Expanding Our Reach Annual Report
2012 • 2013
Reach the World Reach the World’s vision is to build a pipeline of globally-competent students and educators who will succeed in and steward the global community. RTW’s mission is to build our students’ college and career readiness by connecting them to volunteer mentors who are studying, working or exploring abroad. Through a structured program of online journalism, collaborative projects, and videoconferencing, our young students go on virtual journeys with their mentors – and expand their worldview and skills in the process.
What’s Inside 1 - Letter from Heather Halstead 2 - Reach the World at a glance 4 - Stories from the field 6 - A Major Replication Grant from the Pinkerton Foundation 7 - International Expansion: Reach the World Goes to Rio! 8 - Meet our team 9 - Staff, Board, and Partners 10 - Annual Financial Statement
Dear Friends, Reach the World’s September 2012 – August 2013 program year has been a year of growth for the organization!
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In November, Reach the World received an HP Catalyst Leadership Fund Award for a collaborative project with the Center for Digital Inclusion, which is based in Rio de Janeiro. Our collaborative project, Earning a Global Community Leader Badge: An Online Course for Global Competence, will bring the RTW program to disadvantaged youth in Rio in preparation for global events such as the 2016 Olympics.
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In January, the Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Foundation selected Reach the World as its partner in developing a global career awareness program for high school youth in the U.S. and abroad.
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In March, Reach the World’s former Director of Partnerships, Tonia Lovejoy, launched The Beautiful Nation Project. Beginning in 2014, this model program in digital education will revive the successful Voyage of Makulu brand, first launched by RTW in 1998.
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In June, the Pinkerton Foundation granted Reach the World a major replication grant for our STEM afterschool program, the “GeoTech Club”, which will serve up to 15 additional sites during 2013-2014.
The pages that follow will provide more information about the collaborations that are making this year such a special one for Reach the World. With your continuing support, we are confident that our mission to provide college- and career-focused global mentoring to all youth will thrive in the coming year. Sincerely,
Heather Halstead, Executive Director
Reach the World - Annual Report 2012 - 2013
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2012-2013 AT A GLANCE
Classrooms School Day - 25 classrooms Afterschool - 28 classrooms Summer School - 25 classrooms Online - 15 classrooms
93 Classrooms experienced RTW
Interns Fall 2012 8 Interns
Spring 2013 11 Interns
Approximately 1200 hours (aggregate) over 16 weeks
Approximately 1900 hours (aggregate) over 18 weeks
Summer Staff 11 Interns 720 Hours (aggregate) over 6 weeks
30 Interns gave over 3,800 hours 2
Reach the World - Annual Report 2012 - 2013
Travelers
47 + 60 +19 (fall 2012)
(spring 2013)
(summer 2013)
154 Travelers visted 52 countries
Editors
408 192
Total Hours Fall 2012
Total Hours Spring 2013
48
Total Hours Summer 2013
106 Editors volunteered 648 hours 3
Stories From the Field Kyerrah Hines, Citizen School Teacher Lead and BELL Enrichment Educator, RTW Teacher, Spring 2013 As a teacher I enjoyed my apprenticeship semester with RTW. I had the opportunity to engage in learning and explore new material alongside my students. As one who treasures traveling, having an outlet to obtain knowledge on a variety of regions, cultures, and traditions has been part of an awesome experience with RTW. My perception of student learning with Reach the World is simply giving students a larger outlook to the world; life outside of their “norm”, in many instances in a part of the world they may have never explored if not for RTW. An extremely unique and engaging part of RTW was students being able to converse with our travelers via Skype. My students were always thrilled and looked forward to the calls, preparing themselves with research and questions for the travelers.
I will be thrilled to work with RTW again. I strongly believe the program provides an authentic learning experience. During my time with RTW, I learned and enhanced an extremely fundamental skill that contributed to my classroom’s culture. I learned to incorporate my students’ diverse backgrounds and knowledge of other parts of the world into our daily learning community. I will be thrilled to work with RTW again. I strongly believe the program provides an authentic learning experience. RTW does a great job exploring the world in an educating but yet extremely fun and hands on manner. Working with RTW’s intern Sofia Desenberg and Program Manager Alice Forsythe have definitely contributed to my experience with RTW. They made the semester a comfortable, and easy one. Sofia led an outstanding and very enriching apprenticeship for the students at Bronx Writing Academy. It has truly been my pleasure.
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In addition to an amazing apprenticeship semester, my students were informed (through RTW) of an amazing scholarship opportunity. With much time and dedication to the application process, Leandra Torres was granted a travel scholarship to explore the British Virgin Islands for part of her summer. I am thrilled to have been a part of seeing Leandra off to a once in a lifetime experience. It has been beyond what words can explain to see an individual rewarded in such a major way. Thank you REACH THE WORLD!
Sofia Desenberg, Fordham University, RTW Intern 2012 & 2013 I was an International Studies major with an interest in working in the non-profit sector, so the mission of RTW perfectly aligned with both my academic focus and my professional ambitions. I learned about the internship through a co-worker from my past position as a tutor and decided to apply! At RTW, I gained valuable in-classroom experience as well as off-site leadership and communication skills. I was tasked with leading day-time and after-school lessons on global awareness, cross-cultural exchange, geography, and even international social and political issues with students as young as five and as old as fourteen. My coursework at Fordham tended to directly compliment my activity at RTW. My knowledge of international affairs and organizations allowed me to easily supplement the lessons and meet the needs of teachers. I remember walking into a third grade class and being greeted with “Ms. Sofia, if China has a president, does that mean it is a democracy like us?” Another seventh grader asked, “So you are telling me RTW can help me become a diplomat?” I answered no and yes respectively. I also gained experience as the main point of contact between students, educators, and travelers. I learned lots of multi-tasking skills as I was constantly juggling communication between many people and working on different projects. I was consistently pushed to explore
Reach the World - Annual Report 2012 - 2013
new possibilities when it came to bringing information and teaching techniques into the classrooms I perceive my experience in NYC classrooms - at a total of four different schools and eight different classes - as an advantage when it comes to working in education. I find that even Teach for America applicants rarely have inclassroom experience before they apply, and after working directly with students and teachers, I feel that I have a strengthened understanding of the field of education. Furthermore, I see how partnerships between schools and non-profits function.
I spent two years with RTW. I love being able to discuss the unique mission of the organization to professional contacts and am very proud to be able to cite it as my current position. The organization always earns an eyebrow raise from whomever I am talking to, and captures interest.
Another seventh grader asked, “So you are telling me RTW can help me become a diplomat?�
Class at Bronx Writing Academy with Kyerrah Hines (far left) and Sofia Desenberg (far right)
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A Major Replication Grant from the Pinkerton Foundation In the fall of 2010, Reach the World received a grant to participate in HP’s Catalyst Initiative, a global social innovation program designed to develop more effective approaches to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education worldwide. Reach the World’s project for the three-year HP Catalyst Initiative was the GeoTech Club at PS/MS 218 in the Bronx, NY. This successful model for STEM in afterschool combines global digital mentoring from near-age mentors with visits from local experts and hands-on STEM projects. It takes the pressure off afterschool educators to be STEM experts, while ensuring that disadvantaged youth gain access to STEM mentors and career awareness. “The custom of traveling and sharing stories makes the leap into the digital age,” explains Seventh Grade student Aaliyah James, club member. “Last semester, we actually had the chance to ‘visit’ Japan! Yuko Igarashi is a female traveler who studies brain science, cognition, and the human body as a Gilman Scholar at the University of Nagoya in Japan. She, like various travelers, has inspired many of us to study the human body - a very complex system.” Through mentoring connections like this, RTW’s GeoTech youth became inspired to engage in the STEM disciplines, and produced STEM culminating projects.
Reach the World will partner with YMCA, BELL and the New York Hall of Science during its expansion. Together with its partners, RTW’s goal is to motivate student interest in STEM and help create a pipeline for underrepresented students leading from middle school to STEM careers.
The custom of traveling and sharing stories makes the leap into the digital age “The GeoTech Clubs offer disadvantaged young people the opportunity to go on virtual journeys with a STEM mentor and participate in hands-on activities that create connections between their school work and STEM careers,” said Rick Smith, President of The Pinkerton Foundation . “Thanks to organizations like Reach the World, more young people are being exposed to the wonders and excitement of science and technology.”
This successful demonstration program is ready for replication! In June 2013, Reach the World’s GeoTech afterschool program model received a competitive replication grant from the Pinkerton Foundation to expand to ten additional sites in 2013-2014.
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Reach the World - Annual Report 2012 - 2013
International Expansion: Reach the World Goes to Rio! Reach the World has an international outlook, but its operations have traditionally been based in the United States. We are pleased to announce that 2013-2014 will mark RTW’s first international replication. Beginning in September 2013, RTW will provide curriculum services to youth in Rio de Janeiro’s favela communities, in partnership with the Center for Digital Inclusion. The Center for Digital Inclusion and Reach the World have received an HP Catalyst Leadership Fund Award for their collaborative project titled Earning a Global Community Leader Badge: An Online Course for Global Competence. The HP Catalyst Leadership Fund Award is an extension of HP’s ongoing Catalyst Initiative, a global social innovation program designed to develop more effective approaches to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education worldwide.
CDI and Reach the World will merge their two specialties: CDI’s 60+ digital inclusion sites in Rio de Janeiro, and RTW’s global competence and mentoring program. The result will be an integrative program designed to address a rising need. This project will reach 2,000+ youth in CDI’s 60 digital inclusion centers in Rio starting in 2014. CDI and RTW envision an eventual worldwide scale for this project. The collaboration encompasses their organizational strengths and incorporates lessons learned while working in the HP Catalyst Initiative in the New Learner Consortium.
CDI-RTW students will be equipped to seize, benefit from, and serve as competent hosts to the influx of business opportunities associated with the 2016 Rio Olympics. The driving purpose of this collaboration is to develop a model global competence curriculum to prepare youth (14-18 yrs. old) in disadvantaged communities in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to interact with the international community. CDI-RTW students will be equipped to seize, benefit from, and serve as competent hosts to the influx of business opportunities associated with the 2016 Rio Olympics.
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Meet Our Team Reach the World is growing! We are pleased to welcome four new members to our team. Alice Forsythe
Christine Maloney
Program Manager
Program Manager
Alice Forsythe attended Rider University in Lawrenceville, NJ where she majored in Global Studies and French and minored in Political Science. Motivated by the opportunity to further develop her French, she studied abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris and worked in France for several summers. After undergraduate studies, Alice joined the U.S. Peace Corps in Niger, West Africa where she worked as a Youth Education volunteer. She graduated New York University with a M.A. in International Education. She first joined Reach the World first as a Global Classroom Intern. She notes: “Global learning has highly important educational value for students today. Reach the World is delivering that invaluable experience to students who may not have opportunities to explore the world on their own. I am so inspired to contribute to that mission by working as a Program Manager in NYC.”
Christine Maloney recently joined our New York City office in the capacity of Program Manager. She is very excited to be part of the team! She earned an undergraduate degree in Anthropology from Barnard College. Following graduation, Christine spent two years teaching at West Island College International Class Afloat. Class Afloat is a study abroad program for high school students; students enroll to live, work, and learn aboard a tall ship for a year. After two years at sea, Christine is eager to continue her career in global education on solid ground. “Reach the World is exactly the opportunity I was hoping to find,” Christine states. “At Reach the World, I can support educators as they empower youth with the foundation to be active participants in our global community.”
Margaret Huckeba
Jeffrey Jones
Board Member
Board Member
Margaret A. E. Huckeba has been Sr. Director of E-Commerce at Aéropostale, Inc. since April 2012. Maggie has over 20 years of retail, consumer, marketing and e-commerce focused experience. Prior to joining Aéropostale, Ms. Huckeba held senior positions at Sears Holdings, Gap, Inc. and Arthur Andersen, LLP. She received a dual Bachelors degree from the University of California, Davis in Economics and Political Science. Raised internationally, Maggie is passionate about sparking our youth’s interest in the changing global community and using new technology to broaden their view of the world.
Jeffrey Jones is the Manager of Marketing and Production at the Community Service Society of New York (www.cssny.org). Before his recent move to NYC he was a media consultant for the Texas Association of Community Health Centers as well as a freelance producer for public radio, sound engineer, composer, teacher, theatrical sound designer, and documentarian. Jeffrey holds and MFA from Boston University. Jeff is excited to help further the important work being done at Reach the World.
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Reach the World - Annual Report 2012 - 2013
Boards of Directors & Partners Reach the World Board of Directors Bob Altman, President, Handmade TV Jane Atherton, Managing Director, Financial Institutions Group, Citigroup Heather Halstead, Executive Director, Reach the World
Reach the World Advisory Board Dr. Robert Ballard, President, Institute for Exploration at Mystic Robert N. Downey, Senior Director, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
Maggie Huckeba, Director of Buying, Aeropostale
Heidi Hayes Jacobs, Ed.D., President, Curriculum Designers, Inc.
Pat Hedley, Managing Director, General Atlantic LLC
George Kalan, President, Orien Ventures, Inc.
Katy Huberty, Managing Director, Research, Morgan Stanley
Thomas Stark, Former Board Chairman
Maggie Huckeba, Director of Buying, Aéropostale and p.s. from Aéropostale Jeffrey Jones, Manager of Marketing and Production, Community Service Society of New York Morgan McKenney, COO of Treasury and Trade Solutions, Global Transaction Services, Citigroup D. Grant Vingoe, Partner, Arnold & Porter LLP (Board Chairman)
Clinton A.Vince, Partner, Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, LLP Richard Wiese, Explorer and Host of ABC’s “Born to Explore” Mark Zvonkovic, Partner, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP
Partners BELL
Reach the World Young Professionals Board Corey Dong, Manager, Business Consulting, Alvarez & Marsal Afshin Galestan, CPA, Assurance Associate, Ernst and Young Gleneil Gayle, Independent Consultant B. Douglas Henry, Manager, Business Consulting, Alvarez & Marsal
The Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program CDI The Fulbright Program New York Hall of Science US First YMCA
Jason Kies, Senior Manager, KPMG Erin Schaffner,Vice President, Finance, Time Warner Cable
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Annual Financial Statement
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Reach the World - Annual Report 2012 - 2013
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Reach the World – New York (Headquarters) 222 Broadway 19th floor New York, NY 10007 Reach the World – Washington, DC 5110 ½ MacArthur Blvd. NW Washington, DC 20016
Tel (212) 288-6987 Fax (866) 411-5090 www.reachtheworld.org