Develop Global Youth Leaders in NYC and DC!

Dear Friends,

We are so grateful for you support and excited to share summer updates from Global Kids! The last few months have been filled with international travel, foreign affairs institutes, digital learning competitions, college visits, graduation celebrations, and more!

New York City Events

Council on Foreign Relations: For the tenth year in a row, Global Kids partnered with the Council on Foreign Relations (CF) to engage thirty high school youth in the U.S. in the World Summer Institute. Over the course of three weeks, students from public high schools all over New York City were exposed to issues at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy making and implementation, and challenging them to examine the process and implications of policy decisions domestically and internationally. Highlights from this year’s program include a simulation on foreign investment followed by a guest speaking event featuring Former Secretary of the US Treasury, Robert Rubin, and a trip to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

Community Schools Forum: Finishing the school year with a bang, Global Kids organized forums at the three community schools where we work--John Adams High School, PS 96, and Bronx Studio School for Writers and Artists. The event brought together stakeholders from the community-- school administrators and teachers; students and their parents; and local businesses and other community based-organizations. In order to reach as many parents as possible, Global Kids staff led small workshops in languages that the parents felt most comfortable speaking, such as Bengali, Spanish, and Arabic. According Global Kids Executive Director, Evie Hantzopoulos, "It takes administrators, faculty, partners, families and students - the whole community - to create the best space for students to thrive. We are proud to be part of the New York City Board of Education's Community School initiative."

Emoti-con! Tech Conference: Twenty-five Global Kids middle school and high school students presented digital media projects that they've been working on all year at this year's Emoti-con!, NYC's biggest showcase for teen designers, tech makers, artists and tinkerers who believe in digital innovation as a tool for change. At the event, Global Kids youth shared projects across a range of interest areas, including sexism, poaching, clean water, and emergency preparedness. Congratulations to the students from our Girl Hack programs at John Adams High School and Curtis High School who won the Crowd Favorite for their Scratch games based on women's issues and to the GK youth who developed a geo-locative game while in Japan to help residents find safe passage during a tsunami. They won the award for Best Pitch. 

Washington DC Events

Meridian International Center Visit: Over twenty-five youth representing all six GK-DC programs visited the Meridian International Center to meet with young leaders from the Pan-African Youth Leadership Program. The young people shared experiences about their cultures and exchanged ideas about youth leadership among their respective countries. The evening also included a delicious Kenyan meal and a gum boot performance by a youth dance troupe. GK-DC leaders felt a strong connection with their global peers and are motivated to continue their relationship virtually – and ultimately visit the countries personally.

DC Annual Youth Conference: GK-DC youth held their second annual conference in Washington, DC. The students chose the theme of human trafficking.  Workshops topics included the basics of human trafficking, sex trafficking and labor trafficking. They were also were able to secure volunteers for each of these workshops to act as guest speakers on the topics. Plenary sessions included youth performances and incredible speaker such as Kelsei Wharton from the Dept. of Health and Human Services, Dan Mackett from International Justice Mission, a detective from the FBI Department for Child Exploitation & Human Trafficking Task Force, and Autumn Williams, U.S. Executive Director at African School for Excellence.

Global Kids DC Summer Institute: Serving nearly fifty participants, the GK-DC summer institute was a five-week foreign policy and social justice program hosted at the Catholic University – space generously donated by our partner Department of Employment Services partner program. The institute was divided into two tracks and served youth from all over Washington, D.C. The program focused on topics such as foreign policy, media skills, leadership development, service-learning, and international career and scholarship opportunities.

International Travel

Stay updated on this summer’s international service-learning trips! Students from GK-DC are currently conducting a 10-day service learning, leadership development trip to South Africa, visiting Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria. Students from New York City traveled to Japan for a third year in a row to the disaster-affected coastal region of Tohoku. This year, they are conducting a digital storytelling project with youth in the towns of Hirono and Onagawa.

Photos and updates will be posted via our instagram, flickr, and facebook pages shortly!