Now is the time to think about post-pandemic travel. To help inspire the planning, Þuríður H. Aradóttir BRAUN of Iceland joined the Small World Café. BRAUN visited Northwest Florida in 2009 on a U.S. Department of State International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) focused on parks, biodiversity, and ecotourism management along with colleagues from Israel, Kenya,...
For this Small World Café, we were joined by Gulf Coast Diplomacy’s very own Bruno BARROS who was our office’s first intern from the University of West Florida (UWF). BARROS has worked in the international sector since his graduation from UWF and in the summer of 2020 was working for Safmarine in Angola. During the...
Professionals need to discuss issues with professionals and youth need to explore topics with other youth. That is why when Gulf Coast Diplomacy hosts short-term youth exchanges, part of the agenda goal is to include time at an American high school so international students can experience a day as an American teen in Northwest Florida....
On Saturday, January 16th, we had our monthly Youth Diplomats Zoom meeting. We started with a game of Kahoot on current events, and the exciting announcement of the opening of applications for The Experiment Digital 2021. It was an incredible ice breaker, as it opened the room for some discussion and laughter along the way....
Dr. Megan Pratt always makes an effort to meet with international exchange participants, both professionally and also informally as a dinner host or host parent for youth exchanges. She and her family all routinely express their excitement when a new group comes to town. As the founder of the Pensacola MESS (Math, Engineering, Science, and...
For the Small World Café held on September 10, Gulf Coast Diplomacy welcomed two visitors to discuss their work. Dr. Khwaja Mohammed ZIYAUDDIN and Laeeq AHMED KHAN AQIL visited Northwest Florida as participants of an International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) in 2019. Their U.S. Department of State project was coordinated at the national level by...
Our August focus for the café was on the importance of building local identity, and Taras REPYTSKYI shared how he and his team are creating a sense of community in the Sykhivskyi District of Lviv in Ukraine. During the meeting, REPYTSKY shared how his neighborhood has changed in post-communist Ukraine and spoke of the importance...
On January 12th, 2021, Gulf Coast Diplomacy hosted the first Small World Cafe of the new year with guest speakers, Shana Inofuentes and Monica Flores, of The Quechua Project. The two co-founders shared the group’s goal of reinvigorating the endangered Quechua language by expanding its community of speakers to younger generations. As the official language...
In early May 2020, Gulf Coast Diplomacy held its third Small World Café. The speaker for the event was Greece’s own Spyros KOUVELIS who visited Northwest Florida in 2009 on one of our organization’s first projects. KOUVELIS was delighted to “return” to the community and was not shy in pointing out his Certificate of Honorary...
