• Community-Driven Service
  • Amizade has a 12-year record of cooperating with communities on service that local individuals and organizations define and direct. We not only cooperate with communities on issue identification, we also work collaboratively on project implementation, continuous evaluation, and regular improvements.
• Deliberate Learning
  • One of Amizade’s core assumptions is that context matters. We cooperate with community members and organizations to educate Amizade participants about local culture, local concerns, and local assets.
• Intercultural Immersion and Exchange
  • Amizade encourages connections across cultures. Through cooperative service efforts, deliberate local learning, and in some cases, homestays, Amizade experiences ensure deep learning about cultural assumptions, worldviews, and of course the concerns and happiness that we all hold in common.
• Consideration of Global Citizenship
  • Amizade invites all participants to reflect on fundamental human equality and how we might each work to build a world where human life is treated more equally across traditional cleavages of ethnicity, nation, class, or gender. Consideration of personal, political, and economic opportunities for enacting global citizenship provides Amizade participants with the opportunity to extend their global civic service beyond their Amizade program.
• Reflective Inquiry
  • All of the preceding themes are woven together through a final core Amizade value, which is reflective inquiry. The questions we face when engaged in intercultural service around the world are often difficult. And it can be challenging to stay connected to global civic engagement after a short-term experience. But Amizade believes strongly that it is important to continue asking: What is service? How have I learned from others’ cultures? What do I understand better about my own? How can I value others around the world, even from my home? What are the ways I can be a good global citizen right here? These are just a few examples, but Amizade encourages reflective inquiry throughout experiences and afterward.

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