February 5, 2013 – Ashoka, a global organization that identifies and invests in leading social entrepreneurs, announced today that Global Citizen Year will receive an award for innovation in higher education.
Global Citizen Year is being recognized for its efforts to transform American education by creating new pathways into college for young leaders from across the socioeconomic spectrum. The award will help advance Global Citizen Year’s vision of a world in which a Bridge Year to college is a common opportunity and an expected step in the education of young leaders.
In 2012, Global Citizen Year launched a groundbreaking…

David Van Zandt — President, The New School
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This article was originally posted… in The Huffington Post.
 
When his peers were doubleparked at their new dormitories and navigating dizzying rounds of freshman orientation, Alan De Leon, a first-year student enrolled at Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts, was finding his way around rural Brazil — namely the town of Palmerias, where he is spending the year collaborating with local citizens engaged in environmental conservation in this fragile, historically significant region in the southern state of Bahia. De Leon, who hails from South Houston, Texas, is

I sat at the foot of my Senegalese mother’s bed surrounded by people I love so dearly.  The room was dead silent, and yet nothing needed to be said.  A voice outside of the window announced that the taxi had arrived. I stood up and absently walked towards the gate whose walls contained almost everything that mattered to me.  I stopped before it with my eyes locked on the gate, and began to take a step. My Senegalese mother grabbed me by the arm, stopping me from crossing the compound’s boundary.  She threw water at the gate, and then released…

The first time I went to Senegal, I brought cargo pants. I was off to live, work, learn, and study in the Dakar region as one of Global Citizen Year’s Founding Fellows. After deciding to take a year off between high school and university, I was ready for something ambiguous and different since school had encapsulated my life for as long as I could remember.  After a month of language and culture training in Dakar, I moved to Noflaye, literally translated as “tranquility,” to work with an eco-tourism entity.
The first couple of months anywhere are the hardest. Everything is new – you are…

As we gear up for this year’s Fall Training, held August 19-29 at Stanford University, we have been thrilled to watch our 2013 Fellows charge through the Summer Campaign in preparation for the year ahead.  We’ve been following along closely as they continue to build support in their hometowns, in part by atrtracting the attention of local media for their outstanding efforts in fundraising.  Our Fellows have come up with dozens of creative and innovative ideas to stir up interest in their communities – including flea markets, group dinners, and even Zumba classes – where they have the chance to tell…

First thing’s first: if any of you haven’t yet seen this fantastic video…, I highly recommend watching to acquaint yourself with the Nike Foundation’s Girl Effect.
There are a lot of reasons why I love the Nike Girl Effect campaign. Not only does it make oft-neglected girls’ issues emotionally resonant and accessible to a wide audience; it’s also doing a lot to ameliorate those issues in an unconventional, very modern way.
Nike Inc. is a huge company, in possession of an internationally recognized logo and a broad platform from which to disseminate information. But unlike many other giant corporations,

I didn’t visit many of the typical tourist sites but after almost 14 days of living the GCY experience, I feel that I’ve really been to Ecuador.  On arrival, I was greeted as a real celebrity; I was Abigail’s mom!  I experienced the sense of “family,” and the deep affection and loyalty that develops in GCY fellows, along with a feeling of solidarity and friendship that will last a lifetime. I also experienced, along with Abigail, the tremendous generosity and warmth of the Ecuadorian people, as we were welcomed into the homes of GCY fellows’ host families and the home…

**Below is a Parent Post from a recent visit to Ecuador, written by Lisa Freschi. 
College admission letters and offers of scholarship money filled our mailbox last spring.  Nic was happy, but not ecstatic.  When he received the call from Global Citizen Year informing him that he’d been accepted as a Fellow for the 2011-12 cohort, he lit up like a Christmas tree.  In that instant we all knew our lives would never be the same and we began to brace ourselves for the unknown.
We landed in Mariscal Sucre International Airport in Quito, Ecuador 11pm on February 18th, 2012.  We…