USA

Centering Marginalized Youth as Digital Learning Content Designers Increases Engagement and Belonging for All

Global Nomads Group Content Creation Lab (CCL) uses a transformational “for youth, by youth” approach to digital program and content design that taps into Gen Z’s sense of agency and activism and addresses their desire for authenticity. In the CCL we’ve radically shifted the roles in our design processes, positioning and trusting youth as digital learning experience designers and content creators.  

Critically important, Global Nomads is ardently intentional about which youth we center as designers.  We’re committed to recruiting CCL youth that represent the identities most often impacted by the social justice issues that our programming explores and those whose voices and perspectives are traditionally marginalized in learning content and digital spaces. Additionally, youth who engage with these newly designed digital experiences also contribute to Global Nomads learning content via embedded story share activities, allowing every young person - particularly those not represented in traditional learning content - to write themselves into ours. 

The resulting work is prompting increasingly courageous conversations among global youth who share stories about their families and communities, question each other’s preconceptions, break down stereotypes, and discuss pressing social issues with clear-eyed purpose and urgency. CCL demonstrates powerfully that when adults set up rigorous systems and structures and then get out of the way, young people are more than capable of respectfully engaging with each other on the serious issues they care about. The skills and habits of mind developed are precisely what youth need to thrive in personal, professional, and civic spaces - both physical and digital.

The Global Nomads Content Creation has already been scaled incrementally, since the first pilot cohort of 24 global youth interns in summer 2020 to the most recent cycle in Summer 2022 that engaged 36 interns, from 11 to 23. The tiered leadership model has allowed interns to return for multiple cycles, advance from team member to  team leader roles, and for some to transition into part-time intern coordinator positions. We provide stipends for each intern, as part of our intentional efforts to make the experience accessible to all youth regardless of income level.  Demand has grown; we had close to 100 applicants for 36 spots in this last cycle and were limited only by the availability of discrete project funding. With increased investment, we can imagine expanding the CCL to serve 100+  interns in 2023.

The youth-designed digital content is then implemented in schools and afterschool programs, and accessed independently by  individual learners worldwide. Global Nomads Group currently reaches 3,500 young people in over 50 countries annually.  We maintain partnerships with 27 schools in 12 countries, and while our recruitment efforts have historically focussed on collaborations with brick and mortar educational institutions, increasingly we are working with third-party resource hubs, such as Composer, Gather IQ, and Universal Human Rights Initiative, that have the capacity to reach millions. 

The level engagement of these youth-authored courses has been so significant that it leads us to believe that there is a growth opportunity to go directly to young people rather than relying only on adult-facilitated spaces. We see tremendous potential for leveraging the digital know-how and networks of young people themselves to market and distribute the learning projects they are creating to extend the impact of these experiences and the participation in these spaces exponentially. As such, we anticipate that the DDT prize money, expertise, and exposure will be game-changing, enabling us to harness this potential to scale our innovation and impact, while still centering youth leadership, learning, and safety. 

Another aspect of the scale we aspire to achieve, over the longer term, is to have this disruptive idea influence a realignment of values, strategies, and resources invested in trusting youth to drive their own learning, to tell adults what matters to them, and to orient us to new ways of thinking and being in the world. 

1. Youth will benefit from designing their own learning experiences, writing themselves into our digital learning content and sharing their knowledge with global peers.  Diverse - and typically marginalized - youth will feel welcome and secure in expressing their perspectives and lived experiences and will come to value the different perspectives of their global peers. They will also realize that they have agency - both individual collective - to take action on the issues that concern them in their communities and beyond. 

2. Educators will gain access to youth-created content that is uniquely engaging, easy to integrate into course studies, rigorous and available in accessible formats, and relevant to young people’s topical interests and technical acuity.

3. Parents will embrace digital learning offerings and an online community that is safe, reflects and  affirms their children’s identities and experiences, and harnesses the appeal and authenticity of social media in a way that brings out the best in young people.

Global Nomad programs are grounded in the science of learning and adolescent development. We interleave the learning of empathy via storytelling with the learning of content (exposing youth to different cultures, countries and contexts) and concepts related to global social issues such as Global Hunger, Ocean Health, Human Rights, and Mental Health. 

We engage with young people at a developmental stage when they are individuating and when their brains are integrating new information and identities with increased connectivity among brain structures. Our programs encourage youth to explore their individual identities and communities in relation to others whose lives are quite different from their own. 

In the short term, CCL is an intensive project-based learning experience for a cohort of youth interns. In the long term, the digital content they create will reach thousands of young people with compelling information and diverse perspectives, as well as opportunities and inspiration for youth to engage and take action on the issues they’re most concerned about. 

The program will also help teens realize they are not alone in their concern for the planet and the future of humanity or in their desire to be part of the solutions. Knowledge and connectedness will lead to confidence, belonging, and hopefulness about the difference they can make. These empowering experiences can be transformative for teens experiencing isolation, anxiety, and hopelessness – particularly in the COVID era. 

A 2021 external evaluation of Global Nomads’ youth-designed learning experiences found statistically significant improvements in three key outcome indicators: Empathy, Perspective Taking, and Action-orientation with a larger effect size in these areas in our youth-designed courses.(See more external evaluation results highlighted in slides #6, #7, and #8 of the attached deck.)

Following are stories that exemplify the benefits of this project for youth. The first is written by Nour from Lebanon, a CCL intern, describing her experience moving through the design process. Those that follow are excerpts from youth who participated in a youth-designed Film and Media online course, describing how they applied what they learned about unconscious bias and persistent stereotypes across cultures to analyze and reimagine popular movies. (Also see slides #2 and #12 for video testimonials about how our youth-designed digital content addresses youth needs.)

Nour’s Story

After getting accepted [as an CCL intern], I felt so proud of myself. Where that little girl from that tiny country in the Middle East (Lebanon) finally made it to a global community where I finally had the opportunity to have a hearable voice to the larger community that makes a difference!

The first week was a learning curve, I incorrectly assumed I would be talked-down-to or

patronized, as I do not come from a large technology background. Self doubt had

me! However, soon we started with the tech-discovery sessions where we worked with

professional and supportive people in technology, But there was the surprise! I found this field interesting and started contributing in this technical development! So,I can perfectly say  that this internship was a two-way benefit opportunity to grow and give, where I grew my skills and contributed to the improvement of the curriculum at the same time!

As an interviewer, my first UX interview took almost 4 hours! But this was a good practice for my patience and self-control that is a must for any person who seeks success. In addition,I can now say that I’ve grew my listening skills and that now I’m someone who listens carefully, and attentively no matter of time. While reviewing the curriculum I was shocked with the quality of the written modules which confirms our ability as youth in this world. The details we worked on highly promote a more just and sustainable world, and now I even apply these changes in my daily life ,and avoiding ableism language is a great epitome of that.

Through this internship, I literally had access to the world! I viewed the world with a different

lens and expanded my horizons! Where through the community channel and my collaboration with multi-cultural peers, I gained international friendships, shared our vibrant cultures, and got to know each other better while accepting our diversity!

I have always been afraid of getting older and missing the train of adolescence which is the age of opportunities without having done any extraordinary accomplishments to humanity.I don’t want my future self to ask me ’what have you done during your youth where you had the ability to do lots of things?’ without having an answer, or kicking myself for losing the age of opportunities without any achievement to remember.However, now I can proudly say that I’m ready for my future,i’m ready for getting older!simply because I’ve worked on building a masterpiece that inspires for the coming generations.

I can safely say I have taken away invaluable transferable skills, memories I will recall fondly, and the ability to call myself Global Nomads Alumni. Thanks for believing in the power of youth.

Participants in the youth-designed Film and Media for a Just and Sustainable World course

1- In the movie She’s The Man, an important idea of combating gender inequality and discrimination based on gender is addressed. The main character, Viola, challenged the dominant discourse on women. However, the lack of ethnic and culturally diverse representation in the movie fails to update the theme. If I can recreate part of this movie, I would include people coming from different backgrounds and collaborate to combat gender stereotypes. People should all see their identity presented in films and media. Films should work on being more inclusive and recognize the significance of diverse identities.

2 - I have chosen to re-cast the movie Me Before You. It centers around a man who has recently become paralyzed, but he is not played by an authentically disabled actor and his experience shows many harmful stereotypes about the disability community that are not true. I would re-cast and rewrite the main character, Sam, to be played by a person with a disability. I would also re-write a lot, making his outlook on his life not as negative now that he has a disability, and have him focus on adapting and finding new passions. That character would not feel like a burden and instead feel grateful that there is someone here to help him.

3 - I searched up mental health issues in South Africa and the images and information that was given to me was all based on white people .As most of you know South Africa is infamous for their history of apartheid and injustice to the black community and it’s and was believed that only white people have and deal with mental health related issues and black people don’t. Whereas when I search up mental health issues in the USA I get a mixture of both black and white people but mostly white people because just like in South Africa there is injustice in the USA too. Black people have always had it hard media wise and off the media.

Black people go through and suffer with mental health issues just as much as white people do and we should change this narrative of only white people go to therapy. Therapy should be broad and available to all races, genders, ethnicities.

Global Nomads Group will use the prize money to scale our “for youth by youth” Content Creation Lab (CCL) that engages global youth in cross-national teams to design digital learning content around the issues they care most about and then to roll out that content to engage more youth worldwide in meaningful peer connections and to write themselves into the content - having a multiplier effect. 

Global Nomads’ commitment to centering youth is substantive - not symbolic; we put youth in the driver’s seat throughout our Content Creation Lab process. (See slide #4 of attachment.)

Each CCL cycle begins with marketing and recruitment to generate interest and applications from youth ages 11-23 to participate as interns. The selected participants then complete a foundational anti-bias training before dividing into cross-national teams led by two experienced peer leaders and deciding which topics they will explore, using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a framework to identify issues with universal relevance to achieving a more just, equitable and sustainable world. 

Global Nomads’ professional staff provide training and coaching in ‘backwards mapping,’ a proven curriculum development model based in Grant Wiggins’ Understanding By Design that starts with identifying big ideas, essential questions and learning goals, then works backwards to come up with the lessons, activities and exercises that help students access the information and strengthen the competencies needed to realize those goals. Staff also provide training on online accessibility, user experience (UX), and video production.

Teens in the Content Creation Lab then conduct research, curate content, design activities, conduct UX interviews and accessibility audits to test their program offerings and incorporate feedback. Throughout the experience, they develop a range of substantive, technical, and interpersonal skills, from delving into social justice issues to team leadership, cross-cultural communication, critical thinking, and conflict resolution. Teams are self-managed, running their own weekly meetings, working in sub-groups and independently on various elements, holding each other accountable for meeting deadlines and making meaningful contributions to the group and the project.

The cycle (typically a semester) culminates with teams hosting a publishing party before their products are launched on the Global Nomads web site and made available through Global Nomads’ network of educational partners (hundreds of educators and schools in the U.S. and worldwide), as well as through curricular resource hubs. (See slides #9, #10, and #11 for youth work samples.)

DDT prize money will support expansion of CCL to engage more youth interns, providing stipends and covering a portion of staff time to train and coach the teams, and it will allow us to engage these youth interns as collaborators with our staff to test and implement new dissemination strategies to realize the scale we envision.

Global Nomads Group has a 25-year track record of developing evidence-based programs that connect youth across difference and distance. Over time, our approach has evolved, becoming more and more youth centered, to the point that we are now turning over the keys to youth to drive our program development.  We first piloted this idea in 2020, refined the model and gained traction in 2021, and now have strong evaluation data to demonstrate remarkable impact. 

Going forward and over the long term, what we need is visibility, investment, and implementing partners.  We need to create a buzz about this work and have it become widely known and in demand by youth, parents, and adult gate-keepers who make decisions about what is prioritized in schools and out of school settings.