From Freedom Riders to Freedom Drivers

In partnership with the University of the Americas (UDLA) and the US Embassy in Quito, Global Citizen Year in Ecuador hosted an event, entitled “From Freedom Riders to Freedom Drivers: Cultivating Young Leaders for Freedom in Ecuador,” to commemorate the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday.

The event was held on the UDLA campus in Quito on the first night of the Mid-Term Retreat (January 5th, 2012).  It was the second cultural exchange that has taken place between the Global Citizen Year Fellows and Ecuadorian youth the Embassy’s Young Ambassadors Program and UDLA students .

During the event, the young leaders viewed excerpts from the Public Broadcasting Studio (PBS) documentary film, “Freedom Riders,” and subsequently discussed issues related to cross-cultural leadership for promoting positive social change.

The GCY fellows and staff, UDLA students, Young Ambassadors from the US Embassy Program, and representatives from UDLA and the US Embassy in Quito came together to celebrate MLK's legacy..

 

Shannah Metz

About Shannah Metz

Shannah is who she is today, in large part, because of the experiential-learning opportunities she had in her late teens and early twenties in El Salvador, Israel, Mexico, and Ecuador. Over the last nine years, as she worked on international development, human rights, educational, and environmental management projects throughout Latin America, and mostly in Ecuador, Shannah continually confronted – and continues to confront – the same questions about social justice, sustainability, and global citizenship that were posed to her on those study abroad experiences. For this reason, she is very excited to join the GCY team this year and bring its program to Ecuador – a country she loves dearly – to facilitate a unique and powerful experience of working, questioning, learning, and living that will position the Fellows to propose innovative solutions, from the local to the global, to critical challenges that face our communities today.Shannah is motivated to share her deep knowledge about, and intimate appreciation for Ecuador with the GCY Fellows. She brings a breadth of technical and practical experience, having worked with indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian communities through local Ecuadorian NGOs as a Program Coordinator and educator, as well as for international institutions as an expert consultant in the human rights, environment, and higher education fields.Shannah holds a B.A. and M.A. in Environmental Anthropology from Stanford University.