Students build upon their passions and strengths to create positive change as leaders of today.

Our Impact

Transgenerational Empowerment as Global Citizens

100,000+ Students From Over 100 Nationalities

13-year Track Record of Measurable Impact

Student Led Local-Global GIN Projects

150+ Student Led GIN Conferences

GIN Ethos

Engage empathy as Global Citizens

Make our work effective and sustainable

Transgenerational community empowerment

Answer our call to action as resilient leaders of today

Value life-long learning as a means to create positive change

Innovate socio-environmental awareness, expression & action

The GIN Project Process: Youth-Led Empowerment

Youth empowerment and learning are valued and nurtured every step of the way; from youth led passion driven local-global projects, to building a sustainable youth led GIN school community culture, to youth led and designed gatherings of change-makers (GIN conferences).  Together we create a communal identity that not only believes that change for the better is possible, but that students, are capable of MAKING sustainable change. We recognize we have both local and global impact.  GIN is a growing global community made up of resilient change-makers who are dedicated to solving global issues through local communal empathetic action; unencumbered by fear of failure.

We ask students to start their journey to self-empowerment by identifying as global citizens and engaging their passion within the context of local-global issues.  As engaged Global Issues Network Members and GIN Project Leaders, students gain an understanding of their own talents and abilities to express themselves as leaders while, forming strong ties and relationships with their community; growing their network and our collective ability to leverage empowerment through collaborative education and problem-solving. This in turn, builds the foundation for lifelong civic engagement and leadership.

Real Challenges & Lasting Impact

GIN projects are designed with the purpose of understanding oneself, one’s community, our planet systems and our collective power to make positive change within all of these contexts as activated lifelong learners.  

A GIN Project can take many forms. It is an expression of passion and a result of effective collaboration.

A GIN project is focused on working to sustainably address local-global issues in our direct community. GIN student teams develop GIN projects through dialogue and research within their self-identified passion and community.  Student teams are expected to create a sustainable GIN project based on community identified needs and issues while incorporating and tying together the following thinking frameworks to effect change: historical methodologies, cultural perspectives, empathetic action, as well as sustainable design and systems thinking.  

Within this process, students formulate their own understanding, expression, and implementation of local solutions to global problems.

GIN Projects are student led and educator supported. We ask students to seek out mentors who will ask the tough questions and share their wisdom as adept community organizers and leaders. Educators are asked to act as mentors who wholeheartedly believe in their students’ ability to lead, learn and rise to the challenge.
GIN Schools provide a supportive space and platform for our GIN Project Teams to actively learn and realize their role as global citizens committed to empathetic action within their local-global community.  Youth led and educator supported GIN Projects and School Communities rely on the passion and the combined energies of stakeholders to collaboratively succeed. We see GIN Schools as epicenters for change wherein strategies and methods for change can be studied, measured, implemented, harnessed and replicated as a catalyst for global dialogue and action.

GIN Conferences Empower

Each year, student-led and designed GIN conferences bring together whole host school communities, visiting GIN students, community leaders and GIN educators with change-makers, experts of all ages, NGOs, and representatives from educational organizations.  Schools typically host the GIN conferences have ranged in size from 100 to 1,000 participants. With a growing number of local conferences each year the network is building the strength of its global action and dialogue.

With students at the helm, we have developed an interactive learning experience that integrates climate change activism, design thinking, community building, carbon emissions awareness and offset through conscientious living and whole school collaboration.  GIN conferences nurture cooperation and collaboration.

A Global Issues Network Conference brings together global citizens who are addressing local-global issues.  We challenge students to design every element of the conference with sustainable conscientious learning, living, and culture in mind: from outreach to local and regional schools, to the conference carbon footprint calculation and offset, to art as an expression of activism, to food justice and the mindful meal, to youth led and facilitated workshops focused on leadership, collaboration, sustainable solutions and learning to be a changemaker; all of this has and continues to grow a culture and community of global citizens dedicated to empathetic action.

 

Every student project team crafts a workshop to present to their peers from around the globe. Each student led workshop delivers a message based on their passions, strategies, solutions and challenges within the process of developing a project in partnership with their local community.  This enables students to experience what it means to be an expert, a teacher, a student, and most importantly an empowered collaborative leader making a difference in their community.  This student empowerment is lasting.
GIN Conferences are student led and educator supported. We ask students to seek out mentors who will ask the tough questions and share their wisdom as adept community organizers and leaders. Educators are asked to act as mentors who wholeheartedly believe in their students’ ability to lead, learn and rise to the challenge.

Student-led conferences are supported by school communities across the globe.  Regional and local conferences are growing and responding to their “Call to Action!”  Students from more than 100 nations on 5 continents have presented their work at both local and regional Global Issues Network Conferences.

School communities have supported GIN as GIN Conference Hosts since its inception. GIN Conferences are held on school campuses around the world. GIN Conferences were created to teach students how to bring changemakers (students and adults) together to engage as activated global citizens and encourage trans-regional and global problem-solving. Students design and lead learning experiences that develop bonds and foster the cross-pollination of solutions.

Keynote speakers and participating NGOs, chosen by the Student Planning Committee add to our collective wisdom and dialogue through the course of the conference.  Keynoters are seen as peers and mentors in creating change within the GIN Conference setting.