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  • "GESI is about engaging a world that is bigger, more exciting, and more complex than most people imagine. This abroad experience has allowed me to learn more about myself as a student, a partner in the work world, and as a member of humanity, and I'm looking forward to my continued growth in all these capacities."

    - Tarik Patterson

  • "GESI is not a program that teaches you how to help others. It is one that enables you to turn "others" into "us". It is real living with real people, and immerses you into a culture that is as sophisticated and complex as your own."

    - Michelle Kim

  • "GESI exposed me to the difficult but rewarding realities of community development: True impact comes from work at the grittiest level. If you're considering a career in a non-profit, NGO, social work, or anything that supports your community, an experience like this is vital."

    - Kirk Vaclavik

  • "There are two ways of learning: by keeping your nose to a book or by opening your eyes to the world. GESI provides the rare learning opportunity as it combines both forms. I know I have walked away invariably changed for the better."

    - Kalindi Shah

  • "Our project involved community members in every conceivable way. My relationships built with community members were my most proud and lasting accomplishments."

    –Sebastian Buffa

  • "I was looking for an opportunity to create lasting change--both in a community and in myself. GESI sets its participants up with the necessary tools and skills, and then gives them complete freedom to learn, fail, rework, and eventually succeed."

    - Rena Oppenheimer

  • "The program has given me a glimpse into what it is like to work internationally at the grassroots level. Having the hands on experience that the program has given me, I feel like I am one step ahead for other jobs in the development sector."

    - Ashley Fu

  • "The experience has given me a new perspective on everything from washing the dishes to how to address world hunger... I will be returning to the lessons I learned on this trip decades from now."

    - Alexis Suskin-Sperry

  • "The most unique aspect of this program is the opportunity to act on a theory that we had learned. GESI is a unique opportunity to experience how development theories, methodologies and practices actually play out in a community."

    - Lakshmi Ramachandran

  • "I will always treasure my home-stay experience. I became very close with my siblings and loved having a large family. I learned that wherever you are, a family is a family and life is lived day to day."

    - Ellen Abrams

  • "My home-stay was one of the best aspects of my summer. My sisters taught me so much about Ugandan culture as well as life in general. We have grown up on different sides of the world but we may as well as lived next door."

    - Chelsea Christman

  • "Professor Arntson's team building exercises and classes about group dynamics were invaluable. They gave our team the vocabulary and tools to mediate conflicts and make decisions while abroad and helped us understand each other's motivations."

    - Catherine Wu

  • "Our NGO let us work independently, but took co-ownership of our project, which was comforting as we were creating a proposal for them and we required input and feedback to know that our work had a purpose."

    - Elizabeth Montgomery

  • "Being at our NGO was the single best part of the trip. I loved the community, and I loved the people there. It is an amazing NGO that does amazing things. The challenges we faced taught us to overcome obstacles."

    - Alex Grubman

  • "The FSD site team was incredible. I've never worked with such capable, caring, fun people. They made me feel so at home and safe and also really supported us with our NGO."

    - Asha Toulmin

  • "I am very impressed by the commitment and intelligence of the fellow students in GESI. I definitely learned much from them."

    - XinKai Cheng

  • "The diversity of our group made us effective -- while others preferred to work on logistical, behind-the-scenes stuff; some were outspoken, others were more contemplative; some were better planners, some were better at actuating ideas on paper."

    - Abby Hannifan

  • "This program gave new meaning to hands on learning. The background at the institute on development was great, and a week later you were on site attempting to implement what you had learned, and in the process learning far more than you could imagine."

    - Rachel Suffrin

  • "The most unique thing was the amount of exposure we got to the community. I felt like I was a part of it and not just observing it."

    - Bryan Stenson

  • "This experience was absolutely applicable to my personal, professional, academic goals, especially when it comes to approaching development with a realistic perception of how it works on the ground."

    - Elizabeth Montgomery

  • "GESI has helped me mature as a team member and a prospective development worker."

    - C.A.

Our Partners

Foundation for Sustainable Development (FSD)

The Foundation for Sustainable Development (FSD) is GESI’s on-the-ground partner for sites in Bolivia, India, Nicaragua, and Uganda. FSD is responsible for coordinating NGO partners, participant home-stays, and in-country programming.

FSD is a non-profit, non-governmental organization created in 1995 to offer capacity building and funding to grassroots community based organizations throughout Africa, Latin American, and Asia. A professional field staff and trained volunteers provide on-site technical training and project support, while enabling information sharing to more than 300 partner organizations around the world.

To become an FSD partner, an NGO must:

  • Express objectives that are aligned with sustainable community development. Organization programs must address one or more of the following development areas: Microfinance/Microenterprise, Youth and Education, Environment, Health, Community Development, Women’s Empowerment, Human Rights.
  • Provide specific responsibilities and projects to participants that fulfill a 40 hour work week.
  • Provide FSD participants with an English-speaking supervisor who is available to answer questions and guide project development; open to engaging in cross-cultural exchange; and shows a readiness to support international volunteers’ integration into the organization and local community.

FSD’s mission is to alleviate poverty and promote social equity through sustainable community development and training programs around the world. We codesigned this program with Northwestern because of the synergy between our work and the GESI objectives. We were confident that GESI would provide quality support to our efforts – and it has. Year after year, the GESI projects have launched major social change initiatives in the communities we serve.”
-Mireille Cronin Mather, Executive Director, FSD

Click here to visit FSD’s website.

Social Entrepreneur Corps (SEC)

Social Entrepreneur Corps, GESI’s on-the-ground partner in the Dominican Republic, is a social enterprise that leads innovative and dynamic international internship programs. Social Entrepreneur Corps participants work with its sister organization Community Enterprise Solutions in the field supporting the creation, development, growth and impact of social innovations focused on intelligently and sustainably alleviating poverty. Participants create sustainable impact in the field while gaining the perspectives, skills, and knowledge to become the social entrepreneurs of the future.

Through participation in innovative rural development work within a challenging cultural, language learning, and grassroots environment, Social Entrepreneur Corps ensures that participants will:

  • Gain insights into the opportunities, inherent risks and limitations involved in third world development.
  • Have ample opportunities to significantly increase language proficiency.
  • Observe, learn and live in a diversity of cultural settings.
  • Experience homestay living with local families.
  • Have the opportunity to visit an array of development and relief organizations.
  • Be offered the opportunity to make a significant contribution in a highly structure manner working side by side with field based social entrepreneurs.

We are very excited to begin working with GESI and its students. We are confident that the students from this program will create sustainable impact in the Dominican Republic in 2012 and for years to come, and we look forward to strengthening our partnership to help fulfill our mission of supporting poverty-alleviating social innovations while creating impactful experiences for GESI students.”
-Greg Van Kirk, Co-Founder, Social Entrepreneur Corps

Click here to visit Social Entrepreneur Corps’s website. Click here to see a video about SEC. Please note: SEC is called CES (Community Enterprise Solutions) in Ecuador–but it the same partner and does the same type of work students can expect to do in the Dominican Republic with GESI.

ThinkImpact 

Our on-the-ground partner in South Africa is ThinkImpact. Headquartered in Washington, DC, ThinkImpact is a global social enterprise that trains the next generation of social entrepreneurs to think differently about poverty alleviation in our time. ThinkImpact offers the Innovation Institute, an eight week, full immersion, experiential learning opportunity in rural Africa. At the Innovation Institute, GESI scholars learn about new cultures while exploring market based solutions to poverty.

ThinkImpact’s approach utilizes an asset-based community development philosophy to fuel social innovation in developing economies. GESI scholars work with local community members promoting a mindset of innovation and self-sufficiency rather than dependency and aid. Scholars form community Design Teams to test new products and services that instigate a community mindshift and ultimately change lives.

I have been particularly impressed with the caliber of students in the GESI program. They are in the communities in South Africa working extremely hard and with focus and diligence. There seems to be an academic rigor that they apply to all of their work in the community, and their perspectives are deep and thoughtful.”
-Saul Garlick, Chief Executive Officer, ThinkImpact

Click here to visit ThinkImpact’s website.

Comparisons between GESI FSD, GESI SEC, and GESI TI:

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TI_FSD Comparison Chart