The Young Leader

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Time Capsule – Bali – Children’s Education in Action – June 20 – July 10, 2018

Wow! Can you believe it has already been a few months since we were all together in Bali? I feel like it was just yesterday that we were eagerly awaiting your arrivals at the airport and see your jetlagged faces ready to embark on an adventure of a lifetime!

I wish we were back in Amed drinking all the banana pineapple smoothies we wanted, playing the weirdly close orange game, watching the sun rise and soaking up the stars at night. We all can still remember the kids smiles on their faces every morning when you stepped foot out of the cars and everyone screaming all of your names. I remember your strive to do better with lesson planning and all the effort you put into each class session. We all really admired the work you did and how amazing you made the trip for all of us!

I hope that you have had an amazing start to your new school year. I have no doubt that you have stayed true to your commitments that you left with at the end of the program and that you have a new understanding of your role in the world. Keep traveling and keep taking risks, I know that each of you is going to make such a difference in the world!

Miss you all and stay in touch!

Much Love Nicole, Lena, Brenda Gita and Yanti

PS. Here are just some of the things I remember from our summer together:

-The amazing fireworks in Amed! 🙂
-The delicious banana pancakes
-The hilarious orange game… Looking at you Cody
– Boxed Lunch!
-Three amazing Days in Paradise… AKA Amed.
-Sunset boat ride and bon fires with Domingo and Anik
-The Triplets Birthday
-The many many much needed Indo Mart runs!
– Ha Ha Ha, Ho Ho Ho YEAH! Bagus Bagus YEAH!!
– Discovering the Waterfall, White water rafting, Scuba and Surfing !

 

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Dominican Republic – Summer Search Seattle (Custom Group Travel)

Monday August 6, 2018

Today we went to a nature conservation area in the city of Cabarete. It was in Cabarete where we plated different types of trees that are native to the area. Afterwards, we went swimming in the underground caves. We’re in love with The DR! We love the beautiful landscapes, the kind people, and the adventures we’ve experienced so far. We’re having an amazing time!

Tuesday August 7, 2018

Today was a very productive day and we got a lot of work done. It was very hard work building the community center and mixing cement. The local children helped out which was a great opportunity to meet members of the community. Overall, the group had an amazing time in NY Chiquito!

Thursday August 9, 2018

Today was Day 7 and we went to Dudu Lagoon! We explored caves, zip lined 50 feet down into a beautiful blue lagoon, played volleyball, and took naps in hammocks. After Dudu Lagoon we went to Playa Preciosa and drank virgin pina coladas while relaxing on the beach!

Friday August 10, 2018

Today was our last day at La Grua and we were able to finish bottling the recycling center. It was a hot and long day, but everyone was in great spirits.

The kids of La Grua wanted to be very involved in helping with the project and were very friendly despite the language barrier. As the service day came to an end, we played music and danced with all of the kids before we left!

Tired from the hard work, we stopped at a supermarket for snacks. The air conditioning felt amazing and all of us stocked up on cakes, soda, and many well deserved treats.

Saturday August 11, 2018

Today was one of our most relaxing days. Although we had a slow morning, a good portion of the group went on a run and worked out. We got to take a scenic walk to the local school in the community of Las Cañas, which was really cool! After eating lunch at the lodge, we headed to Cabarete beach where we were able to swim, shop, and tan. We ended the night with a documentary, stargazing by the pool, and embracing the lizards in our cabanas.

Sunday August 12, 2018

Today we went to work at the community of Caño Dulce to plant and water banana trees. These trees will provide food security and a stronger sense of community as the community is responsible for taking care of the trees after we plant them. We ended our day in the community by playing basketball with our new local friends!

Monday August 13, 2018

Today we worked on cementing the community center at NY Chiquito. It rained on us a couple of times at the construction site, but it was nothing we couldn’t handle! After a few hours of work we headed to Playa Preciosa for the final time, where it also rained, but was still beautiful! We finished the day discussing the 7 Elements of human security.

Tuesday August 14, 2018

Today was our last day in NY Chiquito. We made a lot of progress and worked hard on the community center. After work, we took a tour of the community. It was beautiful and full of music and lively people as well as murals of the town and it’s history! The group has gotten so close in these past two weeks. We’ve been here and have started to dread our last day. Everyday in the DR has been so beautiful and amazing. We never want it to end!

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Dominican Republic – West Chicago – Custom Group – 2018

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Tuesday July 10, 2018

After being woken up for our first day of service by a rooster alarm clock, we were all very excited to get out into the community! We had breakfast and a quick orientation meeting then we headed out to the town of Caño Dulce to our first worksite. Our group continued the project of constructing a house with water bottle instillation and chicken wire covering.

Crystal, our GLA mentor, told us that we finished more than she expected so by the time we go back we hope to be very close to finishing the house all together. For lunch we went to Mateo’s, the night guard’s, home that he graciously welcomed us into and had a good time chatting with his family.

We returned to the Lodge around 3pm and had a tour of the rest of the home base before going to see the beautiful beach just down the street. Although we almost lost our shoes to the tide, we loved the scenery. Came back, chilled, showered, and laughed until dinner. After dinner, we went to a 7 Elements meeting where we discussed Cholera in Haiti and diabetes in the Dominican Republic and how it affects the community. And now, we are ready to go to sleep after a long day of cultural experience.

-by Julia and Kyra

Wednesday July 11, 2018

What an eye opening third day! We woke up at 7am and had a very delicious breakfast thanks to the nice cooks. We left to start our day at Cano Dulce by 9am and arrived in the community to assist in the reforestation project, in which we planted plantain seeds to socioeconomically benefit the local community.

After spending a few hours here, we enjoyed a nourishing lunch at Johnny’s (a local Dominican GLA worker) house and hung out with young doggiesssss and ate lots of watermelon. After this, we headed over to a beach in order to partake in a clean-up effort. We were given 20 bags to fill, all of which returned to the lodge completely loaded.

We enjoyed a refreshing “pit stop” in a fresh water river only a few yards away from the ocean after our hard work was completed. When we were finished loading up the garbage and ourselves, we headed back to the lodge and enjoyed an exquisite taco dinner featuring pineapple, of course. Later on, we attended a lecture featuring two men with Haitian heritage and learned about the ongoing pretentious conflict between the Dominicans and the Haitians.

We got to talk a lot about global issues that have been affecting people for centuries, even though we are not always conscious of them. One important thing that we learned was that although we have problems in the USA, other people from all over the world experience the same sort of problems. We’re from different places, but in the end, we are all the same.

Thursday July 12, 2018

Today was our first adventure day. First, we visited Las Cuevas de Cabarete, where this guy named Phil talked about the ecosytem and how it relates to the community. The water there was about 98% pure as it goes through the cave systems. The guard (whose name was Victor) gave us a tour of the beautiful park and we were able to see peoples homes and how they lived in the mountains. Crystal our leader asked us to keep in mind the 7 Elements of Human Security.

We think Victor seemed more at ease when he found out that the majority of our group could speak or at least understand Spanish. He told us about his family and some monkeys that had apparently escaped from their owner, who actually had to buy the monkeys back. So yes, we saw 2 monkeys! Victor also showed us the various fruit trees, such as papaya and pineapple. He picked a passion fruit for us, and we were able to try it. It was good.

The seeds were floating in the flesh, and it kind of tasted like cacao. Then we went to Cabarete, a tourist beach to relax and swim. As soon as we got to the beach the vendors wanted us to buy so many things. Some of us spend money for gifts for people at home. So our whole group had to bargain but we felt bad because we have seen first-hand what they have to go though and it was a little stressful to say no to them. Then we had pizza for lunch. It was so good.

A funny thing: As we were going to bed, there was a centipede in one of the cabins. As a group we had to try and get it out of the cabin, but it was so funny because everyone was so scared. Finally, Rebecca put on gloves and threw it out of the cabin. This caused us to laugh so much. We are having a great time.

-written by Rebecca and Maddy

Friday July 13, 2018

Today, was by far one of the hardest days we faced working. To start our day, while some of the ladies were enjoying their slumber, a few of us got up early and went on a 3-mile run by the ocean shore; it was a beautiful sight and it was something that everyone should experience.

After breakfast we went to Caño Dulce to finish building the bottle house we helped build on Tuesday. We also hand-made and mixed the cement that we used to plaster on the walls of the house. At around noon, we ate lunch at Mateo’s (night guards) house and bonded with a few kids from the community and Gina (friendly neighborhood dog). After lunch we continued the plastering for another 3 hours and were worn out by the end of the workday.

We came back to the lodge and Crystal showed us a TedTalk. She then gave us the task of finding a “problem” in the community and finding a solution to that “problem” in which we also must apply the 7 elements of Human Security to. We then went to the beach to do a team bonding activity (which we excelled at) and hung out at the beach until dinner-time with the WEGO girls.

After dinner, we had our daily Charla (our group discussions), in which Sarah (a 7 Elements mentor) lead a presentation about Social Justice. Her presentation was filled with topics that made us all question human behavior, also including; race, sexual orientation, and social class. It was a very emotional presentation which filled our heads with many questions on how to furthermore improve the world.

It is now bedtime as we are speaking, and we are hoping to get to a good sleep for our second adventure day tomorrow! Charla quote of the day: “There is more work to be done” -Sarah

-Jhoana & Vanessa

Sunday July 15, 2018

Today was day 7 and we kicked it off early with breakfast at 7am and left for the worksite at 8am. Our worksite today was in La Grua and we worked to mix cement for a local who had no cement floor. To the local masons surprise we finished an our earlier than expected to cement the floor. We then had the opportunity to walk through the betay which was where Haitians employed by the government to work in the sugarcane plantations lived, until the plantations were discontinued in favour of high fructose corn syrup. We also got to hang out with the children who lived in the betay and they were super cute and friendly. Soon after, we left the community to go back to the Lodge and on the way back we stopped at an air conditioned super market to get some snackies. We got back to the Lodge, had dinner, chilled in the pool, and ended our eventful day with a leadership based discussion.

-Amber and Kyra

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Why a ‘Moonshot’ for Education in Africa Will Ensure a Better Future for the World

Global Leadership Adventures’ Co-Founder Fred Swaniker has spent nearly two decades spearheading initiatives for social entrepreneurship, leadership development, and education in his home continent of Africa. He is the founder of the African Leadership Academy, an innovative high school that students on GLA’s South Africa: Social Change Project will get to visit during their program, and he also founded the African Leadership University, which aims to provide a world-class college education to Africa’s youth after they graduate from high school.

Swaniker has spoken at many events around the world, both large and small, captivating audiences with his innovative ideas and plans of action to educate the masses in Africa and develop leaders who will influence real change across the continent.

In April, he was invited to give the closing plenary talk at the Skoll Foundation’s 2018 World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, which was held at Oxford University in England. The mission of the Skoll Foundation is to “drive large-scale change by investing in, connecting, and celebrating social entrepreneurs and innovators who help them solve the world’s most pressing problems.” The theme for this year’s forum was The Power of Proximity, because, “In order to address inequality and injustice, we must more deeply understand the current status quo—and how to disrupt it.”

In his talk, Swaniker shared the statistic that by the year 2035—17 years from now—the continent of Africa will have the largest workforce in the world. While 17 years may seem like the distant future to some, it is just 6,000 days away. He states that this looming population boom could lead to a global humanitarian crisis if these individuals are not educated. However, if they are given a University education in Africa, then it could unleash a massive source of innovation and prosperity not just for Africa, but for the world.

Image via Skoll.org

Africa has some of the world’s top talent — it just needs to be unlocked.”

Currently, University-level enrollment in the continent sits at only 12% compared to 26% in India, 30% in China, and 60-70% in the West. So in order to even consider the benefits of unlocking Africa’s talent, we must first confront the issue of education and leadership because in order to innovate, one must first be educated.

However, educating one billion Africans in just 6,000 days doesn’t just seem like an impossible feat, it is an impossible feat if the education system continues on its current course. The word ‘IF’ is the single most important word here, because it implies that change is possible and the current status quo is not set in stone. This is precisely why Swaniker describes this initiative as a ‘moonshot’ for education in Africa. In his words, a moonshot has three characteristics:

  1. The problem needs to be so large that solving it seems impossible
  2. The solution or goal requires a radical approach using unconventional methods
  3. The approach must depend on some form of breakthrough in technology

We need new practice— bold, unconventional vehicles that will rapidly transform our burgeoning youth population into an energetic source of innovation and prosperity for the world.”

Swaniker went on to share the three main principles of his initiative for education in Africa, all of which are already in practice at the African Leadership University, and have been proven to work. The purpose of this new radical approach is to scale up in order to provide a quality University-level education to every single individual in Africa who has a desire to learn.

Principle #1: Student-Centered Learning

The conventional education model has long been set up in a way that it is teacher-centered, meaning that the existence of a class depends on having a qualified teacher physically present to lead the class and deploy the information to students. Unfortunately, this conventional model is not feasible for education in Africa because the number of qualified teachers available pales in comparison to the vast number of youth who want an education.

The solution is to design a learning system around an abundant resource—students, rather than a scarce resource—teachers. With this radical new approach, students come together in a peer-led system in which they teach each other learn together. With the abundance of knowledge and information publicly available through modern technology, students who are eager to learn no longer have to rely on the physical presence of a qualified teacher in order to advance their knowledge and understanding of a topic.

A young person today has access to more information on their mobile phone than someone doing a PhD at Oxford 30 years ago would have had in their entire physical library.”

ALU campuses have highly qualified facilitators, but their purpose is not to teach the students facts and figures. Instead, facilitators are present to ignite passion, curiosity, grit, resilience, and entrepreneurship in ALU students. This creates a culture of excellence and high expectations in which students are inspired and driven to learn by themselves. During his talk, Swaniker shared a short video of two young female ALU students who took the initiative to learn how to build a drone by themselves.

They worked together and taught themselves every step of the way, and in the end, they had constructed and programmed a fully functioning drone, as well as acquired a breadth of knowledge and programming skills that they didn’t have when they started. In addition, the video itself was made by one of their fellow ALU students who learned how to create and edit a professional-level film all on his own.

Principle #2: Problem Solving Over Facts and Figures

The days of education revolving around the memorization of facts and figures are fleeting. This is because what is truly important for the future, infinitely more so than the memorization of information for the sole purpose of passing a test or getting a grade, is the ability to understand and solve real-world problems.

Swaniker’s approach to education goes far and beyond the old-school method of memorizing content. In order to develop leaders who understand critical issues and are able to create solutions on a large scale, a viable education curriculum must encompass a “bigger picture” style of learning. Students who master creative problem solving will be equipped with the knowledge and tools to innovate and influence real and tangible change in Africa.

Problem-solvers become entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs don’t look for jobs—they create jobs and transform society with their innovations.”

Unlike traditional universities where students pick an academic major, ALU students are asked to declare a ‘mission’ for their life. They are given a list of seven grand challenges and seven great opportunities that Africa will face in the next century, and they must then decide what projects, online courses, expert interviews, experiments, prototypes, etc. they will focus on to learn about the problem they want to solve. At the end of their studies, students produce an innovative solution to the problem, publish a thesis, and ideally will create their own jobs as entrepreneurs. ALU sees the end goal not as producing people with theoretical knowledge, but rather to create problem-solvers, innovators, and entrepreneurs.

Principle #3: Low Cost

In the western university system, students often borrow large sums of money from banks, government organizations, or private lenders to pay their tuition only to be burdened with tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt after they graduate. Just look at the U.S., where national student loan debt has reached an unprecedented 1.4 trillion dollars.

This model would not work in Africa where governments and families have very little money to spend on education. What the continent needs is a radical and unconventional approach that will deliver education at close to zero upfront cost to the youth who need it.

This system depends on trusting young people to do things for themselves. It means telling them: ‘I believe in you. You can be great. You can learn by yourself and teach each other.’ The nice thing about such a culture is that once it is established, it doesn’t cost a cent to transmit to the next student.”

Witness These Initiatives First-Hand With GLA

GLA students on the South Africa: Social Change Project program will have the incredible opportunity to experience Swaniker’s dynamic education initiatives first-hand at the African Leadership Academy campus in Johannesburg. ALA is a state-of-the-art high school that accepts students from over 30 African countries and serves as an inspiring example of innovation at work.

During the several days they spend on campus, GLA students will meet and talk with ALA staff, alumni, and fellows to gain a deeper understanding of the foundational elements of social entrepreneurship and social change that have made this unique education system possible.

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