For Immediate Release: May 28th, 2018

India, Nepal, South Africa, & USA – 35 teenagers representing 13 different US cities, six Indian states, four locations in South Africa, and one city in Nepal have been selected for fully-funded spots on the 2018 360Plus Leadership Collective in India. The Leadership Collective is a leadership course culminating in an international trip that opens access to experiential learning and global citizenship. The participants are selected for their leadership potential and come from communities that are underrepresented in global collaboration and problem-solving due to social and financial restrictions on travel. The theme for this year’s program is Adaptive Resilience in a Changing World. The group will spend over three weeks exploring this this theme in India from July 16th through August 8th, 2018

Since their selection in February, participants have been diving into the amazing ability of humankind to adapt to new situations and to bounce back from challenges stronger than before. They are studying and sharing how people turn obstacles into opportunities. The course, which takes place in a virtual classroom, looks at community resilience as well as personal/emotional resilience.

Many of the participants will be traveling for the first time and come from communities that are underrepresented in study trips that usually require a hefty fee. This trip to India is fully-funded. Even the pre-departure costs such as passports, visas, and vaccines are covered by donors, allowing these teenagers to often be the first in their families and neighborhoods to travel for such an educational opportunity.

Through the ongoing support of the roughly 360 international development professionals that compose the 360Plus Network, these students have the opportunity to become part of a unique civic-minded international network. This network will support the students’ efforts to promote global awareness in their own communities as well as provide them with a variety of resources through the next steps of higher education and career.

This project is a charitable effort that displays an emerging trend in philanthropy, in which the people providing the money aren’t simple donors, but active participants in the ideation, execution, and sustainability of the model. The primary financier helped create the idea, is engaged with the curriculum, and will travel as part of the group for the fourth year in a row. 360Plus is offering donors the opportunity to specifically sponsor students based on their demographic, interest area, and location.

You can follow this year’s trip on Facebook and Instagram, or at 360plus.org. For more information about the program, see this video, the 360Plus website.

360Plus is a network of emerging leaders of US and Indian origin connected by their common experience working in India’s development sector over the last fifteen years. We have joined together to leverage our skills and knowledge to collaborate on diverse projects of common interest. We work primarily in South Asia. A main focus of 360Plus is to provide learning opportunities to youth, often through travel.