Service to Indiana Communities through Global Learning

At the Center for the Study of Global Change (Global Center), we were proud to serve our fellow Hoosiers in 2024 in partnership with Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies (HLS), the Lotus Education & Arts Foundation, the Brown County Public Library, the Monroe County Public Library Southwest Branch, IU Cinemas, and more. These collaborative projects led to engagement with over 2,500 community members throughout the state of Indiana. 

IU Global Film Festival

This spring we concluded the IU Global Film Festival in partnership with HLS and IU Cinema, which commenced in the fall of 2023, and focused on showing films that told stories about diasporic communities around the world and the various issues they face regarding sustainable development. The series concluded with five more screenings on campus and one rural screening at the Brown County Public Library, which the Global Center hosted as part of our continued organization of rural partnerships on this project. We also held one free to attend and open to the public screening at IU Cinema, in collaboration with the IU African Studies Program and the IU Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, on January 30th of the film “Descendant.” This documentary focuses on the lives of the descendants of the survivors of the Clotilda (the last slave to sail to the US) in Africatown/Plateau, Alabama and the challenges they face with environmental justice. As part of this screening, we hosted Dr. Kern Jackson from the University of South Alabama, an IU Alum who was a co-writer and co-producer of the film, to give a talk-back after the screening and to lead a workshop on conducting documentary filmmaking as a method of academic inquiry. 

Partnerships and Events for Children in Indiana Communities

As part of our local engagement, our Center participated in several projects focused on global learning for children. As part of our partnership with the Lotus Education & Arts foundation, we supported their Lotus Blossoms World Bazaar and their Lotus in the Park concert. Lotus Blossoms is a free-to-attend multicultural event held for the community members of Monroe County where participants engage with volunteers demonstrating international arts, crafts, music, and more. We presented a geographical activity that stimulated global awareness by guiding them in identifying where certain capitals, animals, and countries can be found on a map. Our center also presented this activity at the Brown County Public Library’s annual World’s Fair, which was met with equal enthusiasm and engagement from children and parents. Lotus in the Park is a free concert to attend as part of the Lotus World Music Festival, where participants can enjoy music made by professional artists from around the world while participating in arts activities similar to the ones at Lotus Blossoms. Our table presented various cultural mask-making activities where participants could decorate and don masks from the Venetian Carnival and Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) traditions. In December, the same masking activity was extremely well-received at Highland Park Elementary School, at their annual Culture Fest, held for their second graders accompanied by international demonstrations of art and culture.  

This fall we conducted a children's story time series in collaboration with the Monroe County Public Library Southwest Branch. The series title “Stories from around the World” was a presentation of international picture books that highlighted concepts from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for kids ages 4 to 9. Each week focused on a different region/community spotlighting stories from Latin America, West Africa, Indigenous communities of Canda, and Eastern Europe where people from, or experts on, these regions came to read these stories to the children followed by cultural activities related to the region and topic focus.  Through this project children were not only exposed to various concepts of sustainable development from ending poverty and hunger to supporting quality education, but were also exposed to beginning language acquisition through storytelling. We have also continued to support children’s language acquisition throughout Monroe County with the Bridges Language Program, which offers courses focused on culture and language learning in world regions not commonly taught about in public schools. 

The Global Center’s reach extends throughout Indiana, benefiting rural communities thanks to projects such as our Indiana Language Roadmap Community Grants. In 2024 we extended began offering these grants on a rolling basis, awarding three grants to both private and public businesses and non-profits across the state of Indiana. First, the Greater Indiana AFS Team was awarded the grant to create after-school “International Clubs” for up to six high schools within Madison County Community School Corportation. Next, Great Dane, a transportation company in Brazil, Indiana was funded to provide ESL classes in order to empower and retain their non-English speaking employees. Our final award of 2024 was given to the International Center of Indianapolis to support a wide variety of international and cultural events across Indiana. Their funded events, to name a few, included the Taiwanese Association of Indiana's Percussion Show by the renowned Ten-Drum Percussion Group from Taiwan in June, the Hispanic Heritage Festival of the Community Foundation of Wabash County, and IU Indianapolis’ International Festival which showcased the cultural diversity of the university community through performances, exhibitions, and interactive activities engaging students, faculty, and the public in a celebration of global cultures.