Kjerstin Erickson

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Kjerstin Erickson (born May 24, 1983) is the founder and Executive Director of FORGE, an international non-profit organization that educates, empowers, and enriches the lives of refugees in Africa. Erickson created FORGE in 2003, as a 20-year-old junior at Stanford University, to serve a dire need that no other non-profit was tackling: transforming the lives of refugees through education, empowerment, and economic self-sufficiency.

Kjerstin Erickson has been a featured speaker at several national conferences and events. Accolades include being awarded a Haas Public Service Fellowship from Stanford, and being featured in Glamour as one of their Top Ten College Women.

Contents 1 Influences, Early Training 2 Founding FORGE 3 Training FORGE facilitators 4 Current Situation

[edit] Influences, Early Training

Before founding FORGE, Erickson worked in Dukwi refugee camp in Botswana implementing a literacy project and teaching business. As an intern at the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health, she conducted analysis of the US government’s success at providing women with HIV/AIDS research training and opportunities through its grant process. She has also worked as a teacher’s aid, a summer volunteer program coordinator, chair of a Youth Volunteer Corps, and in high school she created a Montessori-based math tutoring program for homeless children.

[edit] Founding FORGE

As a student on Semester at Sea, Erickson led a voyage to visit refugees in Tanzania.There she recognized that just as much as having their basic needs met, refugees needed ways to empower and educate themselves while in exile from their homelands, in ways that will also serve their native homes and communities whenever they are able to return. Kjerstin Erickson developed an operational model for FORGE that focused on entrepreneurial innovation, resource maximization, and tangible return to maximize the assistance to refugees. Her focus on financial ethics has allowed her to triple FORGE’s program budgets and keep overhead down to just 3%—the kind of financial responsibility that bests other non-profits by a wide margin.

[edit] Training FORGE facilitators

The May/June 2007 Stanford Alumni Magazine profiled Erickson, and described FORGE's methodology for training "facilitators".

"This academic year, eight student project facilitators from Stanford and eight each from Boston- and Los Angeles-area colleges have been putting in 10 or more hours of study and preparation each week for the projects they will launch this summer in three refugee camps. Some will teach community health or HIV/AIDS prevention courses, while others build libraries and computer centers or administer microfinance loans, all in an effort to help refugees develop skills for their eventual repatriation. Because they can’t leave their camps and are prevented from taking jobs in surrounding Zambian villages, FORGE also employs some 60 refugees year-round to continue the programs started by each summer’s crop of idealistic students.

"FORGE participants raise $5,000, of which $1,000 is devoted to their project and the rest to cover their expenses, including transportation, food and housing.... Although students have been able to win small grants from the Haas Center for Public Service and from the Program in Feminist Studies, FORGE depends on individual donors to make their operating budget ($290,000 in 2006). Erickson says that 97 percent of incoming funds go directly to services on the ground, with only 3 percent devoted to overhead expenses."

[edit] Current Situation

Kjerstin Erickson has put off the completion of her undergraduate degree in order to focus her efforts on FORGE. Since 2003, FORGE has been an official partner of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), and worked with local governments to bring FORGE’s work to four different refugee camps in Southern Africa. As Executive Director, Kjerstin oversees FORGE’s effectiveness, strategic direction, fiscal efficiency, and public presence.

After traveling in 40+ countries across the globe and 12 trips to Africa, Kjerstin is convinced of the urgent need for FORGE to expand its supremely effective community development programs and operational efficiency to every country that needs post-conflict solutions.

In addition to her work with FORGE, Kjerstin is a distinguished student at Stanford University, with plans to graduate in 2008, a former Miss Sonoma County, and a fellow at The Oakland Institute.