The Global Ties Network Decade of Impact Leadership Award celebrates these dedicated individuals who have provided outstanding leadership within the Global Ties Network, and contributed to the success of the International Visitor Leadership Program and other exchange programs.

Global Ties U.S. received nominations from across the United States, with many nominating individuals outside of their organizations—a testament to our community and our celebration of one another. In deciding the winners, a selection committee, comprised of leadership from Global Ties U.S. and the Office of International Visitors at the U.S. Department of State, assessed the nominees across three areas:

• The nominee’s impact on their local community and / or organization
• The nominee’s impact within the larger Global Ties Network and international exchange field
• The nominee’s overall exemplary commitment to citizen diplomacy

Congratulations to the Global Ties Network Decade of Impact Leadership Award winners:

Annette Green Alvarez
Executive Director
Global Ties Miami

Annette is a mentor to many in the Network. Colleagues call her a “resource” for executive-level training and credit her for helping them to grow professionally. “She comes to the table with a collaborative attitude and … always with the best interest of the network and visitors in mind, …making it clear what a wonderful and welcoming experience IVLP visitors will have when they arrive in her care.”

Janine Branch
Program Officer
FHI360

Janine is a community builder who’s “passion for the International Visitor Leadership Program and for young professional development is infectious.” Colleagues call her a “force for positive change in the IVLP community,” and credit her innovative strategies of professional development, mentorship, and commitment to uplifting future generations of IVLP leaders and programmers.

Susan Cabiati
(Retired) Senior Vice President
Meridian International Center

Susan’s commitment to citizen diplomacy and the IVLP spans more than half of the IVLP’s 80-year history. Colleagues credit her “steady and informed leadership,” and the positive impact she brought to her work and on international visitors. At her retirement, IVLP alumnus Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former Secretary General of NATO and Prime Minister of Denmark, called Susan “the embodiment of American global leadership,” and thanked her for “the countless friendships…built during a life of service to your country.”

Peggy Parfenoff
President
WorldChicago

Peggy “offers excellence,” say colleagues in describing Peggy’s abilities to always ask the right questions, help build community, and make an event, program, initiative, conference a huge success. Whether programming for small events or large entrepreneurship initiatives, colleagues call Peggy “a leader, mentor, and colleague who everyone in the Network knows and appreciates.”

Jacquelyn Shipe
CEO
Global Ties Alabama

Jacquelyn (Jacqui) is committed to service-leadership. Her “spirit of personal engagement” and work to professionalize board management training and grant coordination were among the many achievements cited by colleagues. Jacqui’s “encouragement and example have developed a corps of over 500 volunteers at Global Ties Alabama,” who support the organization as hosts, donors, and citizen diplomacy ambassadors.

Wendy Williams
Board Member
Citizen Diplomacy International

Wendy is a citizen diplomacy ambassador who “leverages her platform as a company owner to promote and elevate women entrepreneurs internationally on her company newsletter and social media channels. Most importantly, she always goes the extra step to thank international guests for coming to Philadelphia personally and intentionally mentors past exchange participants.”

We also want to acknowledge the scores of colleagues from the Office of International Visitors, Community-Based Members (CBMs), and National Program Agencies (NPAs) who are celebrating 10 or more years of service to the International Visitor Leadership Program in 2021.

• 40 OIV colleagues
• More than 75 CBM leaders, programmers, and Board Members
• And more than 20 NPA colleagues

Thank you for your outstanding contributions. Global Ties U.S. will be celebrating you throughout this anniversary year

NETWORK COLLEAGUES WITH 10 (OR MORE) YEARS OF IVLP SERVICE*

Office of International Visitors

Community-Based Member Network

National Program Agency Network

*Please note this was reported as part of a survey sent to Community-Based Member and National Program Agency leaders the week of March 15. If you have names you would like to add, please do so via this survey.

Original Article – Click Here

Eight women, each with their own prestigious title in the science, technology, engineering and math fields, took time out of their trip across the United States to visit North Alabama on Tuesday.

The women were part of a larger group of international delegates who came to the States as part of the Hidden No More International Visitor Leadership Program. The program highlights the “hidden talent” of participants and alumni who are exploring and advancing policies that champion women in STEM.

“The program is very exciting,” said Manisha Dwa, project coordinator with the Nepal Astronomical Society. “… We got to meet 50 leaders from respective nations. We got to learn their ideas, their cultural aspects and much more about America. We had been reading some things in general while in our countries or online, but while we were here, we got to see face-to-face, in person, and that is something I can’t explain.”

Global Ties Alabama hosted the women during their tour of North Alabama, which included visits to J.F. Drake State Community and Technical College, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, Hudson Alpha Institute of Biotechnology and Alabama Robotics Technology Park. They also visited with women leaders in Huntsville and Madison County, and with the FIRST Robotics team at Mae Jemison High School.

“It’s been emotional for me,” said Paolo Daniela Ochoa Paniagua, who works in experimental sciences and astronomy in Bolivia. “The museums, the factories, the people, the women, my friends … it’s emotional to look at the women at work in your country. The vision in the city — it’s wonderful.”

Dwa, Ochoa Paniagua and their six co-participants were able to explore the robotics park and even try out some of the robots. At one point, Andreja Gomboc, a professor of astronomy at the Center for Astrophysics and Cosmology at the University of Nova Gorica, questioned how many of the students who train at the park were women.

The tour guide estimated only about 10% of individuals who were sent to the park by their employer for training were female. He said the number was rising, but it was still a sign that improvement was needed.

For the group, this wasn’t exactly new knowledge.

“I’ve been doing so many programs,” Dwa said. “Prior to this, before I came to the States, I had a meeting at the Ministry of Education, and we were trying to partner with some of the organizations who are working in the STEM field. … I posed the same question. If you are representing something and you are talking about some of the other women, why are the other women from your company or organization not here? It happens everywhere, but we are trying to check and balance.”

Why? Because women are the future, she said.

“We cover half of the world’s population,” Dwa said. “If one woman is educated, she’s going to educate her whole family, whole community and whole nation. … It is important to us.”

Ochoa Paniagua agreed.

“It’s really important (to support women in STEM),” she said. “The future is the woman, and the future is technology and science.”

This was Ochoa Paniagua’s first visit to the United States, and she and Dwa each said they were amazed at how well they had been received.

“We are treated like someone out of the world, like Wonder Woman,” Dwa said. “The people are very helpful. They are taking care of us in every aspect. They are not letting us have any share of scarcity.”

The group finished their tour of the robotics park by using a computer and robot to cut a piece of sheet metal so that it had the words “HIDDEN NO MORE” on it.

Those interested in learning more about other stops on the North Alabama tour can like the “Global Ties Alabama” Facebook page or follow @GlobalTiesAL on Twitter and Instagram. Participants and hosts are also using #HiddenNoMore to share the program.

GTA was established in 1965 to help international military trainees at Redstone Arsenal feel welcome in the community. Today, they continue to host international visitors traveling to Alabama as part of the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program.

Opportunities are available for those who would like to serve as home hospitality hosts — a person who hosts a meal or activity — and host families — a person or group who can provide overnight accommodations and transportation for international guests. Call 256-532-3560 or email gta3@madisoncountyal.gov to learn more.

Original article: https://www.enewscourier.com/news/local_news/women-in-stem-international-leaders-visit-north-alabama/article_141a9262-002d-11ea-bbab-8727add546f5.html

Then one of the boys came over to me and said: “Look, Daddy. What are those?”

Clustered at the base of a stream bank were several land mines, forgotten from the Cold War. I marched my family in the opposite direction, nature’s reverie shocked away by a fear that locked onto our every step. The attractive forest path might have enticed my whole family to slaughter.

To read the rest of John’s Davis’ article in American magazine

Click Here

In this Issue:
Diplomacy Begins Here Summit
One Table Huntsville
What is a Citizen Diplomat?

Download and View the January 2020 Newsletter.

The journey was a long one, but well worth it. Thirteen-year-old Delaney Kilgour and his grandmother, Karen Young, set out from Lac La Biche, a hamlet in Alberta, Canada, to drive all the way to Huntsville, Alabama.

They were bound for Space Camp at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, 2,000 miles away. When they finally arrived, they drove around the parking lot and stared up at the rockets. Delaney had wanted to be a rocket engineer all his life, and he and his late great-grandfather used to build rockets out of paper towel rolls. The old man said they’d never get to space, but they could still reach for the stars in their own way.

When Delaney saw those rockets reaching up into the night sky, he and his grandmother cried a bit, the way you do when your dreams come true, and decided that great-grandfather was watching over them. Delaney’s family had always watched over him. Born with a “hole in his heart,” Delaney had been a delicate child who could never play sports or run with other children until his heart surgery at age 10.

On his many visits to the Children’s Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, one of the nurses saw his skills in the Lego room and his ability to build things. She told the family about a Robotics Camp in Toronto, and it was there that Delaney learned about Space Camp. He was determined to go, somehow.

Once his doctors gave him the OK to travel, there was the practical question of money. They didn’t have much. Delaney went into action, picking up bottles and cans and milk cartons all along the roadsides near his home and recycling them for cash. He worked as a pet sitter for cats and dogs when their owners were away, and supervised kindergarten children at his school. All of the money he earned for two years went into his travel fund.

Delaney had enough for tuition for two camps — Robotics and Aviation. There was still the cost of the long trip and the hotel fees for Karen while Delaney attended camp. The communications department at the Children’s Hospital published an article about Delaney and donations came in, even from the U.S. Embassy. Still, Karen tried to keep the travel expenses at a minimum.

She took the back roads and the scenic routes, getting lost a few times but making friends along the way. One “town” was just a gas station in the middle of nowhere, but the people there helped Karen find her way. She was never afraid, she said, and strangers were kind.

Once Delaney started Space Camp on July 15, Global Ties Alabama called Karen to ask if she would come to dinner at a member’s home. An international exchange program, they host people from around the world. Through Global Ties, Karen met an Athens family who invited her to stay with them while Delaney was at camp.

As members of a First Nation (Dene) tribe, Karen and Delaney are descended from the Chipewyan people. They believe the Creator gives us the rose as well as the thorn. Space Camp was definitely a rose and so was Global Ties.

Delaney is a young man with big dreams. He’d like to work for Aerospace Canada one day, or use his engineering skills to make prosthetic devices for people. The child born with a hole in his heart has a heart for helping people. And he’s already working to save the money to come back next year.

Serve 2 Unite is led by Pardeep Singh Kaleka, who lost his father Satwant Singh Kaleka in the August 5th, 2012 Sikh Temple of Wisconsin shooting, and Arno Michaelis, a former white supremacist who helped to start a gang back in the late 1980s that produced the August 5th shooter.

The Serve 2 Unite program makes the practice of peace an attractive and valuable way of life, transforming schools and communities via fearless creativity and compassion, in interdependent partnership with local & global peace efforts.

We are pleased to announce that the founders of Serve 2 Unite will be the keynote presenters at Global Ties Annual Meeting and Diplomacy Luncheon at 11 am on Tuesday, October 1, 2019 at  Capitol City Club in Montgomery, AL.

Get Tickets Here

Serve 2 Unite (S2U) is an organization led by Pardeep Singh Kaleka, who lost his father in the August 5, 2012 shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and Arno Michaelis, a former white supremacist who helped start the gang that produced the August 5 shooter.

Together, they formed Serve 2 Unite to “establish a healthy sense of identity, purpose, and belonging that diverts young people from violent extremist ideologies, gun violence, school shootings…and other forms of self-harm.” This includes working closely with school administrators and educators to facilitate tailored programs on a variety of social issues for students and parents.

Pardeep is a licensed trauma therapist originally from Punjab, India. He is a former police officer and educator in Milwaukee who now specializes in holistic trauma-informed treatment with survivors of assault.

Arno is a former leader of a worldwide racist skinhead organization, Racial Holy War, and a former lead singer of the hate-metal band Centurion. Single parenthood, love for his daughter, and the forgiveness shown by people he once hated helped turn Arno’s life around. He is now an author, speaker, educator, and filmmaker.

Pardeep and Arno co-authored the book “Gift of Our Wounds: A Sikh and a Former White Supremacist Find Forgiveness After Hate” published in April 2018.

It clarified and explained U.S. cybersecurity and cyber defense policies and international cooperation in these spaces and the role of the U.S. public and private sectors in countering disinformation and the nature of public-private partnerships that support that objective.