Tag Archives: AFS Network

Intercultural Link News Magazine v4 i1 – Global Edition

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The newest edition of the Intercultural Link News Magazine has just been launched. Read it on-line or download it here. Enjoy!

AFS Intercultural Programs is pleased to announce the January/February/March/April 2013 issue of AFS Intercultural Link Newsletter volume 4, issue 1 – Global Edition, which can be shared with everyone interested in learning more about intercultural education.

The AFS Intercultural Link News Magazine is the quarterly magazine on intercultural learning in the AFS Network. The magazine features content shared by the Intercultural Learning Work Group as well as other AFS Partners and guest writers, including information on trends in intercultural education, interviews with experts in the field and overviews of upcoming and previous conferences.

Education & Intercultural Learning Communications Fellowship – Apply Now!

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AFS Intercultural Programs (www.afs.org) seeks an individual with excellent public relations and marketing communications skills – strategic, creative and production – and a strong interest in working across cultures for a fellowship within our Education and Intercultural Learning (ICL) Department.

AFS ICL Library

Tasks related to this fellowship include:

  • Supporting the Education team’s communications and media strategy: internal stakeholder communications as well as working on an external media plan that includes social/digital media (www.afs.org/blog/icl, our digital library, Facebook), conferences, etc.
  • Managing the AFS Intercultural Link News Magazine: coordinating article submissions with authors from around the world, writing (as appropriate), editing and proof reading articles, contributing to design and layout, finalizing production and distributing to our global readership.
  • Plus additional responsibilities related to education and intercultural learning in AFS as a part of a team comprised of fun and passionate people who work to help people improve interactions across cultures.

Skills: For this fellowship, candidates should:

  • Have strong communications skills from strategy development to content creation (especially writing) to production (digital and otherwise);
  • Have excellent planning and organizational skills with high attention to detail;
  • Be highly creative, solutions-oriented, and pro-active;
  • Have basic or better design sensibilities & layout skills;
  • Be technology-savvy and able to work in various online and digital environments;
  • Be interested in intercultural communications, global skills development and/or international relations and education;
  • Be able to work both independently and as a part of a collaborative team;
  • Have excellent spoken *and* written English skills (fluency two or more languages preferred);
  • Familiarity with AFS or intercultural exchange programs a plus, but not required.

The fellowship is full-time for a commitment of 9 to 12 months. It is based at AFS Intercultural Programs’ offices in NYC, covers some expenses and provides a stipend.

Intercultural Link Newsletter Magazine

If you meet these requirements and are interested in applying for the fellowship, please e-mail AFS International at icl@afs.org. Provide a brief description of yourself, examples of how you meet the listed requirements for this fellowship, your motivations for applying for this fellowship, and what you could bring to this fellowship. In addition, please attach a current resume and two writing samples in the form of a newsletter article and/or blog entry.

We regret we cannot reply to all inquiries.

AFS is an international, voluntary, non-governmental, non-profit organization that provides intercultural learning opportunities to help people develop the knowledge, skills and understanding needed to create a more just and peaceful world.

Intercultural Dialogue Day 2012 Photo and Video Contest Winners!

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On 27 September 2012, the European Federation of Intercultural Learning (EFIL) and AFS partnered to celebrate Intercultural Dialogue Day (IDD) 2012 to promote intercultural learning. This year, IDD held a best Video and Photo contest for events and activities that celebrated intercultural learning and dialogue.

Everyone who participated in the IDD made wonderful contributions to furthering the awareness of intercultural learning. As well, many stayed connected through IDD’s facebook page, which is where the winners of the photo and video contest were announced. Congratulations to the winners from AFS Hungary and AFS Russia!

Watch the best video and see the best picture on the IDD facebook page!

 

Happy International Volunteers’ Day!

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Dear Volunteers around the world – Today is your day!

In 1985, the United Nations declared 5 December as International Volunteer Day, to formally recognize the millions of people around the world who participate in volunteer activities and make visible their contributions on the local, national, and international levels. In celebration of this year’s International Volunteer Day, Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, has shared this message:

“Founded on the values of solidarity and mutual trust, volunteerism transcends all cultural, linguistic and geographic boundaries. By giving their time and skills without expectation of material reward, volunteers themselves are uplifted by a singular sense of purpose.”

AFS also extends its heart-felt thanks and appreciation to all of its 43,905 active volunteers, who dedicate their time, energy, and passion to AFS in so many ways! We invite you to view the below video from AFS’s President and CEO, Vincenzo Morlini, as well as visit the AFS Intercultural Programs website today for special information related to International Volunteer Day.

Happy International Volunteer Day!

Global Youth Voice Conference

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International opportunities for interculturally-minded youth to get involved and collaborate with each other are becoming more and more accessible. A great example is “Global Youth Voice“, an international youth conference which brings together 200 young people from all over the globe with the common intention of finding out how young people can make the world better, together. An innovative approach to international organization, the project began in 2011 with a small group of 8 young people who dreamt of a place where all the intercultural-driven youth could collaborate and be in contact.

This year’s conference took place in Moscow, Russia on the 18th of August, and was held at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. It is one of the three conferences that together make up the AISEC International Congress, an international event to plan projects for social and economic development. At the Global Youth Voice event, two AFS staff members had the opportunity to take a more active role and act as facilitators for one of the sessions.

Tom McLeod, an AFS returnee (Australia 2000-2001) and current Intern at the AFS Russia office in Moscow, along with Nonna Kovrizhnykh, Partner Director of AFS Russia, and Organisational Development Coordinator Natalia Zakharova facilitated a session on Intercultural Dialogue and Tolerance. The 10-day conference hopes to foster a positive global impact in the way youth collaborate and interact, and aims to build a global perspective for future generations.

Language + Culture with VWZ Roeland

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Intercultural Learning is becoming increasingly recognized as a necessary piece of how modern, global citizens are educated. Some argue that a necessary characteristic of all global citizens is the ability to communicate in a language other than the native tongue. As many languages correspond with one or more cultures and fluency in a specific language could imply competence in a society and culture that speaks that language. To separate the two institutions of language and intercultural learning is to ignore a critical aspect of culture.

Roeland, a Belgian non-profit company promoting language skills in youth, seems to agree. In cooperation with AFS International, Roeland and AFS Partners in Argentina, China, Finland and Switzerland, provided the first group of students to participate in a full English language immersion camp that carried an intercultural component in the United Kingdom this summer.

The aim of this pilot was to test alternative ways of delivering short language programs with an extra focus on intercultural learning, while also being targeted toward a younger age group. Sixteen AFSers between the ages of 13-16 spent 12 days with 50 Belgian students in Sutton Valence, England to gain both linguistic and cultural knowledge. Apart from participating in intensive English language lessons, there were a number of activities, workshops and sport opportunities focusing on ICL, a trip to London and various daily themes such as British Day, Rhythm and Rhyme Day or Fame day. Throughout the camp, students had to follow a very strict “English-only!” rule.

Belgian and AFS Student Participants

Three very dedicated AFS volunteers: Jens Poulsen (AFS Switzerland), Sonja Gustafsson (AFS Finland) and Meng Zhou (AFS China) took charge in bringing the intercultural learning component into action, helped to deal with support issues throughout the camp and supported various other activities at the camp. The work of these volunteers showed how cooperation with like-minded organizations can help us to further the AFS mission of providing intercultural learning opportunities.

AFS International is now in the process of evaluating this pilot program in the hopes of using lessons learned to design a format for possible future collaboration. In the meantime, we hope that this was an opportunity for the almost 70 young students to get a taste of the life-long intercultural learning path, one that has inspired them to explore further avenues with AFS programs and other language-learning organizations.

Connecting Young People Worldwide | The GNG Youtube Channel

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The Youtube channel of the Global Nomads Group (GNG), an NGO that fosters intercultural dialogue and understanding amongst the world’s youth, offers 272 free videos that portray how young people from all over the world live, what they think, and how they discuss and cooperate with others from different countries. Many of the videos show how groups of young people (usually secondary school classes) from two completely different countries meet each other, listen to each other, and learn about each other’s realities through online classroom exchange, known as Exchange 2.0. Many other videos also show interviews with young people and portraits of their lives in the US, Uganda, Haiti, Spain, Vietnam, and many other countries.

AFS-USA, AFS Indonesia, AFS Malaysia and the US Embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam have cooperated with GNG for a media literacy project called the Global Connections: one LENS program. This program is sponsored through the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Through this project, opportunities were offered to students and educators from Indonesia, Malaysia, the United States, and Vietnam to develop their media skills and to get to know each other better through working towards a common goal. The students met online (through video conferences and social networking), and later also in person. The project ended with a local media festival, where students had the opportunity to showcase their public service announcements or digital stories. On the Youtube channel below, you can find videos that were taken during the completion of this project.

This cooperation of AFS and the Global Nomads Group was a big success. It has become more and more common for us, especially for young people, to connect to others via online tools and video conferences. AFS and the Global Nomads Group have pioneered in the area of facilitating youth exchange using these tools, and their positive and very successful experience lets us hope that there is more to come in this area.

AFS History & Archives

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As AFS Intercultural Programs approaches its centennial in 2014, we should all take a moment to reflect on the history that has led AFS to become what it is today!

Originally an ambulance service that was active during both of the World Wars, AFS, or American Field Service at the time, rescued wounded soldiers from the front lines, regardless of their nationality, and brought them to a hospital to be treated. Soon after the end of the Second World War, AFS changed its focus to become an exchange program working to increase global peace and international understanding. Today, AFS still upholds intercultural interconnectedness as a standard practice as it provides intercultural learning experiences to a wide range of audiences. To learn more about AFS’s rich past, visit the AFS Archives online, or in-person (at the AFS-USA New York office) where you can see World War I and II helmets, uniforms, photos, letters and other types of memorabilia.

This is a photo of Howard Brooke, just after his ambulance collided with a tank going in for attack. It was taken in the winter of 1943 – 1944 near Ortona, Italy. (Photograph by John C. Cobb II)

A group of U.S. American volunteers and British soldiers in Tunisia in 1943.  Pictured from left to right: Bill Cobb, Gordon Ellis, Bombardier Jones (Medical Orderly), Bob Orton (AFS Volunteer), Dick Corse, Doc Brown, Tom Jones. (Photograph by John C. Cobb II)

These are just a few examples of the images that are available in the AFS Archives. If you wish to view any of this material in person, or learn more about the archives, you are welcome to contact Nicole Milano, the AFS Head Archivist (nicole.milano@afs.org) or call (212) 479-1129.

Intercultural Link Newsletter – version 3 issue 2

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The newest edition of the Intercultural Link Newsletter has just been launched. Feel free to leave a comment after you read it. Enjoy!

AFS Intercultural Programs is pleased to announce the April/May/June 2012 issue of AFS Intercultural Link, AFS Intercultural Link Global v.3 i.2, which can be shared with anyone interested in learning more about intercultural education.

The AFS Intercultural Link Newsletter is the quarterly newsletter on intercultural learning in the AFS Network. The newsletter features content shared by the Intercultural Learning Work Group as well as other AFS Partners and guest writers, including information on trends in intercultural education, interviews with experts in the field and overviews of upcoming and previous conferences.

AFS Intercultural Link Initiatives in 2012

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The ICL Team at AFS International has recently uploaded a new video presenting the 2012 Intercultural Link Initiatives. In a dialogue, Laura Kline-Taylor and Vincenzo Morlini, President & CEO of AFS Intercultural Programs, discuss the current opportunities that exist for the AFS Network and for Friends of AFS.

The Intercultural Link Initiatives include the following materials and tools:

Registered AFS Volunteers can log in now. Contact icl@afs.org with any questions.

To become an AFS Volunteer and gain full access to the opportunities and materials that are part of the Intercultural Link Initiative, contact AFS in your country today.