Hope Collaborative - Blog

Hope is Excited to Welcome New Hampshire Partner PACE Career Academy

1/18/2019

Hope Collaborative and The Clay Center at MGH are excited to welcome our newest education partner PACE Career Academy in Allenstown, New Hampshire! PACE is a dynamic new school dedicated to allowing students to partner in the design of their academic, career and personal growth paths with a goal of becoming an essential part of their community, family, and world of work. This non-traditional high school offers a highly personalized combination of personal development, core academics and career experience.

Jorge Santana, Executive Director of PACE Career Academy, has been a friend of Hope from our inception. We are excited to see him building innovative programming at PACE that is having a big impact on students and their life trajectories. We are honored to partner with PACE this spring, working with 2 cohorts of 14-16-year-old students building Conflict Resolution leadership skills such as identifying different kinds of conflict in their lives, understanding when a conflict is fully resolved and when more work is needed, and supporting others who may need help finding solutions for a conflict.

Here's to an exciting new partnership, and for the great collaboration to come - welcome PACE!

Building Relationship Skills in India

1/17/2019

Hope Collaborative values the skill of building and maintaining healthy relationships. In our Relationship Skills module, we work with students to build many skills they will need to seek out and promote positive relationships in their lives, including:

Identifying what makes a relationship healthy, and knowing what steps they can take in order to develop and support healthy relationships.
Using effective communication skills (both verbal and nonverbal) to express and assert themselves.
Defining and respecting relationship needs, boundaries, and rights (their own and others).
Being able to repair damaged relationships using positive negotiation skills.

Our partners at Presidency School in Nizamabad, India recently began the Relationship Skills module with their students. Over the course of the semester, these young adults will practice and communicate the components of strong relationships and support each other in strengthening the relationships that are important in their lives. We evaluate their progress closely with our partners at The Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Shown here: at Presidency School, a group of students presents their class poster at the beginning of the Relationship Skills module, highlighting that healthy relationships are not formed by luck or chance--they are a skill we can always grow and improve! Below, students work on class presentations and one featured "Journey of My Life" poster, highlighting student's ability as storytellers to share the key moments and relationships in their lives.

Watch Stories of Hope and Courage: Providing Peace Models in War-Torn Areas Around the World Co-Sponsored by The Divine Will Foundation

1/16/2019

Meet Nancy Linborg: President of the United States Institute of Peace, addressing conflict around the world.

We honored Nancy Linborg with our partners at Divine Will Foundation at the 2018 Human Excellence Awards for her work as a champion for peace and innovative solutions to address some of the most conflict driven areas in the world.

Nancy has served since February, 2015 as President of the United States Institute of Peace, an independent institution founded by Congress to provide practical solutions for preventing and resolving violent conflict around the world. She has spent most of her career working in fragile and conflict affected regions around the world. Prior to joining USIP, she served as the assistant administrator for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA) at USAID. Ms. Lindborg led USAID teams focused on building resilience and democracy, managing and mitigating conflict and providing urgent humanitarian assistance. Ms. Lindborg led DCHA teams in response to the ongoing Syria Crisis, the droughts in Sahel and Horn of Africa, the Arab Spring, the Ebola response and numerous other global crises.

Watch Nancy Linborg

Ben Delikat Joins The Hope Collaborative Team

1/15/2019

We are excited to announce that Ben Delikat has joined the Hope Collaborative team!

Ben is our newest team member, managing Education Partnerships, Program Evaluation, and Donor Prospects. He is working with Hope Collaborative's partners and facilitators as their point-person for all things related to program evaluation: what students are learning, and how impactful the Hope Collaborative program is for them.

Ben graduated from Fordham University in New York City, and spent the last 9 years working in health education and leadership development for high school and undergraduate students in New York City at Peer Health Exchange where he managed a team with 60 affiliate high schools and colleges around the network. He has experience in program management, group facilitation, and monitoring and evaluation. He brings a passion for social justice and healthy living to his work at Hope. Welcome Ben!

Hope Collaborative and DWF WelcomesDr. Ron and Suwanti Farmer to Carlisle, MA

1/14/2019

Dr. Ron and Suwanti Farmer will conduct four workshops this month at the Prasanthi Center for Human Development in Carlisle entitled "The Mindful Teacher in Human Values Education" The Farmers are Australian clinical/educational psychologists who specialize in developing training programs on becoming more mindful teachers and parents, proficient in nurturing the growth of good character and human excellence in children. They have been directors of Toogoolawa Schools in Australia for the past 25 years and are directors of the Australian Academy of Human Excellence.

Hope Collaborative is thrilled to co-sponsor the Farmer's workshops in collaboration the US Academy for Human Excellence and Divine Will Foundation. Childhood development experts like the Farmers bring invaluable experience and training to hardworking educators practitioners in our communities. We are excited for this workshop series and for upcoming events at the Prasanthi center that will continue to train community members in valuable skills, equipping them to support young people to an even deeper level.

3 Pro Bono Hope Seats Available June 2019

1/7/2019

We have 3 pro bono opportunities for social mission organizations to provide our leadership development programming to your kids and teens free of charge starting June 2019. If you are part of a school that provides support for under-resourced neighborhoods and youth communities, please get in touch. We would enjoy a conversation about the possibilities of expanding your impact and developing youth participants in your neighborhood!

Give the Gift of Hope: Your gift helps make outstanding leadership development possible for kids and teens living in poverty around the world.

12/31/2018

Dear Friends of Hope,

2018 has been a fantastic year for Hope Collaborative. We have grown to deliver outstanding leadership development services pro bono in 7 countries to hundreds of young participants living in poverty. We hosted our second Human Excellence awards celebration at Harvard University in June. And we welcomed new staff members, advisors, and supporters to our team, all of whom are dedicated to making outstanding leadership development a standard for teens and young adults living in poverty worldwide.

We've had excellent results with our new education partners in 2018 and look forward to growing with partners in 3 new countries with hundreds of new participants in 2019. We'll continue to celebrate outstanding leaders, develop an exciting new web presence for Hope, and work to deliver mission-critical solutions to humanity’s most pressing problems--all by educating and empowering the leaders of tomorrow. Hope participants regularly achieve strong results and surpass the goals set out for them.

But Hope can't succeed in 2019 without your support!

Please remember Hope Collaborative in your year-end giving, and here's to a happy and healthy New Year for you and your family.

Warm Regards,

J. Kevin Sheehan
Executive Director
Hope Collaborative Inc.
A Massachusetts 501(c)(3) Non Profit

Giving Hope and Thanks

11/15/2018

We are thrilled to give thanks for a fantastic year at Hope Collaborative with an expanding group of Hope partners, youth participants and friends in youth leadership development. We honored top social impact leaders at our Hope DWF Human Excellence Awards at Harvard in June. We have been excited to welcome new corporate sponsors, foundations, and individual donors from a variety of geographic segments and subject areas this year.

A young 5th grader looked up from his desk in a recent session on how to resolve conflicts as a leader and said: "So--we started today with a 'Flight or flight' approach. I think we have ended today with a new approach called 'Fight or flight or work things out together.'"

It is our privilege and joy to work with a new generation of leaders--now in 7 countries--who are having impact on their communities with better, evolved ways of thinking about leadership and community building. The task is both complex and simple. When you come to it with fresh eyes, as students do, our human capacities can unwind the most complex problems to find decency and friendship. Working with kids and teens, it is clear that a return to innocence makes those things possible. Can we find our humanity and leadership selves in a sea of doubt and struggle? Perhaps where we work things out together. We wish you all peace, grace and meaning together during the holiday season.

Stories of Hope and Leadership

11/12/2018

Hope makes leadership development possible for kids and teens living in under-resourced neighborhoods by providing a world-class 12-module curriculum that addresses critical skill-and-competency-building capacities in young people. We do our work in collaboration with The Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds at Massachusetts General Hospital and The Divine Will Foundation.

The program introduces leadership tools and exercises that adults often only encounter in professional situations like the Meyers Briggs self assessment protocol, and the Yale University emotions meters, as examples. Youth participants often find them magical, and take to the new ways of thinking and approaching the world with passion and commitment. The impact and effect on young people is consistently exceptional, and their contributions and leadership capacities stand out in their schools and neighborhood communities.

Stories of Hope and Courage: Workforce Investment Network at State Street is a major philanthropic initiative to help prepare youth for the workforce

11/8/2018

Congratulations to State Street Corporation for winning the Hope DWF 2018 Human Excellence Corporate Courage Award!

WATCH: State Street Corporation started as a small community bank in Boston, Massachusetts in the late 1700s, and is now one of the largest wealth stewards in the world. Company leaders have innovated human resource recruitment models that have had critical impact in urban environments to advance the economic needs of the poorest communities. Their Workforce Investment Network” is a multi million dollar philanthropic initiative to help prepare youth for the workforce in partnership with other major foundations. Intern programs for high-potential young leaders from under-resourced communities moving into the mainstream of corporate participation is an example of the kind of impact the bank is having in creating increased employment and roadmaps to connection.

Watch State Street