World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh

The Council is committed to promoting successful experiential learning and providing preparation for higher education and the 21st-century workforce. Our programs work as addendums to the traditional formal education system and fill the gaps left behind in schools in relation to global opportunities and global learning. Global learning has the power to transform the ways that students see the World around themselves and change the way they see themselves in relation to the World. In doing so, it emboldens and empowers their traditional education by bringing new perspectives and new understandings into their classrooms.the Council is creating these new perspectives and understandings through three initiatives under the umbrella of youth programming: our global minds program, driven by a by-youth and for-youth approach, our global travel scholarship program, and our teacher training program.at the start of 2021, the Council announced the merger with the global minds initiative, a for-youth, by-youth organization created to combat the issues of cultural intolerance and discrimination through an after school tutoring program between english-as-a-second-language (esl) and native english speaking (nes) students. Global minds has become one of the Council's leading youth programs and provides an effective and sustainable continuum of global education and engagement opportunities to young people, their families, and the general public. The Council added several chapters in north america and one in hong kong, bringing the total number of chapters to 16 at the end of 2023.additionally, youth are at the forefront of the design and implementation of our digital lab, our annual youth conference, our career seminars, and our youth board and youth fellows opportunities. In total in 2023, the Council offered 35 youth programs, serving 41 schools and reaching 1,468 program attendees.

The Council's public programming provides an in-depth, non-partisan look at relevant international topics. Speakers offer information and analysis that allow attendees to broaden their awareness, gain new perspectives, and make informed decisions. In 2023, the Council put on 11 public programs with 61 community partners, enabling attendees to hear from 49 expert speakers.

The Council reinitiated student recruitment for the global travel scholarship program in 2021, following a program pause due to international travel restrictions related to the covid-19 pandemic. In partnership with the experiment in international living, the Council provides scholarships to local high school students to attend a culturally immersive program abroad for three to five weeks over the summer. The trips involve a combination of host family stays, language training, community service, and outdoor adventures. The students selected have a level of financial need that would otherwise limit their ability for international travel. The scholarship covers passport costs, flights, and program expenses.in 2023, the Council had 28 students apply for the global traveler scholarship program, of whom eight students were selected to travel to six countries in the summer of 2023.