Activities aim to open youth’s eyes to hunger, poverty and humanitarian action
COLLEGE STATION — Texas 4-H has announced a new international program, Global Leadership Opportunities Beyond Education, or GLOBE, a comprehensive two-tiered citizenship and leadership program for 4-H members in grades 6-12.
“The program is designed to engage intermediate and senior 4-H youth to look at their own communities through the eyes of people experiencing hunger and poverty and be inspired to take humanitarian action,” said Dr. Darlene Locke, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service 4-H youth development education specialist, College Station. “As they begin to understand the perspectives of other cultures, they are more likely to have increased respect for those who are different from them.”
Locke said the program consists of Tier I and Tier II experiences. AgriLife Extension personnel chaperone all program activities.
“Tier I must be completed in order to advance to Tier II, but advancement to the second level is not mandatory,” she explained.
The Tier I experience requires participation in a series of three webinars, and involves cultural and geographic competency, leadership, life skills and teamwork development, along with vicarious immersion and hands-on simulations. The experience for 2016 will be a leadership and team-building camp at Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas — a 1,200-acre farm dedicated to educating youth and adults about Heifer International’s program and activities to promote sustainable solutions to global hunger, poverty and environmental degradation.
“The ranch has partnered with and helped communities with developing sustainable livelihoods for more than 70 years,” she said. “Through their efforts, 25 million families have been able to help lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. Their holistic approach focuses on increasing income and assets, food security and nutrition, and improving the environment.”
She said this year’s Tier I camp will be June 29–July 2 and is a collaboration of Texas 4-H Youth Development and Heifer International that creates “an international experience without actually traveling abroad.” Participants will take a chartered bus to Heifer Ranch. The bus will embark from San Angelo and stop in College Station and Canton.
Registration is limited to 40 youth and is available through 4-H Connect, GLOBE. The $350 registration includes travel, all meals and lodging and a commemorative T-shirt.
The Tier I experience also includes the Global Challenge, which uses problem-solving and communication activities to help participants learn team-building skills that can be used to assist them in the Heifer Ranch’s overnight Global Village experience.
“By participating in daily life activities such as preparing meals and doing chores, similar to those that Heifer International’s project partners perform each day, the goal is to inspire participants to take action in their own life that will positively impact the environment and the world,” Locke explained.
Global Challenge participants spend the first night in Heifer Hilton, an open-air bunk barn. The second night is spent in the Global Village.
“The Global Challenge creates an existence in which nothing — shelter, food, water or cooking fuel — can be taken for granted,” Locke said. “Youth and adult participants are randomly assigned as ’families’ for each community and must work as a team for survival.”
The Global Village includes simulations of Zambia, Thailand, Guatemala, China, Appalachia, urban slums and a refugee camp.
Locke said in the Tier II experience, 4-H youth will focus on “global communities and service learning that makes a difference.”
“Participants will travel to a predetermined location, either abroad or within the U.S., such as a Native-American reservation, and engage in cultural experiences and perform a service-learning activity to benefit the peoples of the community.”
She said the Tier II annual program will begin in 2017.
For more information on the GLOBE program, contact Locke at 979-845-6533, dlocke@ag.tamu.edu, or Charlene Belew at 432-336-8585 or c-belew@tamu.edu.
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