May 21, 2012

Jewish Values, International Development and America’s Inner Cities: An Interview With Sarah Gogel of Global Potential

April 4, 2011

 

Sarah Gogel, co-founder of the non-profit group Global Potential recently took some time to answer a few questions from the New Vilna Review via email. In this interview, Ms. Gogel discusses the evolution of the organization, its work in New York and Boston and the connections she sees between the goals of Golobal Potential and core Jewish values and ideas.

 

 

NVR: For our readers who may not have heard of Global Potential, can you give us a brief overview of what the organization does and why it was founded?

 

Global Potential (GP) seeks to change the face of international development, volunteering and travel worldwide by unleashing the real faces, minds and hearts of urban societies worldwide. GP connects humanity to reflect its realities in today’s globalized world by providing an innovative and transformational experience for minority urban youth from low-income families.

 

GP’s unique programs enrich 14 to 22-year old students’ high school and GED experience and empower them to affect positive change in their lives and communities. I co-founded GP along with my colleague Frank Cohn almost four years ago of to implement international cultural exchange and service learning models to broaden students’ civic engagement and leadership experiences.

 

As a social worker and soon to be lawyer and international development practitioner, I have always believed that mobilizing youth is a significant part of creating social change so as to make it relevant to each individual and community worked with on a “glocal” scale. In order to create any type of change, one needs to organize in finding commonalities to move forward together in solidarity. The world is becoming increasingly globalized, yet those who end up benefiting from this globalization in a real way remain very minimal relatively speaking. It is my passion to mobilize people who care or who could care in creating increased quality and meaningful opportunities for all those to find their potential in their own lives, the lives of their communities and the global community.

 

Urban, at-risk, and minority youth face a disproportionate number of barriers in their adolescent years, including limited resources and support systems, which often result in alarmingly high truancy rates and a significant achievement gap between them and their wealthier counterparts.  Along with 70 other volunteers, we have strived to create a lifeline for these youth by facilitating community engagement and empowering them to become advocates and catalysts for change in their communities.

 

We have been inspired by our international cultural exchange and advocacy experiences in order to provide these life-changing opportunities to all those who wish to have them. We envision a world where the ever-widening achievement gap between urban students and their wealthier counterparts is broken down. As such, we believe that by empowering the youth to actively engage in their education and leadership development, we can positively affect change in their communities. We emphasize social entrepreneurship and practical life skills as they relate to the students’ self esteem and self-image, their families and communities, and finally the greater world.

 

We know that quality summer opportunities can significantly reduce the academic achievement gap between students of different socio-economic groups and believe that GP has found a successful model to frame this in our year and a half program. In today’s highly connected world, there is a deep need for great understanding for both local and global issues which can help further increase high-quality employment, education and opportunities for all.

 

You can listen to one GP youth's perspective here, on National Public Radio, the Dick Gordon Show. We continually get inspired through positive reinforcement of the beneficiaries of the program such as the teachers who say things like: “my students who came back had what I want to call a spiritual transformation. The way they now connect to what we're learning in class is so authentic...it can't be learned in the classroom alone”, or “it's incredible to see how much they have grown.” Please read more about our youth’s summer experiences on our blog: www.global-potential.org/blog.

 

GP fills the gap in creating services that currently do not exist for low-income youth to participate in a combination of meaningful cross-cultural exchanges, leadership development, and explorations of the world outside of the city. There is almost zero accessibility for lower-income youth in urban communities of the U.S. to carry out international volunteering opportunities and we are proud to be addressing this issue.

 

 

NVR: Can you expand a little and tell us about some of the places and the kinds of programs which Global Potential is currently involved with?

 

Frank and I created GP in Brooklyn and Bronx boroughs of New York City in 2007 and I expanded GP to the Roxbury and Fenway neighborhoods of Boston in 2010. GP empowers youth in these areas to use their strengths and life experiences to help others, and ultimately, themselves.  Since 2007, we have been 100% volunteer-run and have engaged 270 students from the New York City and Boston School Systems in our eighteen-month, three-phase program.

 

GP empowers and educates youth through a unique three-phase program. The phases involve leadership and human rights trainings, an international service learning trip, social entrepreneurship classes and local service initiatives of the students’ design. The cornerstone international experience involves a 45-day community development, cultural exchange, and immersion program in Haiti (conditions permitting), the Dominican Republic or Nicaragua.  In this portion of the GP program, students learn about global and cultural issues that are also very often mirrored within their own diverse communities at home.

 

More specifically, Phase I consists of a six-month intensive leadership-training program. Youth are self-selecting, as well as recruited by teachers and guidance counselors in partnering high schools. They go through a rigorous individual and group interview process. Once a week for 20 workshops during the academic year, students engage in leadership training workshops, where they gain skills and knowledge that will prepare them to live, learn, and volunteer in a rural village abroad. GP invites youth to undertake a global search for meaning and possibility that nurtures critical thought, analysis, creativity, and literacy, among other skills. The curriculum draws from many diverse progressive pedagogies and theories, including The Coalition of Essential School’s 10 Common Principles, Paulo Freire’s Critical Pedagogy, Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory, and the field of Peace Education.  Schoolteachers and social work interns lead these sessions. This first phase engages community partners throughout, to provide unique insight and opportunities to its youth.

 

During Phase II, youth travel abroad over the summer break and spend six weeks in cultural immersion and service-learning in rural villages that typically have literacy rates of below 50%, more than half of the population makes less than $2/day, and where significant health, education, and unemployment issues dominate everyday life. Accompanied by their schoolteachers and trained undergraduate and graduate interns from schools including Columbia University’s Partnership for International Development, Fordham University and Harvard College, youth live with host families and attend daily courses, in addition to participating in the work of the host families and conducting special projects. Each youth is responsible for raising $300 towards their trip, demonstrating their initiative through fundraising. GP trains and empowers these youth with the appropriate skills to engage their networks to raise funds and make connections through this process. While GP has yet to reject any youth who are not able to raise the full amount, its staff highly encourages and supports the youth to succeed in this endeavor.

 

Upon returning to the US, youth spend ten months in Phase III, developing and implementing their own social enterprises, and actively engaging in school and community activities. Supported largely by the same facilitators as in the two previous phases, youth work in teams to build their own programs, which have included an after-school arts program to prevent drug-use in Brooklyn, and a toy drive in Boston for children in Haiti after the earthquake and cholera outbreaks. Professional, undergraduate and graduate mentors at surrounding universities also mentor and support the youth throughout this third phase.

 

Recent GP Youth have received such prestigious accolades as the President’s Volunteer Service Award (2009), awards from the United Nations and Human Rights Watch (2009) and a feature story and appearance on National Public Radio (2010).  Several other youth have received Ashoka Youth Venture grants to create their social entrepreneurship initiatives, and even more have received either partial or full scholarships to college after writing about their Global Potential experience in their college essays (e.g. Posse Foundation, Seinfeld Foundation).

 

 

NVR: You are currently participating in the Combined Jewish Philanthropies young entrepreneur fellowship program – what attracted you to this program in the first place? To what extent do Jewish ideas and values influence the work that Global Potential does?

 

What attracted me initially to CJP’s young entrepreneurship program of PresenTense was the idea that I could propose an “intrapeneurship” venture within my current venture of GP and be connected with amazing social innovators from the Jewish community of Boston, such as my friend Michael Reichman who founded The Sounding Board. This intrapreneurship program would be to expand GP to France with an international cultural exchange program in Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

 

Growing up as a French Jew in Paris in a very secular yet traditional community that exposed me to the world has led me to wish to further incorporate the beautiful values and traditions of my own religion to promote humanistic values overall – through Tikkun Olam and other core social justice values in Judaism.

 

Judaism offers a context which is much more diverse than many people usually know about. This new program would allow GP to open up its doors to pursue various traditions within an ever-changing society locally and globally. As a PresenTense Fellow, I am starting to more explicitly incorporate Jewish values in Global Potential’s curriculum, as we are looking to expand our program and delve into really integrating our philosophy, strength-based approach, and international development through mutuality, youth and respect –with a Jewish basis, context and compass.

 

GP seeks to increase awareness about all religions and cultures, including Judaism as it relates to Tikkun Olam (the responsibility to repair the world, which brings healing to the self and to the other) and other human rights values that can serve to inspire youth from every background. Shalom Sesame Street has a cute song that explains this concept further: http://vimeo.com/16348831

 

GP envisions continuing to engage hundreds of Jews in service and connecting our universal curriculum more explicitly with Jewish values and our history, such as our collective struggle for self-determination –very relevant as we approach this Passover holiday.

 

The Jewish people, who have had to make infinite life transformational journeys over the centuries, have so much to contribute to this effort to unleash the global potential of today’s urban and rural youth of the world. By taking part in this social venture, Jews from all horizons will not only enrich their own lives and those around them, but also will raise awareness and understanding of their struggles. They will join in the dialogue for the advancement of humanity through youth development locally and internationally. Politics aside, as humans we will be able to connect through GP to find sustainable solutions to the twenty first century struggles. GP provides an opportunity for real exchange of experiences and knowledge of all members of today’s society. The traditionally marginalized youth of the world join hands with the elite few to develop and positively change themselves and those around them. This entirely is linked to how Jewish ideas and values are intricately linked to the work that GP does.

 

Global Potential hopes to partner in the near future with organizations in Israel such as Yedid, Kav HaZinuk, kibbutz Ketura, Bialik-Rogozin School and many others. GP also hopes to partner with local organizations in Boston such as the Boston Haifa Connection, Hyde Square Task Force, JOI, JCRC, Sub/Urban Justice program in order to start this GP exchange and peace building youth program in Europe and the Middle East. Other important partners for this initiative would be AJWS, Jewish Funds for Justice, Repair the World and JDC. If you are interested in helping us build this program of GP in France, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, or have any ideas for us, we are still in the planning phase so please contact me (sarah@global-potential.org). I will further be able to present this venture at the CJP/PresenTense launch night May 26, 2011, so please assist if you can to find out more!

 

 

NVR: One of your projects involves working with a Boston public school called the Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers – can you tell us a little about this school? What is Global Potential doing there, and how did this partnership arise?

 

The Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers (EMK) is our main host school in Boston where GP Boston carries out our workshops every week throughout the year. In January 2010, as GP opened up in Boston, Principal Dr. Caren Walker-Gregory opened up EMK’s doors to our organization since she believes so strongly in GP’s mission. We also are very much aligned with the mission of EMK to explore careers in health and health-related professions in a learning environment that “promotes respect and embraces diversity”, where “students will attain the life skills needed to become productive members of society.” EMK was open to having students from around Boston come to the weekly workshops and participate in GP, so students from various schools and programs such as the John D. O’ Bryant High School for Mathematics and Sciences, Fenway High School and Dr. Joseph Warren’s Youth Development Initiative Project (YDIP) at Northeastern University all attend weekly GP workshops at EMK.

 

Another great point about this school is its partnership with Northeastern University, which works well for GP because we have many youth mentors from Northeastern who also help out. I initially found out about this school through our now School and Youth Program Coordinator, Ilsa Bruer, who is an award-winning English Teacher at EMK (won the 2010 Mayor Mennino Boston Educator of the Year Award) and is outstanding in her dedication, commitment and high level of respect and openness she establishes with everyone around her. Every week, GP covers workshops at EMK on topics ranging from topics on social entrepreneurship, communication, leadership and finding creative solutions to combat human rights violations, racism, poverty, gender inequality, intolerance and ignorance.

 

 

NVR: Can you tell us a little about your own background and how you came to co-found Global Potential?

 

Sure! My path to co-founding GP started in 2000 when I was first confronted with the art of addressing inter-community relations as a young eighteen-year-old volunteer when I worked in Nicaragua and India during a gap year that I took after finishing up my high school in Paris, France. My work in Nicaragua was looked down upon by the community of Costa Ricans with whom I had worked for a month before this, since Nicaraguans historically have not had a positive image in Costa Rica, to say the least. This was primarily due to undocumented poorer Nicaraguans coming into Costa Rica to find better economic opportunities during and after the 1980s civil war in Nicaragua.

 

In India, I worked in Benares with people from the lower-caste system who had leprosy, and this was looked down upon by the higher caste people in the community. At the time, I did not work explicitly in bringing these two colliding communities together, rather I had the chance to observe many skilled community organizers and activities who wished to resolve deeply rooted community tensions among populations that had more points in common than not, just not as aware of this.

 

I continued to admire and observe many peacemakers in communities ridden with deep-rooted tensions and conflict until I had the chance to be active in this effort in 2005. I was interning for my second year 9-month internship of my Masters of Social Work in a few social organizations in the Jewish community of Paris, France. As a young social worker in training, I set myself out to provide quality services to refugees and immigrants from the Jewish community from Eastern Europe as well as North Africa. These two differing groups had varying stories of trauma and suffering from the Shoah period. During group discussions that I co-facilitated, it came out that their experiences were very different yet similar in many ways. My goal was to raise awareness among the two groups that historically had varying experiences yet came from one religion – to find points of commonality and express healthily the beautiful differences.

 

In 2006, I worked with Ethiopian, Burundian, Colombian and Palestinians in Tel Aviv with Physicians for Human Rights to provide psycho-social support on an individual and group level. Working on psychosocial issues related to their traumas, more political issues of inter-community relations, notably among Muslims and Jews, did not come up as much. I decided that at that point that I would focus more on the individuals’ renditions of their stories related to their personal experiences versus those of their community. However, I soon realized that despite the importance of working on an individual basis, it is also extremely important to work within the context of their societies and the global community.

 

All of these experiences led me to create Global Potential in 2007 along with my co-founder and fellow social worker Frank Cohn, in order partially to address this by working with first and second-generation immigrants from around the world in the melting pot city of New York. I was finally able to address both individual experiences and create dialogue about historical and present day contexts in a globalized society that directly relate to multi-ethnic relations and dialogue.

 

 

NVR: What inspires you personally about the kind of work that Global Potential is doing, both in the United States and abroad?

 

What continues to inspire me about the work that GP does is first and foremost my infinitely loving family, friends, colleagues and classmates. Also, my co-founder Frank and my colleagues Peter Maugeri, Ilsa Bruer, Jordan Capik, Karina Ovalles, Cristina Ovalles, Deryn Boyce, Adela George and many other volunteers are an incomparable source of strength because they are just as passionate and motivated to continue making GP’s vision and mission into reality, all as volunteers!

 

And of course, GP youth are fabulous and contagiously inspiring, as they continue to become more optimistic about their futures, find new strength and skills within themselves, and feel that their lives have a new sense of purpose. I can’t begin to describe to you the hundreds of youth GP has worked with who have increased in their self-esteem, leadership skills, physical health, and ability for personal reflection and attain improved educational outcomes. Ninety percent of students who have completed our program and high school are attending college, and over 10 of our students have received full-ride scholarships. Our youth have received all sorts of awards and full-ride scholarships of which we all are so proud.

 

I am also really proud that our youth become better equipped with job and life skills training as they launch an increasing number of amazing social entrepreneurship projects and lead a number of workshops. For example, some of the youth in Boston have created a venture called Les Manos United (LMU) that serves to increase global awareness among youth and others in Boston about the issues they observed and witnessed in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Nicaragua this past summer. They organize toy drives for refugee camps in Haiti, collect books for the village in Nicaragua and shoes for the Bateys in the Dominican Republic. Marianny, Christelle, Natalia and Daniel have all mobilized so many youth in their communities to increase awareness and share their passions. Daniel A. also makes me so proud in creating his own venture to give more voice to youth in Boston to better express their ideas and feelings through his youth-made newsletter and forum called Real Talk! All GP youth participate in so many more community development projects and become that much more committed and engaged to their education as reported by their teachers. Teachers observe among our participants an increased commitment to their education.

 

Internationally, it is inspiring to work with such generous communities valuing solidarity, exchange, and opening their doors to our youth and staff every summer, in the Bateys of the Dominican Republic (Batey 7, Batey 8, Cuchilla, Blocs de Mena) and in El Hatillo, Nicaragua.

 

 

NVR: What is the organization working on at the moment? What can we expect to see from Global Potential five to ten years down the road?

 

GP is working on becoming revenue generating as well as self-sustaining through various mechanisms. It is necessary that we find innovative solutions to this level of financial sustainability so that we can increase the impact and quality of our work. For example, GP seeks to replicate its model with its curriculum in a significant number of urban high schools around the U.S, in collaboration with higher education institutions in the communities, like Northeastern University, Roxbury Community College and Harvard College in Boston. This feasible replication is even more relevant in today’s climate of criticisms around the U.S. and in other industrialized nations on the failures and gaps in its education system. Since GP offers a program that can be integrated within this broken system, we offer an internal motivation and quality that can then have a ripple effect to penetrate the market. GP seeks to create increased partnerships with NGOs and schools, as well as government entities to ensure the adaptation of its model 100%. It will have a solid mentorship program to add to the positive experiences of the youth and will attain the international exchange of the youth in the host communities to the local communities worked in – for sustainability and mutuality.

 

In the next years, GP hopes to continue and increase its collaborations with other youth organizations in providing this specific international service to increase international volunteering. In five to ten years down the road, GP seeks to continue to create quality transformative experiences for youth worldwide in new locations such as France and Spain, working primarily with first and second-generation immigrant youth, with the international cultural exchange occurring in Israel, Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Jordan. We foresee that GP will be the next Amnesty International or Save the Children across the world for youth empowerment, international development and international cultural exchange.

 

 

NVR: Is there anything else you would like to add?

 

Chag Pesach Sameach and may we remember our experience of slavery at our roots this Pesach and may we remember the past to open up our doors wide to all those who are still oppressed today.

Also, please feel free to come to our upcoming events in Boston!

 

April 10, Ethical Society of Boston, from 10:30-12:30, GP will be commemorating World Health Day (April 7) and 2011 as the International Year of the Youth. We invite you to come hear our discussion talking about interpersonal violence as one of the leading causes of death among young people and how GP offers a model to counter this violence by creating healthier lifestyles and empowering youth along with their local and global families and communities.

 

April 30, at our amazing donated collaborative office space, Encuentro 5, GP will be a participating site in collaboration with YWCA for Stand Against Racism, and will showcase all its youth ventures as well as other youth initiatives around the Greater Boston area, including in Lawrence.

 

In May, we will hopefully be hosting a youth film festival at Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, and in June, our 2010 cohort of youth will graduate from GP before the next cohort of youth travel internationally in July! And don’t forget about CJP/PresenTense pitch night where my 12 other social innovator friends and I will be pitching our ventures!

 

Please feel free to check out our website or contact me sarah@global-potential.org for further information about our events and how to get further involved in GP. Thank you in advance.

 

 

Copyright the New Vilna Review 2011.