Global Potential: Small steps. One at a time.
We at LTM are constantly surprising ourselves with the incredible amount of non-profit work that was started in our very own greater Boston area. Most recently, LTM chatted it up with Sarah Gogel, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Global Potential, as well as some of the program’s past participants and current staff members at the organization’s office right here in Boston.
So, what’s the story? Well, social workers and globe trotters Sarah Gogel, a Harvard College alumna and current student at Northeastern University School of Law, and Frank Cohn, New York City-based Executive Director of Global Potential, co-founded Global Potential (GP) in 2007 under the umbrella organization Globalhood, Inc. Since its inception, GP has served over 300 low-income youth, over half of which have traveled to the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Bulgaria, and Haiti to be fully immersed in a cross-cultural learning experience like none other.
So what is Global Potential all about? For starters, GP targets not only the “achievement gap” resulting from inadequate educational resources and opportunities in the school year but also the “summer achievement gap,” when low-income students lose out on summer academic enrichment programs due to its high costs. In being so comprehensive, GP offers after school and weekend workshops for the 16.5 months of after school work which include six months pre summer and ten and a half months after summer as well as a month and a half summer experience in one of their four sites in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Bulgaria, and Haiti. The school year program encompasses fifty two different modules of hands-on learning, ranging from racial and identity studies, social justice, social entrepreneurship to documentary making. In the Boston area, GP currently works with the Edward M Kennedy Academy for Health Careers, John D. O’Bryant School of Math and Science, Fenway High School, Brookline High School, and Lawrence High School and will expanding to several others in the near future.
The Global Potential summer travel abroad program fully engages its participants in the community of their placement. In talking with Parker Shea, Summer 2011 Community Outreach Coordinator as well as Daniel Alfaro and Daniel Martinez, GP Youth Leader graduates in 2011, it’s easy to see how incredible the summer experience must truly be. The three chimed in enthusiastically about how going to Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic had drastically changed their world view and thereby induced personal growth. Their voices echoed how extreme poverty, strong community ties, and hard work in their hosting communities are stark contrasts to the technological luxuries and wealth so prevalent in the United States. Their comfort zones were pushed and strained as they coped with worlds vastly different from their own. However, through engagement projects such as rebuilding a school, fashioning a local basketball court, and giving impromptu English lessons, these guys undoubtedly took away lessons for life. As they continued with independent GP projects and giving back their time and efforts to GP, they, alongside the rest of the GP staff, are the driving force behind this fantastic international initiative.
To all of this, we at LTM can only say: give your time, support, and yourself. Make a difference. One step at a time.
