Sunday...

Spending Sunday with my best girl!  Church, Brunch, and a little shopping. Love me some Keigan Evans. <3 

...focus group discussion guides

1/11/13

Just finished the developing the focus group discussion guide for the students and parents. It was simple. About 10 questions that just gets to understand any thoughts and concerns the respondents may have if they or their high school aged child were to travel abroad. I will plan two focus groups with both parents and students. The students, I hope to organize through a community program... as soon as I call them, and the parents I hope to organize through convenient and snowballing from a few parents I know or can find. The purpose of the focus group is to already have an understanding of fears or concerns so that once I begin to campaign and market the project, I am fully aware of what to expect so that I can more easily and appropriately address them. This is the fun part of the process... well I am sure it is all fun, but I can't wait to speak to parents and teens about traveling abroad.. without giving anything away of course. I do believe I should add more questions to the student discussion guide... perhaps to get a sense of cross cultural understanding among them. That's great. Now, to continue with the day. 

Many international educational training programs focus on college students. Why do you think it’s important for students from diverse backgrounds to have international experiences earlier than college?

Because they won’t get to college! Many of these students won’t get to college if they don’t [participate in international programming]. It’s pretty plain and simple that most of the students we work with, marginalized youth, are not getting the support at the high school level to even go on to four-year colleges. On top of that, it may not even be an option in their mind to pursue any kind of international educational opportunities if college isn’t seen as an option. There are many reasons why it’s important for young people to be exposed earlier on, but for the obvious one is that it supports them getting into college.

Many of our students are first-generation going to college, over 60% of our students are first-generation, and many of them don’t have the support, at home or at school, for how to navigate the higher education system. So I think you’re really missing out if you’re not focused on the younger students, the pipeline. In fact, almost all of the One World Now students, when they do go onto college, then continue to study these critical languages and go abroad. They’re already fired up about international education in a way that they definitely would not have been had they not had this exposure in high school. Also, they may not even go onto college [had they not participated in this kind of programming].

Kristin Hayden, One World Now! President and Founder

http://www.oneworldnow.org/whats-going-on/news/article/diversity-network-leadership-interview-series

...Status update

1/7/13

Whew. I took the weekend off. And boy did I need it. But now its back to work. Though I woke up late (12am), I went for a run, made a large salad for lunch and headed to the coffee shop to get my work on.  I have been here for hours with only a dinner break… and everything is just flowing out. It’s great! Currently, I am of course blogging, but I have planned the student and parent informal meetings/ focus group, organized a contact list, and began searching for these contacts and researching their relevance to this org. Seems menial, but it is o so important. It has even given me more as it relates to developing the concept note. Well, I will sign off now and update you later.

...business plan

1/4/13

I told Alicia yesterday that I needed a business plan and she offered to help. I love these people. I swear I could not do it without any of them. So we will meet soon to turn my concept note into just that. She has also promised to send it to her uncle in Texas for which it is his job to assist people with creating a business plan. We will see what he thinks of it. Crossing my fingers.

Back to business!

1/3/13                                                                                                                        

It’s a new year and it’s back to business!

Today, I met with George Muhammad of the Kwanzaa Cultural Access Center, Inc. The meeting went very well. It was one of the important meetings in that it provided me with names and contacts of the black business community in Macon. People I will need as supporters in any and every way. It was a very helpful meeting. The next step is to begin contacting these people to share with them my non-profit (once she has a name) and ideas about how we can partner or come together for a common good. I also learned that if I want to do things the way they should be done, I have to start a nonprofit to back the program. If I just placed the program within an already existing entity, some program components could be lost and it would be under the direction of someone other than me. So, its best to go all the way with it. As I suspected. But now it means I must go ahead and commit to all of the steps needed to developing a non-profit, including a business plan. A business plan? Yes honey! 

Kwanzaa 2012

Picture of George Muhammad (right) and Dr. James Beverly (left) during last year’s (2012) Kwanzaa Ceremony.