Improvements in Low-cost Private Schools

Through this project, James Tooley aims to establish a financially sustainable model for international teacher certification in the low-cost private school sector in India and Nigeria, with the potential to scale to more countries in Southern Africa and South Asia. The project builds on years of research and addresses one of the key challenges that low-cost private schools face--teacher certification and quality of teaching. The project will also add a module on economic freedom to the curriculum which will help to spread classical liberal ideas to untapped, new audiences, in Nigeria, India, and other areas as the project expands. 

Identifying Best Practice for Empowerment

Identifying Best Practice for Empowerment Through Entrepreneurial Freedom

The team at the University of Newcastle will employ original research to identify private, bottom-up, collective action solutions for the provision of basic services in slums around the world that are widely ignored by governments and large aid agencies. In particular, the team will research the service provision activities of Delhi slum inhabitants related to health, education, water, waste management, and transportation. They will use innovative methods to disseminate results to the community, national and international audiences to influence policies and provide those delivering services with examples of best practices for community development. 

Scholarships for Low-Income

Scholarships for Low-Income, High Potential  Indian Girls

This grant will allow 214 girls over 3 years to attend the Avasara girls school which was founded in 2015 with the aim of developing the leadership potential of India's brightest young women, proving the simple theory: "When you give a girl, regardless of her economic status, the highest education possible, and equip her with skills to lead her community, she will not only change the minds of those around her, she will change the world."

Spoken English and Libertarian Values

Empowering 1 Million with Spoken English and Libertarian Values

This project from the Centre for Civil Society addresses two pervasive challenges in Indian society: (1) Poor knowledge of English, particularly in disadvantaged communities. (2) A prevalent bias towards Nehruvian socialism. The project aims to train 5,000 teachers over the three-year project period to improve spoken English skills for 1 million students currently attending low-fee private schools in India--incorporating classical liberal content in the curriculum.

Identifying Best Practice for Empowerment Through Entrepreneurial Freedom

It is often believed that those living in informal settlements, in households with low socio-economic status are reliant upon the state or charitable means for basic quality services. This representation of development typically hides the story of community solutions. This project focuses on three informal settlements in Delhi, India.  It aims to show how communities overcome the absence of basic quality service provision by providing services themselves through community and private means as well as developing approaches to enterprise and employment that circumvent the need for formal provision.

What is important for development is freedom of choice and freedom to control ones own life that engenders well-being. This project will promote best practice from the communities that stimulate sustainable lives overcoming barriers to employment and entrepreneurial activity. Newcastle University in partnership with Kings College London, St Marys University, the Centre for Urban and Regional Excellence (CURE), and Indus Information Initiatives will provide knowledge for change, knowledge to inform and knowledge to empower individuals to control their own lives.

Contribution to enhancing freedom

This project will promote and enhance individual freedom in a number of ways, first it will discover how individuals, enterprises and communities are able to provide basic services for themselves promoting policy change that will put such private solutions at the heart of public policy. Second, by spreading best practice, it will ensure that communities can better adapt to the circumstances in which they find themselves and live lives that are characterized by gainful employment and enterprise thus promoting empowerment, resilience and reducing dependence. Third, by spreading best practice, it will promote amongst communities, approaches to providing essential basic services through the community and private enterprise. Ensuring accessibility, acceptability and adaptability of these services for all community members including young people, women and migrants.

Expansion of a proven model

Expansion of a proven model of skills training for employment

Jobs are being disrupted by technology at an unprecedented pace. While routine and structured work decline (such as administrative or manufacturing jobs), complex jobs that require social and complex problem-solving skills increase. Traditional education is no longer keeping up with the pace of change in the workplace. Bagosphere is a provider of short-term, career-focused educational programs for disadvantaged youth to go from poverty to transformational careers. By deconstructing what employers need, Bagosphere runs immersive, experiential training programs and connects students directly with employers. The unique teaching method combines communication, mindsets & socio-emotional skills, preparing them for employment in the thriving Business Process Outsourcing Industry (e.g. Call Centers) in the Philippines. With the training model, they have achieved a 95% employment rate in 2017 and their students were able to increase their income by 200300% if previously not formally employed and by 20-50% if previously employed. RTF is supporting the replication of the model in two new geographical locations in the Philippines aiming to reach 1000 students over the three years of project duration.

First-ever classical liberal economics textbook

First-ever classical liberal economics textbook for Singaporean students

The Adam Smith Center, in order to provide educational opportunities to local pre-university students in Singapore, is publishing a new Economics textbook that will marry economics concepts to local Singapore economic trends. They will differentiate themselves by developing a textbook that is written from a market-oriented perspective with a high degree of visual design. 

Girls Education Project

Girls Education Project Laos & Vietnam

Room to Read believes world change starts with educated children and education contributes to solving the worlds biggest problems poverty, conflict, disease, intolerance, inequality, and exploitation. However, quality education remains out of reach for millions of children around the world. Girls in particular are often disadvantaged when it comes to education.

With its long term holistic approach that goes beyond academics, Room to Reads Girls Education Program ensures that girls complete secondary school and develop the skills to negotiate key life decisions. It offers girls life skills training, female mentoring, and needs-based material support, while also increasing advocacy for girls' education among their parents, school staff, and communities. Essential to the program are social mobilizers (local women who are hired as mentors) who work with girls and their families to ensure that girls stay in school, participate in life skills activities, and navigate the challenges of adolescence with the ability to make their own life choices, both personally and professionally.

Rising Tide is supporting Room to Read's Girls Education Program in Vietnam and Laos and has supported 535 girls to participate in the program.

Start-up Camps

Start-up Camps

Through this initiative, Bookbridge is fostering entrepreneurship in disadvantaged communities in Cambodia, Mongolia, and Sri Lanka through Start-up Camps. The camps are 4-month part-time experiential learning programs. Over three years they expect that those who go through the program will create a total of 1,200 jobs in their communities through new start-ups launched out of the Camps.