SAGE Program set for expansion

The SAGE Program along with Friends of Woodstock School (FWS) was recently awarded the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation's 2007 Innovation Fund Award for its Fostering Global Citizens project. The amount of the award is $148,000.

Fostering Global Citizens is a project to enhance, develop and grow the Studies Abroad for Global Education (SAGE) Program's summer study in India for US high school youth, enabling SAGE to serve a more economically diverse audience than is currently feasible. Fostering Global Citizens will support:

• the expansion of the summer program from its current offering of two trips in 2006 to three trips in 2007 and four trips in 2008, through increased recruitment;
• creating an on-going scholarship fund for low-income students every year;
• creating improved promotion and publicity materials, including a video;
• hiring a half-time project manager to assist with project implementation;
• hiring a consultant to develop effective program/project evaluation methods.

With increased support through Fostering Global Citizens, SAGE will over two years double the size of its summer program, from two trips in 2006 to four trips in 2008, building a more financially robust program and creating a scholarship fund in order to enable a more economically diverse group of students to participate in the program.

This expansion will take place in two phases. In the first phase, SAGE will invest in improved promotion and publicity materials (print, video and web) and increased travel and recruitment costs, helping to recruit the additional participants necessary to fill three summer trips. A part-time project manager will be hired to assist the SAGE director with implementing this project, and a consultant will be hired to develop effective program/project evaluation methods. Finally, in the first year, five high achieving students will be selected from our partner organization, Environmental Charter High School (ECHS) in Los Angeles, to be given scholarships. The second phase will continue the expansion begun in the first, adding a fourth trip to the existing three. Evaluation of our partnership with ECHS will lead to identifying further partners of high quality public schools or programs serving low income students. In the second year, ten students will be selected for scholarships. This significant expansion and development over two years will enable SAGE to serve 60 students per year rather than its current maximum of 30, and provide 10 full scholarships per year rather than none.

Click here to visit the SAGE website.