I was involved with and ran Global Ambassadors at the middle and high school levels between 2007 and 2016 while I was a student in White Plains.
The goals of Global Ambassadors are fourfold:
- To raise use art and technology as methods to raise awareness among young people about the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
- To implement grassroots methods to raise funds to provide local schools in Kenya with fresh water facilities.
- Connect students in New York with students in other schools around the world to discuss culture, political issues, and more.
- To assist students in developing into productive and positive global citizens by providing them with a stable path over grades 6-12 to develop confidence, agency, and creativity.
Major projects that I have spearheaded include:
- Art-to-Water: students create peace-themed clothing designs and silkscreen t-shirts and sweatshirts to sell around the community to raise money for the cause of fresh water in Tanzania
- Students Rebuild‘s art-service challenges (and placed #1 in the Beads for Tanzania challenge with 60,000+ beads made)
- Around the World: video-conferences between schools in New York and Sweden, Oman, the UK, New Zealand, India, and China
- REACT News (see below)
REACT News
I co-founded REACT News as an alternative news source: a series that attempts to showcase the positive aspects of the news, and offers often unknown opportunities to combat many global issues. But this show is more than an educational program for young people.
REACT News is made 100% by students. We work with students to find a cause that they care about and want to create an episode about. The other leaders and I then train students on how to conduct research, write scripts, contact people for interviews, and present themselves confidently on camera. Lessons also include how to use TV studio technology including tricasters, teleprompters, lights, cameras, microphones, iMovie, and Final Cut.
When I became a student at Boston University, I founded REACT News as a branch of the International Affairs Association. In Boston, I have interviewed the Danish Ambassador to the USA, the EU Ambassador to the UN, Claes Nobel, the Romanian Ambassador to the UN, and more. Visit our channels here and here.