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...
When an International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) or Open World project has teaching STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), non-profit management, best practices in education, or entrepreneurship as an objective, Basil Kuloba, the executive director of INERTIA Education Programs, Inc., makes time in his calendar to share his experiences with exchange participants. Kuloba co-founded INERTIA...
For four exciting days in November 2019, Gulf Coast Diplomacy hosted a group of nine professionals from Austria, Costa Rica, Fiji, Mongolia, Namibia, Sweden, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, and the United Arab Emirates. The U.S. Department of State invited these visitors to participate in an International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) which was arranged at the national level...
In November of 2019, Gulf Coast Diplomacy hosted a group of firefighters and search & rescue professionals from Russia through the Open World Leadership Program. During their stay, Leigh & Kent DeSantis, Marcia Edwards, Vivian Faircloth, Megan & Jerry Pratt, Faye & Robert Robinson, and Jeannine van Reeth volunteered as homestay hosts. After a brief...
In November 2019, nine visitors from India came to Pensacola via the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) on a project titled U.S. Society and Culture. FHI 360 arranged their national project and Gulf Coast Diplomacy arranged their local one. Project objectives included to “illustrate how the diversity of U.S. society and cultures contributes to a...
It is always a pleasure to hear from our international visitors & to share their thoughts on their experience in northwest Florida. Here's a note from a visitor whose project focused on the protection of children. What did she think of our community? We'll let her tell you in her own words: My Name is...
Powerful Women of the Gulf Coast & the Gulf Coast Citizen Diplomacy Council invite you to meet 17 entrepreneurs from Armenia, Cambodia, Colombia, Finland, Hungary, India, Israel, Libya, Mongolia, Peru, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, South Sudan, the United Republic of Tanzania, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. This dynamic group is traveling in...
The Gulf Coast Citizen Diplomacy Council selected three charter members of its Youth Diplomats Program to go on a June 2018 trip to Washington, D.C. where they spent two days exploring international exchange, diplomacy, and the U.S. government through a series of meetings and site visits with the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Diplomacy...
This past month I had the great honor and privilege to participate in the inaugural meeting of the Youth Diplomats program of the Gulf Coast Citizen Diplomacy Council. This was one of the greatest experiences I have had in high school. We were able to learn about cultural assimilation and got to experience this through...
In late August and early September, a group of ten visitors from Nigeria arrived in Pensacola as part of an U.S. State Department International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) project titled Interfaith Leadership and Human Rights. One of their first activities was attending a community coffee discussion to meet informally with locals. Some of those present...
