Developing Essential Skills Through Cultural Exchange

by [email protected] | Jul 24, 2023 | Impact Update, News

How Time Spent in Korea Inspired One Student to Change The World

One of the primary objectives of iEARN and the programs we administer is to help students develop essential (previously referred to as 21st Century) skills. In today’s rapidly changing world, essential skills prepare students for the challenges and opportunities of the future. They benefit both the students themselves and those they interact with in their workplaces, social circles, and communities in many ways, including the following:

• Increased employability: Many employers today are looking for candidates who possess essential skills such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity, and digital literacy. By developing these skills, students increase their chances of landing a job and advancing in their careers.
• Adaptability: The world is changing rapidly, and students who have essential skills are better equipped to adapt to new technologies, work environments, and social and economic trends.
• Enhanced learning: Essential skills such as critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration are essential for effective learning. Students who possess these skills are better able to engage with and understand complex ideas and information.
• Preparedness for civic engagement: In order to participate fully in a democratic society, individuals need to be able to think critically about social issues, collaborate with others, and communicate effectively. Developing essential skills can help students become active and engaged citizens.
• Innovation and entrepreneurship: The ability to think creatively and collaborate with others is essential for developing new ideas and starting businesses. Students who possess these skills are more likely to be successful innovators and entrepreneurs.

Simone Hassan-Bey is a young woman who has already dedicated her life to making a difference in the world and truly embodies the value of developing essential skills. In 2016, she participated in NSLI-Y’s Korea program, an intensive year-long student exchange that allowed her to experience cultures outside of her own and make lasting friendships – ones that she still maintains today. While recounting stories and memories of her time in Korea, she emphasized how important it is for young people to have the opportunity to learn about different cultures and believes that this exposure to diversity is crucial in shaping one’s perspective and creating a more positive and empathetic world.

“I think I went to NSLI-Y at a really interesting time,” she said

“This was 2016 and so politically in Korea, there was a call for the resignation of Park Geun-Hye, their president at the time. In the U.S., we had the presidential election and all that surrounded it happening. And so, as the only also black student on the program, a lot of Koreans were interested in what my thoughts were about what was happening in the U.S. Even though they were very different issues, what the U.S. and Korea were experiencing were similar in terms of political discourse and how it was changing dynamics within families – and it just made me realize the kind of magnitude and impact that these global events can have across the world. It also made me think about how much I value community and wanting to do what’s best for my own community, which is something that’s really important in Korea as well. It made me think a lot more about how different people interact and the importance of learning other languages too, because you get to speak to people’s hearts instead of focusing on grammatical structure to get your point across.

Simone’s involvement with NSLI-Y has also had a major impact on her life in other ways. The program allowed her to develop valuable leadership and communication skills that have served her well in her work with various organizations since graduating college in 2021. She is the co-founder of Rooted Uprising, a social and environmental justice collective aiming to engage, elevate, and empower community, and serves as the Recruitment Director for Veggie Mijas. Simone also works in BIPOC-centered philanthropy with Freedom Futures, and in public affairs & communications with Original Strategies.

Simone’s passion for helping others comes from her upbringing, where she learned the importance of serving and helping the community. Her mother instilled in her the value of giving back to those in need, which has been a driving force in her work. She has also been influenced by her experiences abroad, particularly in Korea, where she was able to learn about different cultures and family dynamics through her interactions with other students and with her host families. What’s more, these experiences enabled her to learn more about herself and what she is capable of achieving, giving her the confidence to step into the important work of pursuing justice, equity, and harmony within communities here in the U.S. and around the world.

iEARN-USA’s Impact Update – Spring 2020

by [email protected] | Jun 2, 2020 | Impact Update, News

We are pleased to share iEARN-USA’s Impact Update for Spring 2020, which shares highlights from our recent activities, programming and partnerships. Read on or view the printable PDF version of the Impact Update.

iEARN Global Projects and Program Highlights

iEARN Featured in World Economic Forum’s Report on Innovative Education Models

iEARN was featured as one of the top 16 innovative models of education in the World Economic Forum’s January 2020 “Schools of the Future: Defining New Models of Education for the Fourth Industrial Revolution” Report. The report is part of the Forum’s Education 4.0 Initiative. It is a great honor for iEARN to be featured as a school model that can form transformational change in education. Learn more here.

International Dinner Party Project Showcase

Participants of the International Dinner Party project created paintings showcasing a typical dinner place-setting from their cultures, in addition to researching and writing about these special dishes. Participating countries included Brazil, Georgia, Germany, India, Moldova, Nigeria, South Africa, Taiwan, Tunisia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and the United States. On February 15, a display showcasing many of these beautiful pieces of artwork and their accompanying descriptions was featured at the Nightingale-Bamford School in New York City.

iEARN-USA Welcomes New Team Members

iEARN-USA is delighted to announce the addition of five new members to our organization. These newly created positions will help iEARN-USA advance our goals and strategic priorities in order to provide impactful global education programs to K-12 youth, to support and train educators and youth workers, and to improve the quality of life on the planet. Learn more about our new team members here.

Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Program

YES Team News

This spring the YES team at iEARN-USA led a series of social media campaigns on Global Youth Service Day (GYSD), the largest youth service event in the world that celebrates and builds the capacity of all youth. The team created the GYSD campaign, just after the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus outbreak as a global pandemic, to guide YES Alumni to develop virtual projects and become community leaders during COVID19. The campaign reached more than 1,400 individuals from over 30 countries.

YES Students Impacting Home Communities

173 students from eight countries (Bangladesh, Cameroon, Israel (Arab Communities), Mali, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Suriname, and Liberia) participated through iEARN YES programs in the U.S. during the 2019-2020 school year. Upon returning home, YES alumni expand on and practice what they learned as exchange students. Many YES alumni engage in volunteerism, community service, and citizen responsibility in their home countries. YES alumni in Bangladesh have been developing a series of media literacy workshops in middle schools in Dhaka to teach young teenagers strategies to identify false information in media. YES alumni lead interactive sessions that guide students to think critically about media messages, and their own roles as media consumers. YES alumni hope their workshops will teach the next generation to think critically, recognize different points of views, be a wise consumer of information, and create their own media responsibly.

National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) Program

NSLI-Y Team News

The NSLI-Y team at iEARN-USA supported 24 students who were on-program in Taiwan and Korea for the 2019-2020 academic year NSLI-Y program. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the programs ended early and the students were repatriated. iEARN-USA coordinated the students’ return flights and ensured all the students were reunited with their families in the United States. In addition, the NSLI-Y team began preparing for 2020- 2021 summer and academic year programs.

NSLI-Y Korea Students Present in “Han-mi Intensive Cultural Project” Exhibition

On February 15, NSLI-Y students commemorated the completion of their “Han-mi Intensive Cultural Project” with a project exhibition and celebration. This project paired NSLI-Y students with Korean college students to research topics of interest to them about Korean culture and society. Students worked in intercultural peer teams to design and implement a research plan, which included site visits and interviews with Korean experts. Students then prepared a presentation to share their findings. Some of the topics included an exploration of a new religious movement, the Sewol-Ferry tragedy, LGBTQ rights, the role of the U.S. military presence in Korea, and the subculture of blind marathon runners.

Support iEARN-USA

Make a difference for youth by supporting collaborative projects and programs designed to provide learning opportunities for K-12 students around the world to connect with their international peers, develop global competencies, and become successful global citizens. Make a gift today here.

Impact Update – Fall 2018

by [email protected] | Oct 3, 2018 | Impact Update, News

We are pleased to share highlights of iEARN-USA’s programming and partnership impact for 2018. A PDF version of the report is also available to download here.

View and Download the Impact Update PDF
http://us.iearn.org/assets/imgs/docs/Fall-2018_-iEARN-USAs-Impact-Update_FInal_Online.pdf
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2018 iEARN International Conference

In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the iEARN network, iEARN-USA hosted the 2018 iEARN International Conference and Youth Summit in Winchester, Virginia, USA, from July 8-14. iEARN-USA partnered with local organizations, businesses, and institutions in Virginia, including Winchester Public Schools, to host the conference at John Handley High School (JHHS). The week of conference activities included educational sessions, keynotes and plenaries, cultural events, and excursions around the theme of “Global Collaboration for Sustainable Development.” iEARN-USA is grateful to everyone who attended, volunteered, or sponsored the event and helped make it a great success!

Youth Summit

The iEARN Conference included a Youth Summit, which brought
young people from around the world together to learn and collaborate. This year, the Youth Summit was organized by a group of six youth from Egypt, Suriname, and the conference host, JHHS. This dedicated group of youth held virtual meetings online for six months to plan the summit, but all their hard work paid off when 160 youth from 17 different countries came together in Virginia.

Throughout the summit, youth led over 30 sessions that showcased their commitment and efforts to fulfilling the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), presenting on topics ranging from protecting wildlife, to creating gender equality, to using sports to promote peaceful transitions of power. The youth also completed five different community service projects, including helping at a local elementary school and cleaning up local parks. The Youth Summit truly celebrated the best of the iEARN community – demonstrating how passionate youth are in working with one another for a sustainable future.

iEARN BRIDGE Program

In June 2018, iEARN BRIDGE (Building Respect Through International Dialogue and Global Education) Program came to a close. The BRIDGE Program was made possible through a grant from the Aspen Institute’s Stevens Initiative, funded by the U.S. Department of State and the Bezos Family Foundation in order to increase exchanges between youth in the U.S. and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as a lasting tribute to the legacy of Ambassador Chris Stevens.

The iEARN BRIDGE Program provided professional development for almost 350 teachers from these two regions and helped them connect their 9,500 students through project-based learning. In addition, over 60 workshops were held and 75 local and global exhibits of student work took place around the world. Students and teachers alike appreciated having the opportunity to learn with and from each other. A MENA student captured the experience well, sharing, “The BRIDGE program was really excellent because it helped me to connect with people from different cultures and know their customs and traditions, and helped me to introduce my country and culture.”

NSLI-Y for Youth Program

This year, iEARN-USA celebrated its 10th year of implementing the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y), a U.S. Department of State program. Over the past ten years, iEARN-USA has had the privilege of working with about 1,145 U.S. youth, helping them study languages abroad and learn about other cultures. In 2018, iEARN-USA’s NSLI-Y team welcomed home the newest NSLI-Y alumni, 22 participants who spent 9-10 months overseas . Eight of those students had studied Mandarin, Chinese in Kaohsiung, Taiwan and fourteen students had studied Korean in Seoul, Korea. The NSLI-Y team is proud to announce that all participants showed language improvement as measured by a pre- and post- language assessment.

YES Program

In June, after ten months of study and service in the U.S., 160 students participating in the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Program returned to their home countries and became YES alumni. To support them through this transition, on July 31, the iEARN YES program team led a webinar on Reverse Culture Shock, This webinar, featuring a panel of five alumni who shared their own experiences, drew a significant audience of 60 YES alumni. Through the webinar, alumni were able to connect with each other and learn strategies for how to readjust to their home countries after living in the U.S.

In other exciting alumni news, ten iEARN YES alumni received small grants from American Councils for International Education to plan and conduct service projects within their communities. The projects include campaigns on diabetes awareness and girls’ education, as well as teacher trainings for inclusive education.

Impact Update – Spring 2017

by [email protected] | Apr 20, 2017 | Impact Update, News

Dear Friend,

In the first quarter of 2017, we’ve broadened the reach of iEARN-USA’s programs through the expansion of board and staff leadership roles, representation at national conferences, and stronger programmatic efforts throughout the iEARN network and partnerships programs.

Alessia Falsarone, Managing Director, Global Fixed Income, PineBridge Investments, and Arun Kumar, Global Head of Analytics, Razorfish, have joined the iEARN-USA Board of Directors, bringing with them expertise in global finance, data and technology.

Current staff members have taken on new leadership roles: Dina Guirguis, Deputy Director; Christine McCaleb, Director of Grant Programs; and Bridget Stout, Director of Operations and Human Resources. We are also pleased to welcome Gloria Kang, as our new Program Manager for the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program.

I am proud of what we’ve accomplished together this quarter, and encourage you to take a moment to read through this quarterly update and see how our programs are providing more opportunities for students and educators to learn with the world. We’d also love your feedback if you have a story to share!

Sincerely,

Dr. Tonya Muro
Executive Director

• iEARN has been named a finalist for the 7th Annual Classy Awards, recognizing the most innovative nonprofits and social enterprises. We are proud to be recognized! Learn about the awards and other finalists.

• The Teachers’ Guide to Global Collaboration is now live at www.globaledguide.org. Funded by the Longview Foundation, this online guide is a collection of resources, projects and other opportunities for global collaboration.

• iEARN-USA presented at SXSWedu for the first time in March 2017. Check out the workshops and sessions presented by iEARN-USA staff and special guest Farah Kamal from iEARN Pakistan.

• We are also excited to welcome new iEARN-USA Global Education Ambassadors this spring! Educators Greg Reiva, Jennifer Rose, Fay Stump and Steve Weissburg, bring a range of experiences and technical skills to our growing group of iEARN-USA leaders around the country who promote and support global project-based learning.

UP NEXT

• iEARN-USA is co-hosting and presenting during Global Leadership Week (GLW), April 24-28. GLW is a weeklong convening of virtual and face-to-face events designed to celebrate leadership through global action in K-20 education.

• iEARN-USA is also presenting a keynote and workshop around Sustainable Development Goal #4: Quality Education, at the upcoming UNESCO conference at the United Nations on April 27th-28th: 2017 Education Solutions-Initiative for the Era of Sustainable Development.

• This July 17-22, educators and students from more than 50 countries, including iEARN-USA, will be in attendance at the 2017 iEARN Conference and Youth Summit, in Marrakech, Morocco, hosted by the Moroccan Education and Resource Network (MEARN). Registration is open through June 15.

• During February and March, more than 120 global educators from the U.S. and 10 countries in the Middle East and North Africa came together to engage in global citizenship education through online professional development for the BRIDGE (Building Respect through International Dialogue & Global Education) Program, supported by the Aspen Institute’s Stevens Initiative.

• Visit iEARN-USA’s YouTube channel to watch a video of the BRIDGE Program in action! Educators at John Handley High School in Winchester, VA participate in a “Hunger Banquet” as part of iEARN’s Global Project Finding Solutions to Hunger, in partnership with Kids Can Make a Difference.

UP NEXT

• In April and May 2017, BRIDGE educators in all 11 countries will connect their students to collaborate on global projects in one of the following theme areas: environment, civic education, heritage, identify, tradition, food security, and arts and media production.

• The Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) team organized the 2017 YES Alumni Global Youth Service Day (GYSD) Webinar to prepare alumni and students for service projects on April 21-23. The webinar featured Yutthakrit Chalermthai, founder and President of the YES Thai Alumni Association. View the webinar recording.

• YES Alumni Bangladesh launched an ongoing project called “Smallfoot” to engage marginalized children in early childhood education. The name “Smallfoot” was inspired by the ‘little steps’ YES Alumni in Bangladesh take towards the betterment of the children’s future. This would be their small steps towards a better life.’ Visit the “Smallfoot” Facebook Page.

UP NEXT

• In July 2017, the YES team will lead an Alumni Association Leader Training in Marrakech, Morocco with leaders from YES alumni associations. The participating alumni are also expected to participate in the iEARN Youth Summit with youth from around the world.

• iEARN-USA’s National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) Interactive team hosted two virtual events. “Diversity in Morocco”, featured students on the NSLI-Y Arabic Academic Year program in Rabat and two YES alumni from Morocco. For “Russian Language Learning Strategies” five current NSLI-Y Moldova students gave presentations in Russian to Russian language classrooms in the U.S.

• NSLI-Y Korea alumna, Elaine Huang, created a Social Media Guidebook for students going abroad, as a capstone project for her internship with iEARN-USA.

• Signe Knutson represented iEARN-USA at the Diversity Abroad Conference in Minneapolis, MN. The conference focused on diversity and inclusion in study abroad and the NSLI-Y team is excited to apply what was learned to the 2017 programs.

UP NEXT

• On April 29th, NSLI-Y Interactive will host the final Virtual Event of the 2016-2017 Academic Year, featuring students in Seoul, South Korea. Stay up-to-date on these exciting events by signing up for the NSLI-Y Interactive Virtual Events newsletter.

• This summer, the iEARN-USA NSLI-Y Team will administer an immersive language exchange program for 15 students to study Arabic in Morocco; 20 students to study Chinese in China; 15 students to study Hindi in India, and 50 to study Korean in South Korea. iEARN-USA will also be welcoming the 2017-2018 Academic Year students – 14 students in Korea and 8 students in Taiwan.

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