On Monday this week, laughter and screams erupted from a school cafeteria in Washington DC as two student teams competed in telling stories about pressing international issues.
The students, 7th and 8th graders at Saint Thomas More Catholic Academy (STM) in southeast DC’s Ward 8, were participating in Learning Life’s pilot Global Storytelling Challenge in partnership with STM. “We live in one world, we all like stories, and stories can change the world,” Learning Life Director Paul Lachelier told the students assembled to view the students’ stories. Research on storytelling suggests that this art form can improve student engagement, visual memory, information recall and language skills as well as create a more welcoming and tolerant learning environment. This Challenge was a first experiment in storytelling for Learning Life and STM intended to encourage youth interest and learning about international affairs.
The students participating in the Challenge met for six weekly sessions in October-December at STM with two Learning Life teachers, Rujjares Hans and Nichole Hutchins, both Master’s students in the International Education Program at George Washington University. During the sessions, Ms. Hutchins and Ms. Hans first guided the students through videos and discussions to learn about various international issues that impact health, including climate change, poverty, violence against women, child labor, and human trafficking. They then formed two teams, and each team chose an issue that interested them most and crafted a story to help inform their fellow STM students about that issue.
One team presented a story about a young Cambodian girl compelled to work in a village brick factory rather than go to school to help support her family. The other team told a story of a young Sudanese girl whose mother is tricked into delivering her daughter into slavery as a domestic laborer in Brazil. Their stories were evaluated by three judges with substantial experience in storytelling: “The Moth” storyteller Nick Baskerville, Vera Oyé Yaa-Anna, founder of Oyé Palaver Hut, and John Johnson, founder and artistic director of Verbal Gymnastics Theater Company. The audience, composed of STM teachers, staff, and students in Grades 2-8, then had the opportunity to make some noise in support of the team they thought performed better. The story about the Sudanese girl won the judges’ critical acclaim and the audiences’ enthusiastic screams, but both teams were awarded certificates and small cash rewards for completing the pilot Challenge.
The student storytellers and STM staff enjoyed the Challenge. “The best part is that I had fun acting with my friends and learning new facts about the world,” said one of the student storytellers in a post-Challenge survey. “STM is thrilled to have participated in this first Global Storytelling Challenge, and we look forward to working with Learning Life on the next Challenge in 2019,” said STM Principal Gerald Smith.
In coming years, pending funding, Learning Life may expand the Challenge to involve more youth in Ward 8 and possibly other communities in the world with which we work in a more competitive international storytelling contest with bigger prizes. Stay tuned!
Intern Spotlight: Yaxeni Valero
This is the second of two spotlights on our fall semester 2018 student interns. Learning Life’s students this fall are assisting with curriculum development, research, and youth international learning activities as part of our Citizen Diplomacy Initiative (CDI). Yaxeni Valero, interviewed below, is helping with gathering educational content on mentoring, storytelling and health, assisting with health-learning youth activities, and more.
Where were you born and raised?
I was born and raised in Houston, Texas.
What school do you attend, and what is your year and major there?
I am currently a sophomore at Georgetown University pursuing a major in Global Health and a minor in Psychology.
What do you like to do in your free time?
In my free time, I enjoy volunteering in the community, including packing meals for the homeless, and teaching science to children. I also really enjoy trying new foods and finding new places to eat out. I’ve discovered and really enjoy sushi and Korean beef bowls.
Is there a life experience you have had that has particularly shaped you thus far? If so, what is it, and how has it shaped you?
When I was in middle school, I can remember helping my mother study for her citizenship test by testing her with index cards. At a young age, I did not understand the true magnitude of the situation and how impactful it was for my mother. As I got older, I began to hear about immigration issues and learn about politics. More recently, as I learned about Central American immigrant families being torn apart at the US border, my mind drifted to that memory. Something in me shifted. I learned to appreciate what I was once too young and uneducated to understand. This shaped me into a more open-minded, education-seeking individual. I always wanted to do good, but now, I want to truly learn as well — not just learning from a textbook, but learning that connects those textbooks to real life around me and helps me make a difference.
What are your career plans?
In the future, I wish to travel to poorer, undeveloped countries so that I can further understand the differences that are encountered in places where resources are scarce and poverty is high. I wish to look at health care and disease and understand how this shapes people’s lives and how it can be alleviated or prevented.
Why did you choose to intern with Learning Life?
I chose to intern with learning life because I value education. It’s a powerful tool that gives people more control over their own lives. I also value Learning Life’s work to help close educational gaps that exist because of the lack of resources in some communities. I believe educating youth is the definition of a better tomorrow, and that making them more curious and educated individuals will help bring change.
What is the most beautiful place you have seen on Earth, and why is it so beautiful?
The most beautiful place I have seen on earth is Aguascalientes, a city in central Mexico. My parents were born and raised there, and although I have not been there in in about seven years I have great memories of it. This is a place enriched with culture and community, including lots of celebrations like the Quinceañera. I love walking around when I am there and visiting all the animals, including horses, cows, pigs, goats and chickens, in the ranches nearby.
Globalization, Inequality & Opportunity
Thanks to Learning Life intern Thalia Navia for her assistance in the research for this post. Some data in this post was updated on May 13, 2020.
Globalization is increasing, and for good reason. Advances in transport and communication technologies are making it easier for people to travel and talk across national borders. This leads to greater trade and movement across borders, which in turn brings people more and cheaper goods and services as well as more opportunities to explore, learn, collaborate and prosper.
Globalization – simply defined, more connections and interdependence between countries – is driven to a great extent by businesses searching for profits. When businesses are able to sell their goods and services to more consumers abroad, they expand their potential for growth and profits. This helps explain why pay tends to be higher in international trade-directed than non-trade directed jobs (Griswold 2016), and why international jobs – like customer service representatives, market analysts, digital map-makers, language interpreters and translators, and airline and hospitality workers – are proliferating (Sentz 2016, Peltier 2018).
Given our world’s globalizing trend, persisting socio-economic inequities as to who participates in and leads foreign affairs threatens to further marginalize already disadvantaged groups, and undermine the representativeness of international business and policy-making. In the United States, this is especially true for African and Hispanic Americans, who comprise 14% and 17% of the U.S. population, respectively, yet who represent just:
5% and 7.5% of U.S. college students who study abroad (Carr 2014)
4% and 5.1% of U.S. Foreign Service officers (Miller 2015)
2% and 3% of executives of Fortune 500 companies (Jones 2017)
More recently, in 2020, the U.S. government’s Government Accountability Office reported that Hispanic Americans represent just 7% of the U.S. State Department’s full-time, permanent workforce, and minorities and women were most poorly represented at management and executive levels (GAO 2020).
Unfortunately, race and ethnicity dovetail closely with income and wealth, and Hispanic and African Americans have substantially less of both than European and Asian Americans on average (Peterson Foundation 2018). This makes it more difficult for blacks and Latinos to take advantage of travel abroad opportunities that help stimulate interest in the wider world.
While some individuals can overcome disadvantages to pursue successful international careers, it is much more difficult for marginalized groups to do so without government policies – like annual grants for travel, study and work abroad in high school and college, and consistent funding for effective international engagement programs at all ages – that widen opportunity on a large scale. Of course, there are a number of U.S. programs that fund international study, exchanges and travel abroad, such as the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange & Study Abroad Program, the Critical Language Scholarship Program, and the Youth Ambassadors Program. However, the number of spots or grants offered are often quite limited, and those who take advantage of these programs – even programs meant exclusively to benefit ethnic and racial minorities, like the Thomas Pickering Fellowship and the Charles Rangel Summer Enrichment Program – tend to come from economically relatively privileged backgrounds.
Reformers who wish to open the world to marginalized peoples cannot create programs and expect the disadvantaged to throng to them. If they do, they will continue to disproportionately attract privileged applicants. Inequality segregates the disadvantaged and tends to narrow their geographic horizons, so they are much less inclined to take advantage of opportunities to engage with a world so foreign to them. Thus, reformers must go to the marginalized, opening opportunities in direct and sustained ways in their otherwise segregated communities.
It takes time and an accumulation of experiences – conversations, books, magazines, games, films, travel, classes, volunteering, internships, work — to understand, care about, and act effectively in the world. That’s an accumulation the advantaged are more likely to gather, little by little, as they grow up. Absent government policies to provide marginalized groups with such bridge-building opportunities in their own communities, nonprofits can do much to open the world to the disadvantaged. This includes mentorship, field trips, games, documentary discussions, volunteering, virtual exchanges, and other opportunities that can enrich marginalized neighborhoods, and connect the traveled and untraveled, with or without costly travel abroad.
Globalization holds much promise, but whether that promise is fulfilled for all rather than a few depends on clear-eyed purpose, sustained effort, and bridge-building to connect the marginalized to the world.
This is the first of two spotlights on our fall 2018 student interns. Learning Life’s students this fall are assisting with curriculum development, research, and youth international learning activities as part of our Citizen Diplomacy Initiative (CDI). Lynnette Lomoki Kitcher, interviewed below, is helping with youth activities, gathering readings for mentors, researching storytelling’s impact, and more.
Where were you born and raised?
I was born in Washington, DC but raised in Woodbridge, Virginia. My parents were both born and raised in Ghana, located in West Africa. My mother came to the United States 27 years ago before my older brother was born. My father has worked for the United Nations overseas his entire life so he comes to visit us 1-2 times every year if he is given the opportunity. I am blessed to say that being born and raised in the United States and growing up in a Ghanaian household has exposed me to two different cultures that I can eventually pass on to future generations.
What school do you attend, and what is your year and major there?
I am a graduating senior at Howard University pursuing a bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in business administration. When I started back in August 2013, I had absolutely no clue what I wanted to do. As time progressed though, I developed an interest in both business and political science, and thought to myself, “why not do both?”
What do you like to do in your free time?
In my free time, I love to travel. I believe that there is so much out there in the world to explore and learn. In the United States, I’ve been to Florida, California, New York, Texas, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey and North and South Carolina. Outside the USA, I’ve been to Ghana, Jamaica, St. Maarten, and the Cayman Islands. Also, I am big on family, so I tend to spend a lot of time with my mother, brother, and my father when he’s home.
Is there a life experience you have had that has particularly shaped you thus far? If so, what is it, and how has it shaped you?
A life experience that has shaped me was when I visited Ghana for the very first time at 8 years old. I watched how kids my age (at the time) and younger were walking around with no shoes, clothes, and/or food, seeking help in the village areas. It made me appreciate life and everything that I have been given. My parents had to work extremely hard to get to where they are today and without their strength and courage, I would not be the person that I am today. This motivated me to work hard in school so that I can develop a great career and be able to take care of my parents one day.
What are your career plans?
Upon graduation this December, I plan to go to law school for international law in the fall of next year. With that, I want to establish my own law firm and develop different strategies to help protect the safety and human rights of individuals across the world.
Why did you choose to intern with Learning Life?
I chose to intern with Learning Life because I see it as an opportunity to learn and grow. Learning Life focuses on connecting families and teaching them about different cultures across the globe, so it correlates with my career plans.
What is the most beautiful place you have seen on Earth, and why is it so beautiful?
The most beautiful place that I have seen on Earth is the small country of St. Maarten in the Caribbean Sea. This island country is filled with warm, welcoming and beautiful people. That welcoming atmosphere gave me that sense of home. The beaches were amazing: the water was clear as day, the sand was white with lots of seashells, and the breeze was light and warm. The food and music were amazing. I loved the spiciness of their food as well as their fried plantains and sweet potato fries. It was a great experience that I would do again!
The students, 7th and 8th graders at Saint Thomas More Catholic Academy (STM) in southeast DC’s Ward 8, were participating in Learning Life’s pilot Global Storytelling Challenge in partnership with STM. “We live in one world, we all like stories, and stories can change the world,” Learning Life Director Paul Lachelier told the students assembled to view the students’ stories. Research on storytelling suggests that this art form can improve student engagement, visual memory, information recall and language skills as well as create a more welcoming and tolerant learning environment. This Challenge was a first experiment in storytelling for Learning Life and STM intended to encourage youth interest and learning about international affairs.
teachers, Rujjares Hans and Nichole Hutchins, both Master’s students in the International Education Program at George Washington University. During the sessions, Ms. Hutchins and Ms. Hans first guided the students through videos and discussions to learn about various international issues that impact health, including climate change, poverty, violence against women, child labor, and human trafficking. They then formed two teams, and each team chose an issue that interested them most and crafted a story to help inform their fellow STM students about that issue.
One team presented a story about a young Cambodian girl compelled to work in a village brick factory rather than go to school to help support her family. The other team told a story of a young Sudanese girl whose mother is tricked into delivering her daughter into slavery as a domestic laborer in Brazil. Their stories were evaluated by three judges with substantial experience in storytelling: “The Moth” storyteller Nick Baskerville, Vera Oyé Yaa-Anna, founder of Oyé Palaver Hut, and John Johnson, founder and artistic director of Verbal Gymnastics Theater Company. The audience, composed of STM teachers, staff, and students in Grades 2-8, then had the opportunity to make some noise in support of the team they thought performed better. The story about the Sudanese girl won the judges’ critical acclaim and the audiences’ enthusiastic screams, but both teams were awarded certificates and small cash rewards for completing the pilot Challenge.
acting with my friends and learning new facts about the world,” said one of the student storytellers in a post-Challenge survey. “STM is thrilled to have participated in this first Global Storytelling Challenge, and we look forward to working with Learning Life on the next Challenge in 2019,” said STM Principal Gerald Smith.
