Global Youth Leadership Institute Progress Report

A select group of Seattle-area teenagers has been tasked with making the world a better place through local action, and they’re not wasting any time getting started.

In the summer of 2011, the World Affairs Council’s Global Classroom program facilitated the fourth annual Global Youth Leadership Institute (GYLI) at the University of Washington. Participants included 34 students in grades 9-11 from 14 public, private, and parent partner schools in the greater Seattle region.  Since completing the weeklong crash course in international affairs, GYLI students have sprung into action.  They’ve used the fall to begin organizing Global Awareness Projects, or GAPs – activities, clubs, and events aimed at spreading awareness of global issues at the school and community level.  Here are some highlights of GYLI students’ GAP work so far:

• In November, a pair of GYLI alums held a “30 hour famine” – a voluntary fast, aimed at raising money and awareness towards the ongoing famine in the Horn of Africa.  Through their efforts, the GYLI students helped raise $4700 dollars!
• In December, another pair of GYLI alums held the first in a series of fundraiser dinners benefitting school construction in Cambodia.
• A GYLI alum and a non-GYLI classmate have spent fall afternoons tutoring their peers at the Secondary Bilingual Orientation Center, a Seattle Public Schools campus for children of newly arrived immigrant and refugee families.  The volunteers from GYLI plan to build on the relationships with their peers at SBOC by co-identifying and co-implementing community service needs and projects.

GYLI students are poised to continue their strong work in 2012.  Other GAPs to be implemented include fundraiser 5k walk/runs, craft sales, and week-long, school-wide awareness campaigns on issues of water and food scarcity.  Stay tuned for more updates as GYLI students continue to think globally and act locally, in the remainder of the school year and beyond.