Timidly, I walked past booth after booth of college student groups that displayed colorful banners, and enthusiastic signs advertising their organizations at the Student Activities Fair at American University. Anime Club, Students for a Free Tibet, AU’s Beekeeping Society, Consulting Club, and countless other student organizations focused on world regions, academic interests, and extra-curricular activities were looking for new recruits. The options seemed endless. But I knew what I was looking for: people and organizations that shared my commitment to Latin America’s future.
Despite the many appealing student clubs that bid for my involvement, there was only one that truly captured my attention. I approached Ukiah Busch, an intimidatingly tall graduate student. Ukiah was a fellow with Partners of the Americas, an international NGO that seeks to connect people and organizations across borders to serve and change lives through lasting partnerships across Latin America. Ukiah introduced me to Partners Student Chapters, a network of well-connected student-service chapters created by Partners of the Americas that empowers students of the Americas to become effective agents of change, both locally and internationally through leadership, civic engagement, volunteerism, and professional development opportunities.
Ukiah needed help to expand the network, bring awareness to this new initiative across American and Latin American college campuses. Recognizing my enthusiasm, he identified me as a potential leader. I was sold! I set out to help create the structure for the Partners Student Chapters by co-founding the first-ever Partners Student Chapters with Ukiah at American University. During this first pilot year, our chapter at AU engaged with faculty and international development professionals to learn about the international development field and its practice in different countries. We connected with students at Latin American universities to learn more about their cultures and hear them speak directly about their community’s unique needs. We also participated in local community service events in Washington, D.C. and international development projects, to help our network grow.
One of the many events that we organized that exemplified the mission and goals of our group was the Copa Para Las Americas mini soccer tournament. With the World Cup upon us, the mini tournament rallied the spirit of Latin America and soccer lovers bringing together the local AU community for an international cause. By participating in this tournament and in partnership with the organization Students Helping Honduras, participants fundraised to build a school in Eben Ezer, a rural village in northern Honduras so that children would not be exposed to dangerous areas and have more access to better education. Students who took part in the soccer tournament also learned about Courts for Kids, a sports-for-development NGO that partners with local organizations and community members to build play areas for children in disadvantaged areas in Latin America, providing them with a chance build interpersonal and conflict resolution skills through sports and team-building activities. The students who took part in the soccer tournament learned about what different organizations were doing to combat and use education as means of reducing violence and helping youth. The soccer tournament was one way in which we sought to expose students to the realities and also to the solutions of common international development issues.
Through the realization of this event, students built their own professional development skills, learned to plan and manage the logistics of an event, learned from skilled experts working in the sports-for-development field, and contributed to an international development project. Similarly, other local Partners Student Chapters organized themselves to put on similar events geared towards improving some aspect of the local or international community.
Within just the first month of the pilot phase, the AU chapter gained over 50 members and 3 faculty advisors, the chapter gained formal recognition on campus and access to $6,500 per year in project funds and hosted international lectures and fundraising events. Within the year, we had created a student network of approximately 15 Partners Student Chapters across US and Latin American college campuses.These students groups were driven by motivated and ambitious student leaders sharing a commitment to service and a focus on the Americas. To consolidate the network and celebrate our early success, we organized the First Annual Partners Student Chapters Convention in the Partners of the Americas office in Washington, D.C., which brought together student leaders from chapters in Brazil, Bolivia, Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua, Honduras, and the United States. The Convention provided a space for student leaders to share what had worked in their Chapters and what hadn’t, discuss their ideas for projects, and create the friendships and the support network they needed to make lasting impact in their communities.
The power of this initiative came full circle for me when I had the opportunity to travel to Porto Alegre Brazil for an international business management course for a class at American University. In Brazil, I was able to reconnect with Joao Aguiar, the Partners Student Chapters president in Porto Alegre, Brazil at the time and a 2009 Youth Ambassador for the Indiana-Rio Grande do Sul Youth Ambassadors Program, an intercultural exchange experience that works to create an awareness of cooperation between cultures through volunteerism and gives Indiana’s youth an opportunity to build leadership skills and a greater understanding with Indiana’s Partner state, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil (RGS). A similar yet more meaningful and more personal exchange also occurred when I visited Joao. He showed me around his hometown, taught me about the difficulties that his city was facing, introduced me to other student chapter members, and taught me what his student chapter was doing. During that visit, we solidified a life-long friendship that continues to be a mutually beneficial connection, as it made me open to experience new and unknown things and be sympathetic to diverse life perspectives.
By providing me the opportunity to contribute to the Partners Student Chapters initiative, Ukiah and Partners of the Americas invested directly in my growth and talent as a volunteer and as a leader. What’s more, the establishment of that student network enabled Partners of the Americas to deepen its engagement with student leaders at universities and colleges, an important part of Partners’ redoubled focus on connecting higher education institutions in the Americas. As Partners exercised leadership as a key institutional anchor of President Obama’s 100,000 Strong in the Americas Initiative, a public-private partnership that works with a network of over 1,200 higher education institutions across the hemisphere to foster region-wide prosperity through greater international exchange of students, the connection to student leaders became even more important.
My story, which became one of many as the network expanded, characterizes the powerful role of purposeful global engagement and citizen diplomacy. Matt Clausen of Partners of the Americas explains that citizen diplomacy has become “an intentional effort to maximize our understanding and appreciate the diversity that exists on our planet.” Even in the midst of a digital age where thoughts are boiled down to 140-character tweets, today’s most impactful solutions to complex issues are defined by people-to-people interactions that foster deeper interconnectedness and shared understanding.
So by chance, when I hesitantly approached Ukiah during the student activities fair four years ago, I had no idea how profound of an impact our conversation and following connection would have on my life. What began as a simple and informal exchange on a college campus transformed into a formal arrangement, one that enabled me to empower many students across the hemisphere to work together to understand and be part of the solutions to pressing development problems. The initiative gave me a new-found awareness, confidence, and understanding of my own capability to inspire others to seek and use their full potential to make changes. Through this initiative, I helped develop a program that cultivates young leaders, and in turn the experience had become instrumental in my own professional development, giving me the tools I need to become an effective agent of change. What I didn’t realize at the time is that I had not only found a group that was engaged and committed to Latin America’s growth, but had contributed to the development of this commitment among others. As this stands true, today, the initiative continues to bring a new generation of young leaders into the Partners of the Americas network, contributing substantially to the organization’s growth and sustainability, and to Latin America’s future. Today, I am proud to have been a part of the launch of an initiative that continues to develop a new generation of young leaders, and am tremendously humbled to be among them.
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