What has my Gulf Coast Diplomacy Council internship meant for me this year? Hello everyone! My name is Maggie Brown, and I’ve interned with the Gulf Coast Diplomacy Council since June 2022. I am a third-year student at the University of West Florida, double-majoring in International Studies and Art History. At this internship, I facilitate...
For the last few years, Gulf Coast Diplomacy has been honored to host virtual and in-person projects for the United Kingdom with the International Visitor Leadership Program titled Youth Empowerment and Civic Activism. To introduce a recent in-person group to locals, we first brought them to a community coffee where they could meet with community...
When International Visitor Leadership Program participants come to Northwest Florida, they explore the objectives in their itineraries through a series of meetings and workshops. They also experience our local culture through time with individuals, ticketed events, and unstructured weekend time. For example, when visitors looking at Developing Entrepreneurship, Start-Ups, and the Technology Sector arrived in...
During the fall of 2021, I was a program facilitator for Gulf Coast Diplomacy's Youth Ambassador program. This program included youth leaders from all over the Americas, including El Salvador, Honduras, Belize, Nicaragua, and the United States. In the new normal of virtual programming, these young leaders brought their enthusiasm and young professionalism in tow....
How do you address political policy formation, public-private partnerships, leadership, and advocacy strategies with visitors from the Kyrgyz Republic participating in an International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP)? In the late winter of 2020, our community did just that through a series of hands-on activities and dynamic meetings for professionals from the Ministry of Education and...
As we prepare to return to in-person programming, we are looking back through our archives at our past exchanges for inspiration. One of our last pre-pandemic project was for two environmentalists from Costa Rica and Ghana who came our way to explore NGO management and strategies and is a great example of how the International...
At the end of February 2020, we welcomed seven visitors on an International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) titled Women as Political and Social Leaders. The exchange participants came from Chad, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan to examine the role of women in the United States government and the community at large and...
Letter from a Youth Ambassador It’s always a pleasure to hear from program alumni. In early 2022, Youth Ambassador Joanna Sánchez, a teenager from Nicaragua, reached out to give us an update. Today is a really important day for me because I made come true a dream I was working very hard to achieve. It...
Five key policies drive the work of the Department of State. Three of these are promoting the advancement of democracy, encouraging economic growth and prosperity, and promoting international understanding of American values and policies. Can one meeting have such a significant impact? Indeed, it can. The combination of these meetings helps our organization assist the...
Most Community Spotlights highlight the work of adults in Pensacola, Florida. This spotlight, however, focuses on an honorary citizen with a special connection to the City of Five Flags. Abraão José da Silva first came to Northwest Florida from his hometown in Brazil on a World Learning Youth Ambassadors exchange in high school. While here,...
