Ana: How GTA Found Me

I have been a part of the Global Ties organization since the summer after I graduated high school. I had the incredible opportunity to intern at Global Ties Kansas City. I learned so much about the Global Ties organization, my home city, and myself. After an incredible summer internship experience I came to Fayetteville, AR as a freshman at the University of Arkansas.

After a busy freshman year and even more hectic pandemic, I missed the experiences I had working with Global Ties. After looking for similar opportunities in the Northwest Arkansas area, I couldn't find anything that felt right. So I took a chance, reaching out to Toni Carr, hoping they would be willing to take on another intern, even though I wasn't based out of Little Rock. Luckly, we had all just learned how to survive in a virtual world, and I joined the Global Ties Arkansas team as an intern!

I continued to learn about Global Ties, the world, and working in a professional environment. I loved jumping back into the Global Ties world and learning about Arkansas and international affairs on the way. After my first semester as an intern, I became a Program Officer over the summer. Spending the summer in Little Rock, where I finally got to meet the team in person, as well as visitors like Gabby Sanz, recent recipient of our Diplomacy Grant, was an incredible experience. I learned invaluable skills, hosted my first virtual program and developed lasting relationships with the Global Ties Arkansas Team.

While I spend the majority of my time back in Fayetteville, I am still able to be an active member of the GTA team, largely thanks to Toni's incredible support. From virtual staff meetings to attending the Global Ties US national conference in DC, I love getting to know our team better and develop new strategies and goals for our organization.

Message from the 2022 National Meeting Chair

Dear Colleagues,

It is an honor to represent the 2022 National Meeting Planning Committee, Global Ties U.S., and the Office of International Visitors as your Meeting Chair. Together we can make this National Meeting—our first in-person gathering as a Network since 2020—a memorable and exciting experience.

The past several years have presented challenges, disappointments, and new horizons all in one. I know that you, as a part of this amazing group of community ambassadors, have reinvented the way we do business and will continue to MOVE EXCHANGE FORWARD.

Although our attendance will be limited due to COVID, your learning opportunities are endless. You can participate in more than 20 in-person breakout sessions and three (3) U.S. Department of State thematic presentations, not to mention the inspiring plenary sessions! Open your minds and broaden your ideas and techniques by attending program sessions on topics ranging from cyber issues, effective data collection, fundraising and development, to adult learning, alumni ideas, and podcasting.

Don’t forget one of the most important parts of our National Meeting: meeting new colleagues and connecting with old friends! It’s been two years since our Network has come together, to connect and exchange ideas and stories. I am excited to see my friends again (not in sweatpants and slippers) and talk about life and new ideas we are eager to try on our in-person international visitors!

We have learned many things during our virtual-only days: how to unmute ourselves, what to wear, how to screen share, how to talk on a delay, and how many pets everyone has. Most importantly, we have learned that we can still be effective and bring people together globally like our organization has done for 60+ years!

With our new-found knowledge of virtual tools, we can enhance our conversations across many mediums. MOVING EXCHANGE FORWARD means extending our connections with our Congressional members, using new tools in imaginative ways, dispelling stereotypes, and reaching even better and stronger cross-cultural understanding.

I am excited to great you at this year’s National Meeting, and listen to your stories and ideas of how we can strengthen our global mission and our daily programming. Here’s to your dedication and infinite innovation! See you at the Meeting!

Sincerely,

Toni

Toni Carr Director, Global Ties Arkansas

Creating an Accessible Public Diplomacy Program

Global Ties Arkansas has expanded our programmatic output in the last four years. We’ve formed partnerships with schools to bring cybersecurity education into classrooms and run leadership programs that promote intercultural awareness. We’ve hosted a speaker series and taken international visitors to volunteer in the most critical areas of our state. But our idea to create an accessible public diplomacy program that brings international engagement to people in Arkansas who don’t get to typically engage with it kept getting shelved. We bounced ideas around, then the pandemic hit.

In October of 2020, we received an email from George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication announcing that we had been awarded $5,000 from the Walter Roberts Endowment to develop a public diplomacy project. We had won a contest we didn’t even know we were in. The award accompanied the 2021 Congressional Award for Leadership and Diplomacy given to Senator John Boozman (R-AR) who was recognized for his strong support of the Fulbright Program. We are using this grant to take that idea of creating accessible international engagement off the shelf.

We opened a competition among alumni of our international programs, including the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), and formed a six-member committee of our most involved volunteers to help evaluate the projects and select finalists. Gabby Sanz from Peru was declared the winner.

Gabby visited Arkansas through the Young Leaders of America Initiative in 2017 and formed an amazing bond with members of our community. She has returned several times since, sometimes gathering groups of Arkansas families for language and cultural lessons. This time, she is returning to work with the Global Ties Arkansas team and her former mentor, Dr. Cindy Fong, to run a 15-day exchange between Arkansas and Peru. During the program, our communities will have the chance to learn about differences in cuisine and the arts. The session will be conducted in both English and Spanish.

Our hope is that we will be able to continue the Global Ties Arkansas Public Diplomacy Program in the future. We want to develop this program as an opportunity for all our international visitors to know that if they visit Arkansas, they’re not only getting our special Southern touch of hospitality and friendliness, but also opportunities for continued public diplomacy and collaboration.

By Ra’phael Davis, Program Officer, Global Ties Arkansas