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  • Bardoli Global envisions a world where study abroad and global leadership opportunities are widely accepted, accessible, and requisite parts of American education for all students, regardless of race or class. Visit the Bardoli website at www.bardoliglobal.org.

Echoing Green Fellowship Allows Creation of Bardoli Global Project

Reprinted (Oct. 17, 2006) courtesy of The School for International Training/World Learning, an Abroad View Foundation Sponsor

Anthony Jewett and Michael Williams II believe in the importance of international experiences, especially in shaping the cross-cultural competencies of global leaders. This belief is what gave birth to the Bardoli Global Initiative. Anthony Jewett and Michael Williams II are two of fifteen 2006 Fellows working as social agents of change in a different field and in a different part of the world and their organization was one of twelve projects that was chosen for funding by Echoing Green in 2006.

Jewett and Williams both saw the need for a more aggressive and structured way of including minority factions in study abroad experiences. According to Bardoli Global, currently, only 2% of eligible U.S. undergraduates study abroad each year. Although African Americans represent 14% of total U.S. college population, they comprise only 3% of the study abroad population.

Jewett and Williams started Bardoli Global to address this need of increasing diversity of students, institutions and host country destinations in study abroad programs. Their organization will launch a pilot program in Texas called “Houston 200” and through this program, Bardoli Global will partner with a wide array of organizations in an effort to reach students, provide them with the opportunity to participate in study abroad programs, and assist them in their decision to study abroad. The hope is to then transfer this innovative marketing, recruitment, and support model to the national scale in urban centers.

Bardoli Global has a small team of four people, including the partners who started it. Anthony Jewett, Co-Founder and Executive Director of this organization, has pursued higher education with the School for International Training during the academic year 2005-2006. Anthony Jewett recruited another SIT graduate student, Reed Caldwell, who is now completing his practicum with Bardoli Global and assisting in this social movement start-up and by doing so, expanding the SIT and World Learning network and its reach.

Echoing Green is an organization aimed at creating social change though innovative work by entrepreneurs. The organization runs a fellowship program, whereby they identify, fund, and support social entrepreneurs and their projects for a period of two years. For more information about this organization, please visit their website: http://www.echoinggreen.org.