Jane Boorstein 

FOUNDER

Jane Boorstein is the Founder of LOWO, Learning Our Way Out. Her international development work has established a community conversation model that prioritizes keeping local voices at the forefront, with the goal of helping local people find solutions to the challenges in their own lives. This model continues to evolve and contribute to work in poverty reduction, environmental protection, and community wellbeing.

Over many decades, Jane has sustained a deep interest in the topic of global population, seeing a connection between reducing population growth and preventing poverty.  She served as the Director of International Educational Development (IED) in New York for over a decade in the 1970s and early 1980s and was then invited to serve as a representative to UN conferences on population in Romania, Mexico, and Egypt. She has also attended numerous regional conferences in the Philippines and elsewhere. In 1988, Jane joined the Board of Trustees for the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR), a nonprofit organization that she served for 25 years. 

In the 1990s, Jane established and directed the Partnership for Sustainable Families and Communities at the Center for Educational Outreach and Innovation within Teachers College at Columbia University. In that role, she directed a pilot test for Learning Our Way Out and won a significant grant from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation thereby expanding the implementation of LOWO in rural areas across Ethiopia in the early 2000s. Since then, the LOWO methodology of facilitated community conversations has thrived in numerous geographic contexts and helped local people connect with their own goals for their lives, including seeking access to further education and family planning.

Jane is recognized with a Distinguished Alumna Award from Hood College where she graduated with a degree in psychology. She received her Master of Arts degree in the Anthropology of Families & Communities from Teachers College at Columbia University.