School of International Studies
Global Center Programs and Projects
The Global Center for Social Entrepreneurship is proud to feature a diverse grouping of programs that represent the Center’s commitment to student involvement, local and international partnerships, and experiential learning.
Global Center Ambassador Corps Program:
The Global Center Ambassador Corps is an annual program that provides scholarships to students wishing to obtain international internships in the field of social entrepreneurship. Aside from the hands-on experience, this advanced internship program provides the essential fundamentals for establishing careers in international development, strengthening graduate school applications, fulfilling practicum requirements, and cultivating professional relationships in developing countries with premier social entrepreneurship organizations. For the summer 2010 cycle, the program will fund 8-10 student internships at $3 -5,000. Students should download the Application Guidelines and complete an Ambassador Corps Application. The program is primarily funded by Advisory Board members.
During the summer of 2009, Jocelyn Gray, a Senior Bioengineering student in the School of Engineering and Computer Science was one of the recipients of an "ambassadorship" through the Global Center Amabssador Corps program. She set-up a blog www.jocelyngray.wordpress.com to document her journey to Johannesburg, South Africa where she will be working as a Junior Lecturer/Teacher at the Maharishi Institute.
Liza Boyle, a Senior Mechanical Engineering student in the School of Engineering and Computer Science was also one of the recipients of an "ambassadorship" through the Global Center Amabssador Corps program. She set-up a blog at http://ambassadorcorps1.blogspot.com to document her journey to Karatara, South Africa. Her host organization is the Eden Campus in Karatara and her internship focus is Sustainable Eco-Tourism Academy Teaching and Business Development.
Local/International Internships: Exemplary internships for all Pacific students have been developed which afford students direct access to the internal operations of frontline Social Entrepreneurship organizations through domestic and international internships. Read more about the students below:
Grant Ennis
Grant was assigned to the Katalysis Central American Microfinance Network in Honduras. He designed and developed a model youth entrepreneurship program to provide business start-up loans for youth ages 18-25. Grant’s internship resulted in the publication of the “Youth Entrepreneurship Microfinance Program Manuel” a model which is being replicated in other microfinance organizations in Central America.
Nancy Huynh
Nancy worked for Safe Passage, an organization that assists the poorest at-risk children of families working in the Guatemala City garbage dump andRoots of Peace, an international nonprofit organization that enters post-conflict countries, clears land mines and reclaims the land for agricultural production. She helped set up new operations for Roots of Peace in Vietnam.
Sarah Mirels
Sarah spent a summer in Paraguay working with the Teach a Man to Fish organization that has created one of the world’s first high schools for rural youth that pays for itself. Students grow their own food, market the harvest, and operate a small agro-processing enterprise. Sara worked with Pacific Alumnus, Martin Burt at Fundación Paraguaya, the country’s first micro-finance organization.
Hunter Tanous and Domenica Peterson
Hunter and Domenica started a Pacific chapter of Ties to the World, a Guatemalan organization that is dedicated to making orphanages sustainable through social enterprises. Their work in Guatemala is leading to a self-sufficient prototype that can be replicated within a network of 40 orphanages throughout Central America, and in Kisumu, Kenya at an orphanage sponsored by School of International Studies students.
Incubator Apprenticeship Program:
The Incubator Apprenticeship Program connects Council members as resource liaisons to fledgling social entrepreneurship organizations to provide assistance in sourcing information related to basic start-up needs such as accounting systems, business planning, web page design, fundraising, marketing, and internet research.
Newly incorporated national and international development non-profit organizations that are participating in the Incubator Apprenticeship Program include:
Ties to the World assists disadvantaged youth in the development of the academic, business, and leadership skills necessary to become productive citizens and reliable community leaders. The current focus is assisting an orphanage in Guatemala to become self-sustaining.
Global Eyes promotes and develops social entrepreneurship projects in developing countries and poor communities in the US. The current project is helping Children’s Rescue Mission, an orphanage in Kenya, become self-sustaining.
Seeing Hands provides training and employment opportunities for blind youth in Nepal in therapeutic massage. Certified masseurs find a consistent income rather than social marginalization. Part of their earnings help fund the training of more blind masseurs, thus making the training a self-sustaining operation. The current project is establishing 501 (c) (3) non-profit tax-exempt status.
Foundation for Development of Needy Communities strives to build self-reliance and sustainable development in the most impoverished communities of Eastern Uganda through strategies that promote community participation and individual empowerment. FDNC offers programs in education and training, community-based health and development, human rights, the arts and institution building.
Stockton2020 is a youth-based civic advocacy group dedicated to empower youth to envision and promote a safer, healthier, and more prosperous community. In the summer of 2007, Stockton2020 launched The Libraries Change Lives Campaign, the nation’s first youth-based library advocacy movement aiming to equip the people of Stockton and San Joaquin County to compete successfully in the 21st century global economy with a world-class state-of-the-art public library system.
Women’s Global Empowerment Fund aims to reach poor and underprivileged women around the world through microfinance loans and education programs creating opportunities while strengthening families and communities.
The Montuso Foundation is a non-profit organization that provides educational needs for women and children in socially disadvantaged, disenfranchised, and impoverished regions around the world; locally and globally.
Mentorship Program
The Global Center for Social Entrepreneurship launched its 2008-09 Mentorship Program in October 2008 to link the professional Global Center Advisory Board members with Council members interested in career opportunities in social entrepreneurship. The objective is to effectively match student interests and intentions with Advisory Board member experience and expertise. For most of the Council members, this is their first participation in a mentorship relationship and becomes the first step in creating their own social entrepreneurship network of personal counselors in this emerging field.
Certificate and Master's program:
We are completing an on-line sequence of three courses that will constitute a certificate in social entrepreneurship and are developing an MA in this area that will be begin in 2009. The purpose of these academic and applied programs and to provide practically-based academic training on-site and online in the field of Social Entrepreneurship.
Applied research: The Center will conduct high quality impact analysis, monitoring and evaluation, and documentation of Social Entrepreneurship organizations.
Community linkage: The Global Center has forged partnerships with community members through community workshops, public forums, and the establishment of the Central Valley Microfinance Fund.
Workshops
The Center has designed a series of workshops for nonprofit organizations in the Central Valley to assist them in developing their long term sustainability. The workshops are practically-based, user friendly, centrally located in Stockton, and reasonably priced for maximum participation. Recognized hands-on specialists in the field provide state-of-the-art experience and expertise.
Central Valley Microfinance Fund
The Center is in the process of establishing a microfinance fund in the Central Valley to assist economically disadvantaged individuals get loans to start their own small businesses. This will be done in partnership with the San Joaquin Delta College Small Business Development Center and initially financed by the Small Business Administration “Microloan” program designed to promote microfinance in the U.S.
Council of University Social Entrepreneurs:
The Council is the student arm of the Global Center for Social Entrepreneurship. Its function is to promote all aspects of social entrepreneurship on campus: research, documentation, internships, speakers, forums, joint ventures, and career opportunities. It is composed of interested students from six schools within the University and is located at the Global Center in Callison Hall.