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As a youth charity organization dedicated to more than the scholastic development of the young minds of the future creative architects of our world, Global Leaders, Inc. (GL) and its Student Volunteers are proud To Serve multicultural young children with wide-ranging needs.
GL may not be able to serve the needs of millions of young children like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, or the American Red Cross. However, To Serve the needs of individual children, one child at a time, produces uniquely personal, powerful rewards for those Student Volunteers who Serve to Learn and Serve to Lead.
Global Leaders, Inc. (GL) encourages gifted and mature students to participate broadly and profoundly in our youth charity operations. While adult Professional Advisors and Mentors are necessary for excellence in scholastic and career preparation, we recognize that many students are also encouraged and inspired to learn from their peers in more relaxing and personalized ways. Thus, our high-achieving and mature students have the opportunity to play an active role in educating, encouraging, interacting with, and mentoring their fellow students through a supervised program called Peer Mentorship.
GL places a high priority on assisting young students to become well prepared in key scholastic skills to enhance their chances of experiencing success in secondary schools, colleges, and the careers they enter. However, GL places an even higher priority on helping young people to enrich their own special personal and social competencies. Peer Mentorship, with the participation of young people from different schools and diverse backgrounds, broadens the personal experiences and skills that help students become well-rounded, healthy, and happy young scholars and leaders.
The parents of both minor-age Student Volunteers (Peer Mentors) and young students (Peer Students) must actively participate on an ongoing, collaborative basis for Peer Mentorship to be a success. The Adult Advisors – including the Curriculum Coordinators, Community Coordinators, and Instructors – assist Peer Mentors in acquiring real-life, challenging intellectual and personal experiences that will help them obtain the life-long, invaluable skills and visions they need to become compassionate and competent future leaders.
Student Volunteers who have demonstrated excellent commitment and perseverance in helping other young students and who have contributed more than 500 hours of tutoring service are appointed by the adult Officers and Directors of GL to be Student Tutors and Student Mentors.
Thus far, from GL’s inception, only a few Student Volunteers have been granted the prestigious titles of Student Tutor and Student Mentor. One of the main reasons so many Student Volunteers (Peer Mentors) have not been able to earn these prestigious titles is that the young students who need our goodwill assistance often struggle more with their language or learning challenges than most of their peers. This makes it difficult for Student Volunteers – even those with the most admirable intentions and talents – to persevere through our Peer Mentorship program long enough to contribute more than 500 hours of service.
The following historically revered quotes give deeper meaning to all of the admirable and selfless activities of our Student Tutors and Student Mentors.
"In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have. "
-- Lee Iacocca
"Success in life is a matter not so much of talent or opportunity as of concentration and perseverance."
-- Charles William Wendte
"A teacher cannot build a community of learners unless the voices and lives of the students are an integral part of the curriculum."
-- B. Peterson
"By learning you will teach; by teaching you will understand."
-- Latin Proverb
"Nine-tenths of education is encouragement."
-- Anatole France
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A few select, gifted, and mature students are nominated and elected by other active Student Volunteers and Student Leaders to serve as Student Leaders and even Student Officers with significant responsibilities. Before these students officially start serving as Student Leaders, the adult Officers and Directors must approve and confirm their specific Student Leadership positions and responsibilities.
All Student Volunteers, especially the Student Officers, are required to exercise their best judgment in working with their peers and others associated with our group projects. They must persistently strive to work in collaborative and productive manners. The best measurement of the leadership success of our group projects is not the actual results; it is the number and quality of experiences acquired throughout the challenging journeys of all those young leaders involved in our group projects.
In their active leadership roles, these peer-elected Student Leaders assist with the tutoring and mentoring programs. The Student Leaders also assist in developing, planning, coordinating, and implementing various fundraising, civic service, community outreach, and other local and national youth humanitarian projects.
GL Student Leaders serve as extraordinary leaders of our youth organization as well as visionary leaders of our local communities and even our world. Through various real-life experiences, they learn to think critically and creatively, cultivate pioneering views and visions, and relate to people of diverse cultures and values. These real-life learning experiences help them to develop into outstanding future leaders who can positively shape our future local and international communities.
The Adult Advisors – including the Volunteering Parents, Community Coordinators, and Curriculum Coordinators – assist the Student Leaders in gaining challenging intellectual and personal experiences that will help them achieve the life-long, invaluable skills and visions they need to become compassionate and competent future leaders.
Student Leadership Youth Missions range in location, duration, and even in nature. The following are some examples of previous, present, and planned youth charity projects:
- Serving as select mentors of students in special education programs in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
- Gathering and distributing children’s school supplies and clothes to local community centers in the greater New York City, New York metropolitan area.
- Collecting and distributing pre-paid cellular phones to St. Louis, Missouri metropolitan’s young children who may not have reliable emergency communication means from their homes.
- Refurbishing and distributing donated, pre-owned computers to young students studying in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, Iowa schools who have suffered from historic flooding that caused damage to their homes and lives.
- Volunteering as cooks and delivery assistants at shelters for homeless mothers and their children in the greater Chicago, Illinois metropolitan area.
The following legendary quotes remind all of our Student Leaders of the true importance and purpose of all of their challenging citizenship and leadership activities.
"Tell me and I'll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I'll understand . "
-- Native American Saying
"The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work ."
-- John Ruskin
"The curriculum is to be thought of in terms activity and experience [through ‘project’ approach] rather than knowledge to be acquired and facts to be stored."
-- Sir William Henry Hadow
"They can do all because they think they can."
-- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil)
"Where there is no vision, the people perish."
-- Proverbs 19:18
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The Student Leaders who have applied for and been selected to serve in specific global youth charity missions – whether individual or group projects – are appointed as Student Ambassadors.
The select Student Ambassadors who do not travel to our international destinies actively research to discover where other Student Ambassadors should go to make meaningful global contributions. Such research includes identifying and opening communications with potential global partners who can help our Student Ambassadors achieve their goals as well as gathering and presenting the weather, environmental, public health, and other conditions for which Student Ambassadors need to be prepared.
All Student Ambassadors are required to work diligently and harmoniously with all those involved in our global missions to assist in raising funds that support the global youth projects. The fundraising projects are created and carried out primarily by the collaborative efforts of Student Ambassadors and their peers, with limited supervision from Adult Advisors and Volunteering Parents.
Global Leadership Youth Missions range in location, duration, and even in nature. The following are some examples of earlier, current and future global youth projects:
- Serving as mentors of young children in summer camps at the orphanages operated out of the Beijing area.
- Painting inspirational multicultural murals at youth centers in the New Delhi, India area to enrich imaginations and visions of its local young children.
- Personally tutoring young children at rural schools and camps in South Korea.
- Collecting and delivering books to children’s libraries outside of Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya.
- Partnering with local experts in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to provide local children with health services and education.
All global youth projects are initially produced by our creative and dedicated Student Ambassadors. Then, the Student Ambassadors must work with the Adult Advisors to finalize the development, implementation, and management of the final proposed global projects. The primary role of the Adult Advisors – such as Volunteering Parents, the Curriculum Coordinators, and Travel Coordinators – is to assist with global projects that provide real-life, challenging educational and personal experiences that will help Student Ambassadors achieve the lifelong, invaluable skills and visions they need to become compassionate and competent future leaders.
All global projects strive to help young children who can benefit from the personal services of our Student Ambassadors. Our Student Ambassadors, with the support of Adult Advisors and Parents, may not be able to assist millions of children as do much larger global charity organizations. However, they can make important differences in their own lives and futures by making their own special contributions to young children around the world who do not have the opportunities or resources that all children should.
The following quotes by one of the greatest and humblest leaders of our modern world give
a deeper sense of purpose
to all of our Student Ambassadors and their global educational and multicultural youth missions.
"There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children."
-- Nelson Mandela
"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."
-- Nelson Mandela
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In January of 2003, by Executive Order, President George W. Bush announced the formation of the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation. The Council was established to recognize the important contributions Americans of all ages are making within their communities through service and civic engagement. One of the first priorities of the Council was to establish this volunteer recognition program.
In 2009, when President Barack Obama entered the White House, one of the first things he did was sign a letter of recognition for those qualifying for presidential service awards. As a result, Global Leader, Inc. (GL) was able to continue to participate in this prestigious tradition of officially recognizing notable services of outstanding citizens and leaders in our communities.
President Obama worked to encourage significant national volunteerism even before coming to the White House. For example, he supported The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. This legislation launched a new era of service that gives all Americans – youth and adults – the opportunity to help our nation recover and make progress in education, health care, and other critical areas by volunteering. President Obama’s call to serve came during one of the most challenging and toughest moments in both U.S. and world history.
President Obama encourages us to help young students achieve in school, build safer and greener communities, rebuild cities in times of disasters, feed the hungry, help seniors during their vulnerable moments, and serve in other generous and positive ways that are special to us personally.
The following quotes by some of the greatest leaders and humanitarians in world history give all of us a more profound understanding of the true purposes of the President’s Volunteer Service Awards.
"I realized that I wasn’t just helping other people. Through service, I also found a community that embraced me [...]
and the direction I’d been seeking . Through service, I found that my own story fit into a larger American story. [. . .] Yes, our government must rebuild schools, but we also need people to serve as mentors and tutors in those schools."
-- President Barack Obama
"Our goal in this country must be to prepare all students for college, work, and citizenship. And our challenge is to give students and schools the support they need to reach that goal."
-- Bill Gates, Sr.
"It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters."
-- Mother Teresa
"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’"
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Role of the Global Leaders Council
In order to officially recognize and publicly respect volunteering students and adults for their selfless and self-sacrificing services to the young people and the communities we serve, GL has become an Official Certifying Organization of the President’s Volunteer Service Awards (PVSA).
As a Leadership Organization (LO), we support the President’s Volunteer Service Awards (PVSA) by actively promoting the Award to its local affiliates, who then register as Certifying Organizations (CO) to certify, nominate, and present the awards to their volunteers.
Global Leaders Council (GLC), a division created and monitored by GL, is comprised primarily of Student Leaders and a few Adult Advisors. GLC is also referred to as the Student Executive Committee. GLC is responsible for:
- Identifying, reviewing, and verifying volunteers’ service hours.
- Nominating those who qualify under PVSA guidelines as PVSA honorees.
- Preparing and presenting the Awards at its annual PVSA Ceremonies or other presentation forums.
- Recording and safekeeping information on PVSA honorees as directed by the President’s Council.
- Encouraging and inspiring the ongoing services of all volunteers, especially today’s young scholars and leaders.
As the Certifying Organization (CO) of the President’s Volunteer Service Awards (PVSA), we are proud to serve as the national partner of the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation. Through the PVSA nomination process, we are privileged to learn about many dedicated, selfless community heroes who serve and honor our communities and our world in their own unique ways.
In order to demonstrate our appreciation for our young PVSA honorees’ selfless acts and to share with others their notable civic service, we go above and beyond our requirements as a Certifying Organization. In addition to fulfilling the obligations outlined above, we also strive to enhance our young PVSA honorees' confidence, opportunities, and futures by:
(1) Nominating or Reporting Civic Service Stories to the Media.
The Global Leaders Council (GLC) and its advisors thoroughly review young honorees’ nominations, volunteer reports or stories, and leadership services. Then, the GLC will nominate and/or report those with exceptional heroic or leadership experiences to appropriate local and even worldwide media organizations such as CNN Heroes.
Before any private information is reported or submitted for or on behalf of minor-age students or honorees, GLC needs to have received the express consent or permission from their parents or guardians.
(2) Nominating or Reporting Achievements to Scholarship Foundations.
GLC and its advisors assist exceptional young PVSA honorees – who are making a difference by leading our communities to a brighter future – to identify, apply for, and acquire scholarships and/or grants – such as The Gates Millennium Scholars Program (GMS) which is funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
GLC focuses on assisting the most needy students with financial aid and scholarship planning services. For example, we make special efforts to find and assign qualified advisors and/or translators to help young students whose parents are not fluent in English and/or who lack the capacity to provide the necessary help to their own children. Even though we want to help all outstanding students, our current resources in this harsh economic environment limit the number of fine students we can assist.
(3) Providing Professional College Planning Services.
Additionally, the GLC assists these exceptional, needy young PVSA honorees to identify, apply for, and secure admissions to the colleges of their choices. These young folks will not be asked to pay anything for these professional services for which many private-sector college planners charge thousands of dollars in today’s competitive college and graduate school admissions environment.
Tell Us Your Civic Service Stories
In order to ensure that we have the most accurate and up-to-date information on all our honorees’ civic services, we ask them to fill out our Volunteer’s Report. We also encourage honorees to attach to the Volunteer’s Report any additional information or stories they feel are relevant and important to share with us.
We strongly request that before any of our minor-age honorees share any personal information, they first obtain the proper consent or permission from their parents or guardians. We encourage parents and guardians to communicate this information to us.
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If you have any questions, please contact us.
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Global Leaders, Inc. (GL) is a non-profit, tax-exempt, public charity corporation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (www.IRS.gov). As a world-class educational and leadership development charity organization committed to promoting and providing equal opportunities (especially for minority young scholars), GL welcomes and encourages the participations of all students, families, educators, advisors, volunteers, and community partners in all of its activities. GL also welcomes and requests volunteer service and financial contributions from all individuals and organizations sharing GL’s noble mission of helping young scholars achieve their greatest ambitions.
Please contact us for more information. |
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