Tips for Corps Staff: Beef up Your Own Network

During their term, corps members will look to staff of their service corps for training, coaching and guidance. They may also want to rely on their networks.

This post is for program staff of service corps. (Please send a link to staff in your network if they don’t already read the blog — thanks!)

Your own networks of colleagues, host agency contacts, board of directors, volunteers, funders, and others can play a valuable role in the lives of your corps members. Your own relationships can be helpful in meeting your program’s objectives, as well as expanding your corps members’s professional networks.

While meeting new professionals will give your corps members a leg up in their career transition post-term, recognize that relationship-building happens all year long. Your active support is necessary throughout the term—not just at the end, when career transition training is inevitable.

When possible, bring in alumni and community leaders to meet your corps members and see them at work. Consider the variety of ways you can connect your corps members with alumni and other community leaders:

• Early-term gathering introducing current corps members with alumni still in the area
• Panel discussions on grad school or professional paths featuring your colleagues with relevant experience
• Informal reception bringing your board together with current and former corps members
• Skill-building workshops facilitated by the experts in your network
• Community service projects, led by corps members, bringing together community leaders, alumni, and others
• Graduation event that allows corps members to mingle with the parents of other corps members and host agency staff
• Opportunities throughout the term for your corps members to connect with each other, and participants in other corps throughout the region

If your corps does not yet have an organized alumni group, consider establishing one (it can pay off financially, as you probably already know). If you do have a formal or informal alumni network, make sure your corps members know about it throughout the term of service. Some alumni programs have a structured mentoring program that match alums with current members—that is more challenging for smaller programs, but it is something to think about.

Share your knowledge of professional associations that corps members can connect with for the health of their projects and their own professional development, as well as for their career transition. If you have the time to make inroads to any of these groups yourself (i.e. setting up a discounted membership for national service participants), your corps members will thank you.

Continually seek new contacts for yourself, keeping in mind the breadth of needs of your own professional growth, your program, and your current and future corps members.

Develop ties to your local college career centers and look to career staff for support for your corps members seeking specific job search skills.

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Equal Justice Works Launches Podcast on Student Loan Debt

If you are graduating from college soon and worried that your career options are limited due to your staggering student loan burden, you may find some relief.

Partnering with American University’s Washington College of Law, Equal Justice Works has launched its first podcast show on the topic of student debt relief. Equal Justice Works is the organization for public interest law and law schools, and has been a long-time co-sponsor of Idealist’s Graduate Degree Fairs for the Public Good.

One of the biggest hurdles for any person entering a public service career is student loan debt – and law school grads may face the worst of it. In 2007, Congress passed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act (CCRAA) which forgives certain federal student loans for people in qualified public service – after they’ve made 120 (about ten years’ of) loan payments.

But understanding the law, and how it applies to you, is challenging. Equal Justice Works already offers information on its website and blog to help people wade through the morass of complicated fine print. The podcast—The Student Debt Relief Series, available on iTunes—gives you the nuances of the Act in plain English. EJW’s Heather Jarvis, a public interest lawyer herself, knows the law inside and out. She offers answers to some frequently asked (and frequently overlooked) questions about using the Act for people coming out of school in the past couple of years.

Although EJW focuses on law school issues in general, the first podcast episode is clearly accessible to any person pursuing a public service career. Its creators hope to feature a new show monthly on topics like loan repayment assistance programs (including statewide and law school programs, etc.) and the tax implications of the CCRAA.

After the New Year, we’re excited to announce that the EJW blog—led by Aaron Pickering—will join the Idealist Grad School Blog Project.

This blog post was originally published on the Idealist.org homepage blog.

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Corps Finances: Spend Readjustment Allowance Wisely

$6K seems like a lot of money when you’ve been earning $1K —per year.

Peace Corps Volunteers take home about $6,000 at the end of their term — broken into two payments. You may travel with that money, and take an around-the-world kind of flight path home. You earned the money and you deserve to have fun with it if you want.

But if you are coming straight back to the States, haven’t gotten a job lined up, and want to use the money more strategically, consider:

1. The cost of an apartment in the place where you’d like to live.  Triple the monthly rent to estimate how much you’ll have to plunk down for deposit, plus first and last months’s rent — that’s typically what you’ll owe your landlord when you sign the lease if you are going to live alone. If you don’t have a car (and I don’t recommend buying one till you have to, to save money), remember that rent prices tend to be higher on bus and subway lines. (If your rent is $700, plan to use $2100 to get yourself into an apartment. That’s a third of your readjustment allowance—just for the keys to the apartment. Then $700/month thereafter.)
2. Also consider monthly utilities — which will depend partly on your tastes and the time of year. ($100/month.)
3. New clothes. The clothes you took with you into Peace Corps may be pretty threadbare by now (and you may have abandoned them overseas). If you disagree, please ask a trusted friend to give you their opinion — sometimes a person can wear an item too long to notice the holes and nubs themselves. Invest in some good interview outfits (think plain and conservative so you can wear them in a variety settings depending on how you accessorize). You may feel rich — but it’s best not to overspend. If you have clothes in storage see if they still fit — it may be more cost effective to have some items “taken in” rather that buy all-new. Although, some basic fashion trends may have changed in the past two years. ($200, if you buy a few good pieces from discount and consignment stores.)
4. Groceries and transportation costs for the duration of your job search. How much do you spend each month on groceries? Eating out? (You may need to do it once or twice to remember.) If you have a car, how much will you spend for a tune up initially, and gas? If you don’t have a car, how much will you spend on mass transit? ($500 during the first month.)
5. Finally, think about the things you need to make your job search possible: a cell phone? A laptop? If you have to buy these things, include them in your budget. ($1300, plus monthly internet and phone charges, about $100/month.)
6. Need new glasses and/or contact lenses? ($200)
7. Paying for Corps Care—Peace Corps’ health insurance extension? It’s free your first month, and $140 thereafter.
8. Student loans — deferring was fun while it lasted. (You will also find joy in paying the loan off, but that is for another blog post.) ($300/month)

Taken together, you’ve spent $4600 — just for your first month home and a few essentials. After you’ve taken care of the priorities, save as much as you can: you just don’t know how long the job search may last.

As you can tell, you don’t have a lot of room for shopping sprees, but at least you won’t have to go into debt. If you think that spending for extras on a credit card is a better answer — oh, you’ll be able to pay it off just as soon as you get that job — remember that we are (officially) in a recession, unemployment is high, and you may not want to play Russian roulette with your credit health. Spend what you can pay off right away and you’ll be in good shape.

For ideas about living on the cheap, check out my post on financial management for corps members. Also check out the book Idealist.org and the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) partnered on: Making a Difference: A Guide to Personal Profit in a Nonprofit World.

This blog post has been adapted from a section of the forthcoming Service Corps Companion to the Idealist.org Guide to Nonprofit Careers, due out this coming spring from Idealist.org.

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Quitting Early? The Corps Member’s Dilemma

A corps member wonders about leaving the service corps early.

Hi Amy,

My host site has offered me a full-time job.  I am trying to decide whether I want to just quit my national service term now and take the job, or ask the host organization wait until my term is up in February.  The dilemma, of course, is my education award.  Do you know if AmeriCorps ever pro-rates the educational award?  Are there any options that you might know of?

Of course, it might also be more profitable to take the job now, because I could probably make the amount of the educational award in a few months.

Thanks so much!

Signed,

Torn

Dear Torn,

Congratulations!  I am really glad that your host organization recognizes your hard work and talent.

Yikes, this is a tough question. There is little chance you would get any of your educational award. (Maybe if you were leaving because of a life-threatening illness in your family.)

I also think it would reflect negatively on your host organization to hire a corps member who isn’t finished with their term yet. Your organization would jeopardize getting new participants by hiring you on. I was hired by my boss at Idealist.org about three months before my AmeriCorps*VISTA Leader term ended – and he waited for me! I took his willingness to wait as a sign of respect for me and for AmeriCorps*VISTA.

I think asking your host organization to wait is the best option. In the long run you’ll feel more of a sense of accomplishment, and you won’t let down community partners who are expecting you to serve out your term.  If you ever need to apply to host corps members yourself, or you want to participate in the activities of your alumni group, you’ll be able to hold your head high.

If you decided to wait, and your organization agreed, maybe you could change your work plan enough to tackle some of the new job tasks, if they are related to the grant proposal submitted originally to fund your current service position.

On the other hand if you are facing more than just the typical economic hardship (i.e. if you are ruining your credit record or running up irreparable debt), the choice is also clear that you should accept the job offer. Also if your organization isn’t willing to wait for you, that might be another reason to seriously consider leaving your service year early – though again, it will not reflect well on the organization.

Regardless of what you decide, you can interpret the early job offer as a clear sign that you’ll readily find quality work when you do finish your term!

Most likely, once you start earning a regular salary you won’t feel like you missed out by waiting. If you started a salaried job tomorrow, you’d have little chance of socking away $4725 (the amount of your educational award) by February.

Good luck whatever you decide….

Amy

This blog post has been adapted from a section of the forthcoming Service Corps Companion to the Idealist.org Guide to Nonprofit Careers, due out this coming spring from Idealist.org.

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January is National Mentoring Month

From Change/Wire:

“ServiceNation is partnering with the Harvard School of Public Health, and Mentor, to promote one of the most rewarding, important, activities we can all do to help build a better future: mentoring. We are doing it because January is National Mentoring Month, and here’s how you can get involved. Thanks to the brilliant Jay Winsten at Harvard, the ad [to the left] will run in Newsweek and other publications. The fact that we got clearance from President-elect Obama to use him in the ad caught the attention of the New York Times, here. We are hoping to be able to run a video ad, too. Stay tuned. And while you do, go ahead and sign up for some mentoring!”

Search volunteer mentoring opportunities on Idealist.org.

Follow BeTheChangeInc on Twitter.

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Paul Schmitz Responds to Comments on National Service

Paul Schmitz—C.E.O. of Public Allies, and member of the Technology, Innovation and Government Reform working group for President-Elect Obama’s transition team—addresses comments submitted to Change.gov in a video released yesterday.

Read more about the new administration’s stance on service.

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Michelle: the Public Allies Connection

Biography of Michelle Obama offers insights into her work with Public Allies.

Liza Mundy has recently published her biography of the future first lady called Michelle: A Biography.

USA Today excerpted the book earlier this month. Below are some pieces of that excerpt, regarding both Obamas’s work with the national service corps Public Allies.

If Michelle was helpful to Barack, the converse was also true. In the early 1990s, Barack was on the founding board of Public Allies, a new nonprofit whose mission was to train young people to work in the nonprofit sector, with the hope of producing a fresh generation of public service leaders. The Chicago branch needed an executive director, and Obama suggested Michelle. In 1993, she was hired. Barack resigned from the board before she took over. …

According to Julian Posada, her deputy director at Public Allies, Michelle was as hardworking as her husband. Public Allies would soon become part of the Clinton administration’s AmeriCorps program, and she was determined that the Chicago branch would succeed and excel, which it did. Among other things, she was a zealous money raiser, and left the organization, three years after starting, with cash in the bank. “There was an intensity to her that — you know, this has got to work, this is a big vision, this isn’t easy,” recalls Posada. “Michelle’s intensity was like: we have to deliver.” He was impressed with her sleeves-up attitude. “I’m sure she came from a lot more infrastructure. There was no sense that this was a plush law firm, that’s all gone. It’s like, ‘Who’s going to lick envelopes today?’ Nothing was beneath her.”

One of the first orders of business was recruiting “allies,” young people who would spend ten months working in homeless shelters, city offices, public policy institutes, and other venues for public service. Allies were recruited from campuses and projects alike. Michelle knocked on doors in Cabrini Green, a notoriously rough public housing project, but also phoned friends to ask if they knew any public-spirited undergrads at Northwestern. “We would get kids from a very very lily-white campus to come sit down with inner-city kids, black, Hispanic, Asian,” says Posada. In addition to recruiting and managing allies, she had to raise funds from Chicago’s well-established foundations, competing with more established charities. As such, she had to be in touch with the old-money world of private philanthropy and the no money world of housing projects, moving easily between almost every world that existed in Chicago. …

Many allies found Michelle inspiring. “You kind of know when you’re in the presence of somebody who is really terrific,” says Jobi Petersen, who was in the first class of Chicago Allies. “I owed a lot to her. She’s really fair, she’s calm, she’s smart, and she’s balanced and she’s funny, she doesn’t take any crap. I get a little bit angry when I hear the thing about her being negative. She is the least negative person I’ve ever met. She is a can-do person.” Peterson remembers a time when “one of the allies was despairing about how difficult things were, or the world wasn’t bending their way, and [Michelle] would come back and say, ‘You know what, today you have to get up and do something you don’t love doing. If it’s helping people, it’s worth it.’ She had a way of making you feel you could do anything. Humor, personal style, warmth, she can be strong and tough and not come across as nega-tive. She’s got timing. She can pass you one look and you’d laugh.”

Public Allies has enjoyed the spotlight since the election due to its history with the Obamas in Chicago. Paul Schmitz, the program’s C.E.O., serves on the Technology, Innovation and Government Reform working group for President-Elect Obama’s transition team.

Public Allies is a 10-month service and leadership program that serves in 15 cities across the United States.  Corps members — called “Allies” — serve with nonprofits and universities to “create, improve and expand services that address diverse issues, including youth development, education, public health, economic development and the environment.”

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Podcast: City Year’s Col. Rob Gordon

Today we’re launching a new podcast series as part of the Idealist.org podcasts. Called “The New Service” podcast, the show will highlight service corps programs, people, and career paths.  It will be included along with the Idealist.org Careers Podcast feed.

Today’s guest on The New Service podcast is Colonel Robert L. Gordon, III, Senior Vice President of Civic Leadership at City Year. City Year is a national service program that enables people aged 17-24 make a difference in the lives of children and their communities. Corps members serve in one of 19 cities within the United States and South Africa. City Year is a national partner of AmeriCorps. It also plays a leadership role in the Voices for National Service and Service Nation.

Colonel Rob Gordon oversees programs that recruit and prepare new corps members, support corps alumni, and engage kids and teens in the work of City Year. He’s a graduate of West Point, Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School, the National War College, and the Army Command and General Staff College. As a White House Fellow from 1992-93, Rob helped with the establishment of AmeriCorps.

I talked with Rob about how City Year develops its corps members as leaders; how the program is unique among AmeriCorps programs; and about its long-standing partnership with The Timberland Company. We also talk about Rob’s own career path, involving decades of service to his country.

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Shays for top Peace Corps post?

Support emerges for outgoing Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) to fill Peace Corps director role under the new administration.

Shays served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Fiji (1968-70) and has been a career-long advocate of citizen service.

The entire Connecticut delegation to Congress is rallying for Shays to get the post, after Rep.-Elect Jim Hines (D) initially spoke out for Shays. From the blog at TheHill.com:

“As I’ve noted many times, Chris Shays is a man of grace and courage who served the Fourth District well for many years,” Himes said. “As a former Peace Corps volunteer and a strong believer in America’s special obligation to work toward peace and freedom, Congressman Shays would do a wonderful job of representing our country to those nations of the world served by the Peace Corps.”

Himes recently defeated Shays in a re-election bid for Shay’s congressional seat.

Recently the National Peace Corps Association — currently waging a campaign for More Peace Corps — sent an open letter to President-Elect Obama asking for a Peace Corps director with direct experience as a Peace Corps staffer or Volunteer. Read more about their recommendations (PDF).

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Meaty Internships with Mississippi Teacher Corps

Teacher corps offers interns a chance to serve and learn in substantial ways next summer.

Mississippi Teacher Corps (which I also wrote about here) is recruiting summer 2009 interns. While the positions are unpaid, rising college seniors, juniors, and sophomores may be able to find funding through their college career centers. The corps is looking for 4-8 interns in 2009.

MTC interns offer substantial help with the program’s summer school where new corps members practice teaching, and interns take on meaty projects in MTC’s main office.

Interns are also expected to take on a research project for the summer that they present on before leaving; past interns have tackled topics like the connection between poverty and wrongful imprisonment; the importance of early childhood education; and the experience of several “Lost Boys of Sudan” here in Mississippi.

MTC offers its interns other learning opportunities: a regular speaker series, field trips, and  a two-day visit to the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, where they work on a project of the Institute’s choosing.

Apply here — deadline is March 1, 2009. Check out the video!:

The Mississippi Teacher Corps is a two-year program, designed for non-education majors, recruits college graduates to teach in the Mississippi Delta and other critical-needs areas, and offers a host of benefits, including teacher training and certification, a full scholarship for a master’s degree in education, job placement that includes full pay and benefits and the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of students in one of the poorest areas of the country.

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Obama site for MLK Day events

President-Elect Obama’s inaugural team invites organizations to post their MLK Day events to the inauguration website.

This coming year, MLK Day falls on January 19th, the day before the 2009 Inauguration. Known as a “day on not a day off” and a popular day for organizing direct-service events, President-Elect Barack Obama is encouraging people to serve in their communities MLK Day and beyond.

Organizers of projects are invited to post their projects on the event registration page on the inauguration site. If you are an organizer and you’ve already posted your event on MLKDay.gov, you are asked to wait to cross post; the aim is for MLKDay.gov events to be migrated to the Inauguration site.

Community members will be able to search for local projects after the New Year. Here is analysis from the Huffington Post; below is the text of the invitation:

Every time our nation faces crisis, our national experience has shown Americans rise to the challenge. While government has an important role to play in helping rekindle our economy and addressing the problems of a distressed nation, President-elect Obama believes each of us, as Americans, have a responsibility to do what we can for our communities and fellow citizens.  We are one nation….

As a tribute to that legacy and the very real needs of our nation, the President-elect and Vice President-elect will launch a national organizing effort on the eve of their Inauguration to engage Americans in service. This national day of service will fall on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, January 19, 2009 and, unlike past calls to service, President-elect Obama will ask Americans to do more than just offer a single day of service to their cities, towns and neighborhoods.  He will ask all of us to make an ongoing commitment to our communities. …

The call will go to all Americans to organize service projects and join others at events in their communities. As the Co-chairs of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, we invite you and your organization to join other Americans to organize service projects in your communities. The Presidential Inaugural Committee will offer Americans a new website to help promote your events and for Americans to make their commitments, build communities, find opportunities to serve and share their results. These can be events that orient people to your organization’s work, engage people in direct service, or bring people together to reflect on Dr. King’s legacy and how they can commit to becoming more engaged citizens.

The official place to post and search for projects is on the MLKDay.gov site. Read more about resources for running a great project.

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Indicorps – Opportunities for the Indian Diaspora

Indian service program recruits people of Indian family background, from all around the world, to commit to service in India. Indicorps is now recruiting interns to start January 2009.

Indicorps encourages aspiring young leaders of the Indian Diaspora to engage in intense grassroots development opportunities that explore the promise of leadership and help leverage their skills and talents to address India’s pressing needs.

The organization encompasses several programs, including Volunteer Ahmedabad (VA!), capitalizing on the spirit of volunteerism of Ahmedabad citizens; Ahmedabad Ultimate, promoting the spirit of fair play and competition through Frisbee; and the flagship Indicorps Fellowship Program. The Fellowship emphasizes public service and personal growth, seeking to nurture and inspire a new brand of socially conscious leaders through structured one – and two-year grassroots service opportunities in India.

Interns — who do not have to be of Indian origin — support the “backbone” of the U.S. and Ahmedabad-based Indicorps, strengthening organizational capacity and growing initiatives, and interacting with many people in the NGO sector in India. While not a field-based internship, interns serve a critical role in supporting fellows, encouraging others to serve, and effecting change. The internship offers weekly, structured learning opportunities, an off-site service requirement in a rural community,  and a chance to work across programs.

Interns receive a one-week group orientation (including housing) and assistance in finding housing for the duration of the internship if necessary. The orientation includes an introduction to the city of Ahmedabad and to the NGO sector.

Internship openings right now include:

• Marketing and brand management: Indicorps seeks a marketing/brand management professional to assist Indicorps strengthen its inspirational messaging in India through Indicorps and related programs.
• Alumni outreach: Indicorps seeks an individual to help structure an Alumni Association that functions independently, but is closely linked to Indicorps as a host organization.
• Technology: Indicorps seeks a self-proclaimed technology wizared to help stay on the cutting edge of operating and outreach technology, using its current resources efficiently.
• Ultimate Frisbee: Ahmedabad Ultimate seeks four coaches to coordinate, publicize, and host month-long summer camps during school summer vacation from April-May 2009. (Internship lasts 5-6 months, through May.)
• Publications: Indicorps seeks a publications intern interested in helping the organization self-publish an anthology that inspires people through stories of Fellows’s experiences in the field.

Most internships are flexible, unpaid, last 4-6 months, and do not require special visas. (You may still need a visa to enter India.) Read more Frequently Asked Questions. Look for news about 2009 Fellowship applications, coming soon.

Indicorps founder Sonal Shah co-chairs the Technology, Innovation and Government Reform working group for President-Elect Obama’s transition team. She’s an economist and heads Google.org’s global development efforts. Also serving on that working group are Paul Schmitz, Public Allies C.E.O., and Cheryl Dorsey, Echoing Green executive director.

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A Craigslist for service

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, offers his thoughts on Obama’s approach to promoting volunteerism. One point he makes is enhancing existing online tools for matching volunteers with organizations rather than trying to build something new. Volunteer Match is one example he cites.

Help Atlas Corps win $20K

International exchange corps for nonprofit professionals stands to win $20K in Ideablob.com contest.

Sometimes identified as a two-way Peace Corps—because volunteers come to and from the United States—Atlas Corps “facilitates an international exchange of nonprofit leaders in which ideas and talent cross borders to tackle the world’s most pressing challenges such as HIV/AIDS, human trafficking, poverty, care for the elderly and disabled, and education of underprivileged youth.”

Ideablob.com allows nonprofit and business entrepreneurs to submit their good ideas and to earn $10,000 towards funding them.

Each month, readers vote for their favorite idea — the idea with the most votes two weeks in a row wins. Because Atlas Corps is an Advanta customer their prize will double, to $20K, if selected.

According to their entry on Ideablob:

Atlas Corps’s new model of international cooperation brings talented professionals from developing nations such as India and Colombia to the U.S. to volunteer for one year in established nonprofit host organizations. Host organizations receive an experienced mid-career professional with specialized knowledge and unique perspectives. Fellows learn best practices, impart their professional knowledge, and then return to strengthen the nonprofit sector in their home countries.

Last year, Colombian Maria Duenas was a Fellow at TechnoServe, a nonprofit in Washington, DC. She now heads up TechnoServe’s flagship project in Bogotá, Colombia, creating business solutions to rural poverty.

In Atlas Corps’s second year, the program has doubled with four Colombian Fellows and five Indian Fellows in Washington, DC, and three U.S. Fellows in Bogotá, Colombia. In the coming year, we plan to increase the number of Fellows again to increase our scale, impact and sustainability. To do so we need this money and we need your vote.

All [prize money] will go directly towards the placement of new Fellows, since Host organizations cover the administrative costs. This prize money will put us well on the way to achieving our goal of promoting international cooperation in the nonprofit sector in a unique and sustainable way. See www.atlascorps.org/2008-fellows.html.

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Emerging: Financial Services Corps

Recognizing the broad need for financial education among low and middle income earners, the New America Foundation proposes a Financial Services Corps.

Proposed in March, the New America Foundation’s Melissa Koide published a policy paper describing the need for a new domestic corps of financial advisors and educators to help regular families sort through the morass of complex issues involved in personal financial management.

According to Koide’s proposal:

The creation of a Financial Services Corps (FSC) would help these households address their personal finances and plan for their future by:

• enlisting financial experts and advisors to deliver personalized financial counseling and planning to low to middle income households;
• providing the tools, resources, support to local, regional, and workplace based initiatives to ensure these families are effectively reached;
• collecting and analyze data to understand the short-, medium-, and long-term financial education, counseling, and planning needs of these households; and
• exploring new strategies and approaches to financial education and advice through an innovations fund.

The Corps could be modeled after the Legal Services Corporation — the Congressionally-mandated entity that oversees legal aid organizations. In that model, “the FSC would provide the infrastructure, resources, and support to engage and connect financial experts with low and middle income households and communities.”

In a New York Times piece today, M.P. Dunleavy reports that the Corps was inspired by Peace Corps.

If the concept interests you, or someone you know, also check out the separate Financial Services Volunteer Corps (established in 1990). The program sends skilled volunteers overseas for one or two weeks to educate people in “emerging market countries” about financial systems. The program is a partner of Volunteers for Prosperity.

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Global Citizen Year founder named Mind Trust Fellow

Last week The Mind Trust named Abigail Falik an Education Entrepreneur Fellow. She is the founder of Global Citizen Year.

The fellowship is a two-year “national incubator for transformative educational ventures.” Fellows earn a $90,000 annual salary plus health benefits during the fellowship term, and an additional $20,000 to spend on their work.

In the announcement, The Mind Trust explains Falik’s program — which will launch its first group next fall:

Ms. Abigail Falik was awarded The Mind Trust Fellowship to launch Global Citizen Year (GCY). GCY will engage thousands of diverse young Americans in a transformative “Bridge Year” of global service between high school and college. Falik, who won first prize at Harvard Business School’s 2008 Social Enterprise business pitch competition for GCY, is focused on America’s urgent need to prepare students for leadership in an increasingly globalized world.

To do this, GCY will recruit and train cohorts of high-potential high school students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds as GCY fellows; support fellows through apprenticeships throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America; and build a dynamic network of alumni who remain engaged in global issues during college and beyond. During the “Bridge Year,” students will receive intensive leadership and foreign language training, complete six-month international service projects, share their experiences virtually with K-12 classrooms in America, and, during their final month, lead activities about their experience in their home high schools and communities.

While GCY will prepare fellows to succeed in college, Falik also aims to use GCY to create incentives for students to graduate from high school, prepare K-12 teachers to more effectively teach about global issues, and ultimately to transform the global education landscape in the United States.

GCY’s advisory council includes the founders of Teach For America, City Year, Room to Read, Kiva.org, and Share Our Strength, the head of the National Peace Corps Association, and the Provost of the School  for International Training. Falik holds a B.A. and M.Ed. from Stanford University, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Read the fellowship’s F.A.Q.

Global Citizen Year is also part of the Change.org Ideas to Change America contest.

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Green Jobs and Infrastructure Act of 2008

Act introduced that proposes funding a new service corps for clean energy.

Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)  has introduced a clean energy bill that includes a provision to fund the Clean Energy Service Corps, to fall under the work of the Corporation for National and Community Service.

The Clean Energy Service Corps would be modeled on AmeriCorps and Senior Corps, and would focus on creating a diverse corps, and recruiting corps members who are economically disadvantage and need marketable job skills. From the Apollo Alliance, an organization that supported the creation of the act:

[From their article:] “The Clean Energy Service Corps (CESC) … would engage rural and urban young adults, students, and seniors, in a combined service, training, and job creation effort to build the green economy.  Corpsmembers will earn a stipend while improving energy efficiency through large-scale greening projects, including construction of, and improvements to, low-income housing, public buildings, neighborhood parks, and public lands. Priority will be given to programs that enroll Corpsmembers who are economically disadvantaged and that provide those Corpsmembers with job training linked careers in the green economy.  Older Americans and students will also engage in service as volunteers, sharing their skills and gaining experience while providing valuable service to their communities.”

[From the press release:] “The Clean Energy Service Corps will support the participation of 25,000 young adult corps members in its first year. An additional 200,000 seniors will mobilize as full- and part-time corps members and volunteers during the first year of the program. Finally, over 600,000 students will engage in community-based service learning, and volunteer projects coordinated by the CEC.”

One of the groups backing the bill is the The Corps Network, a group of conservation service corps working throughout the United States.

Read about The Corps Network’s green service corps in New Orleans.

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Brookings calls for More Peace Corps

Coalition on international volunteering calls for support of the More Peace Corps petition.

The Building Bridges Coalition — a project of the Brookings Initiative on International Volunteering and Service —asks today that all U.S. citizens “who believe that Peace Corps is an important part of our outreach to the world” sign the petition urging President-Elect Barack Obama to double the number of Volunteers serving through Peace Corps, as well as to support Peace Corps in specific ways.

The petition will be presented to Obama in a little over a week. Sign it here.

According to National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) President Kevin Quigley:

More Peace Corps means having the resources to respond to the more than 20 countries  that have requested programs for which Peace Corps has insufficient funds. It also means having the resources to give the many highly qualified Americans who would like to serve overseas the chance to do so.

More Peace Corps does not mean a simple expansion of the numbers of Peace Corps volunteers, although that is part of it.

More Peace Corps may mean revising the Peace Corps model in ways to take better advantage of the significant technological and demographic changes that have occurred in the 46 years since Peace Corps was launched.

More Peace Corps will consider how to make Peace Corps so much more
effective at addressing the problems of poverty. This will probably require
significant innovation and some risk.

The Building Bridges Coalition works to double the number of volunteers serving internationally by 2010 and includes groups such as Idealist.org and the NPCA (the independent group of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers).

One of the Coalition’s policy recommendations is to double the number of Peace Corps Volunteers, something President-Elect Obama also included in his pre-election stance on service. (Their other policy recommendations include the Global Service Fellowship and permanent authorization of Volunteers for Prosperity.)

To learn more, check out the More Peace Corps website, and read Ten Times the Peace Corps, a paper by Quigley and Brooking’s Lex Rieffel.

To sign the petition, go here!

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Human Rights Prize to Dorothy Stang, SND

On International Human Rights Day 2008, the United Nation honors several peace activists and groups, including Sr. Dorothy Stang, SND.

I want to highlight the work and courage of Dorothy Stang, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur — the same order of Catholic sisters who operate the AmeriCorps program in which my husband and I served — Notre Dame Mission Volunteers AmeriCorps.

Sr. Dorothy was born in the United States and became a naturalized citizen of Brazil. According to the U.N. announcement, “Despite numerous death threats Sister Dorothy had defended the rights of the poor, landless and indigenous populations of the Anapu region of Brazil for nearly forty years.”

Her brother David Stang published this story in Maryknoll magazine a few months after her death:

Dorothy was murdered for her outspoken defense of peasant farm families, who had moved into the rain forest region in a government-sponsored resettlement plan. Besides forming each settlement into small Christian communities that prayed and studied the Bible together, Dorothy established agricultural and rain forest preservation projects. Her initiatives outraged the big landowners who wanted the forest for logging and the land for cattle grazing.

The day before she died, Dorothy telephoned me. “Just hearing your voice,” she said, “makes me feel the cool fresh air of Palmer Lake (where I live in Colorado), even though it is so hot and humid here in Anapú (where she worked).” Then she told me, “I can’t talk long because there are people outside my door, asking me to go down the road with them to show support for several poor families who had their crops and houses burned down by hired hoodlums.”

Armed with her Bible and government documents granting peasants rights to the land, she accompanied the people to the Bõa Esperança Settlement near the rural town of Anapú in Pará State. Confronted by Dorothy, the pistoleros, backed off this time. When my sister returned the next day with clothes and food for the homeless families, the fatal confrontation took place.

See the trailer for the documentary They Killed Sister Dorothy:

Other Human Rights Prize honorees this year include Human Rights Watch and assassinated, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Read about others who’ve won the 2008 prize. Read more about the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Universal Human Rights and International Human Rights Day.

Notre Dame Mission AmeriCorps Volunteers is a national AmeriCorps program with service sites in 16 U.S. cities. My loving and amazing aunt Sr. Anne Colette, SND,  introduced me to the program and sent me its newsletters, even as I was starting my term of Peace Corps service. I ultimately chose to apply for NDMVA — to work with immigrants and refugees in Lowell, MA — as a transition home from Peace Corps. Read more about the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.

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Wendy Kopp wins Presidential Citizens Medal

Kopp, the founder of Teach For America, was presented today with one of the highest honors a U.S. president can confer upon a citizen.

The Presidential Citizens Medal “recognizes U.S. citizens who have performed exemplary deeds of service for the nation.” According to the Whitehouse.gov statement:

Wendy Kopp is an education innovator who believes that every child can learn if given a chance. Through her determined efforts, she has created opportunities for new teachers to help disadvantaged children realize their potential. The United States honors Wendy Kopp for her strong leadership in ensuring a quality education for students across America.

To learn the story of TFA’s beginnings, read Kopp’s memoir “One Day All Children…” In it she describes her first star-eyed visit to the White House, during the Clinton Administration.

She may have a chance to spend a lot of time at the White House. A movement has sprung up to get President-Elect Obama to pick Kopp as his Secretary of Education. Others speculate the spot might go to TFA critic and Obama advisor Linda Darling-Hammond.

Update 12/16: Obama picks someone else for Secretary of Education, FYI.

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