Im Moving to Cali, Colombia!

It’s official, I am moving abroad!

THE WHY: 

The engagement and development of Women, Girls and Youth is my passion and I would like to expand my work to an international platform. In order to achieve such, I need to improve my Spanish and gain more international work experience. I am crafting a unique experience to allow me to achieve my goals in a short period of time!

THE WORK:

Through a partnership with the Colombian Government and Volunteers Colombia, I will be teaching leadership development and industry-specific English to college students in their National Service of Learning (SENA) schools. Similar to our community college system, SENA schools provide quality education and development for low-income students who can’t attend or afford university. The goal of the Colombian Government is to equip the SENA students with the skills they need to complete and flourish in the Global marketplace.

Due to the inaugural nature of this program, I have the opportunity to create whatever learning environment I want for my students. Autonomously, I will develop the weekly lessons, workshops and presentations for my students.

 THE VISION:

I know some of you are thinking “ Why would you quit your job and move halfway across the world to work for free?”

Let me answer this by explaining how this fits into my overall vision. As each of you know, youth engagement, higher education and empowering women and girls are my passions.  We live in a multi dimensional global world, and it is imperative that I cultivate a global paradigm as I am gathering the skills I need to lead. In order to truly expose others and inspire them to become greater, we must first be exposed ourselves.

To maximize my time, I will also be working with women and girls organizations to do some capacity building, program development and fundraising. Within a year, I will be able to gather 3 critical skills: classroom experience, youth engagement on an international level, and language acquisition. In short, Colombia presents a unique opportunity for me to serve the international community while crafting a high impact experience.

As they say, if opportunities don’t come knocking, build a door! #purposeliving

Lets stay connected!

-Cici