ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Young Scholars for Sustainable International Development (YSSID), previously Young Scholars for Global Development (YSGD), is a research and field project program addressing the critical need for younger students to grasp a better understanding of cross-cutting global issues through hands-on experience and, ultimately, social responsibility. By using the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as an overarching theme, the program is innovatively designed and structured to enable a deeper understanding of diverse international issues and to find sustainable solutions to improve the development of low-resource and disaster/conflict affected countries by creating youth-led, sustainable field project ideas. High school students need the three critical opportunities to help them emerge into global leaders and innovators: first, the opportunity to explore the world outside of their classrooms and to apply their knowledge in the real world; second, the opportunity to experience and understand crosscutting global issues and social responsibility on an individual level; and third, the opportunity to grasp an unbiased, more authentic understanding of the world around them. Three components of the YSSID program facilitate the above opportunities:

PROGRAM COMPONENTS

II.

GOALS OF THE PROGRAM

Understand cross-cutting issues affecting various countries on both international and local levels.
Develop higher-level critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Cultivate the ability to analyze evidence-based research studies and data

I.

Research / Analysis Paper

With the help of a research mentor, students develop a situation analysis of a country where he/she will participate in a field project. He/she also focuses on an area of development that he/she is interested in.

Field Project

Students make one or two field visits to a country. Since 2013, our program has launched in sites in Haiti, Kenya, Dominican Republic, and India. The first trip serves as a general field visit to better understand the context of the country, and the second trip is to implement a small project that he/she has developed for the field site. Sites we currently work within Haiti are schools, women's group meetings, an inclusive school that was developed by Cornell University students, the HEART School in Port-au-Prince, etc.

III.

Culminating Project

Through a presentation and competition of their capstone projects, students are given the opportunity to reflect on their previous experiences (what aspects were successful, what went wrong, what were the risk factors, what to improve, what was challenging in a developing context, etc.). These culminating projects include a presentation of their work in front of their peers, advisors, and research mentors, leading a workshop on sustainable development at the Youth Assembly at the United Nations, an international capstone competition of their field project ideas, and more.