Welcome to our 2021 Impact Report—a brief snapshot of the impact World Learning and SIT have had through hundreds of programs delivered online and in person around the world over the past year.
As we prepare to celebrate our 90th year, our mission to create a more peaceful, sustainable, and just world has never been more relevant or more important. Across World Learning and SIT, these past 18 months have posed some of our greatest challenges, but with this anniversary comes an opportunity for reflection—a chance to honor our past, acknowledge the present, and look with confidence toward the future.
Our long history, which started in 1932 with our flagship program, The Experiment in International Living, reminds me that collectively we have weathered myriad challenges together from the very beginning. Despite the Great Depression of the 1930s, and over nine decades of tragedy and triumph worldwide, The Experiment continued to send young people abroad to meet different peoples and experience different cultures. What’s more, World Learning and School for International Training would grow out of that foundational concept of experiential learning, expanding our mission and reach to people on every continent.
Today, the world faces pressing challenges that compel us to continue to adapt and innovate. This year we worked hard to maintain and enhance the global connections necessary for sustainable solutions. Both internally and externally, we have redoubled our commitment to diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion. And we continue to plant the seeds essential to growing a more just and peaceful world.
This report is a small sampling of the work we do, but it represents the values we carry forward through our participants and alumni. Notably, our tens of thousands of program alumni include Nobel laureates and elected officials, Olympians, and community leaders. We owe it to our program participants, to our current community, and to the world’s future leaders and citizens to be reflective and thoughtful about what we do and how we do it.
We are profoundly grateful for your support and partnership in these efforts. Like those first Experimenters in 1932, we are all part of one world, learning together to live together, building a more peaceful and just world.
Carol Jenkins
President & CEO, World Learning
