The Experiment in International Living

• Founded in 1932 with the aim of changing the world one friendship at a time, The Experiment in International Living has introduced more than 70,000 young people to international issues.
• Each summer, challenging summer abroad programs in 30 countries help 1,000 high school students develop a close connection with the people and culture of another country.

Dorothy Stoneman

Dorothy Stoneman became college roommates with a fellow participant of World Learning's 1959 Experiment in International Living to France. The roommate exposed Stoneman to a perspective that inspired her to join the Civil Rights Movement.

When many of her peers headed south to support the movement, Stoneman joined New York’s Harlem Action Group. She spent the next 24 years in Harlem, first as a teacher and then director of a community-based, parent-controlled day care center and elementary school.

"The white folks who went south tended to overwhelm the movement with their point of view," she said. "I learned to use my privilege in a way that was accountable to the community and embedded in it."

In the 1970s, Stoneman's students told her they wanted to rehabilitate empty neighborhood houses that attracted crime, inspiring her to found YouthBuild USA. The program has helped more than 100,000 low-income people ages 16–24 earn their GEDs or high school diplomas, learn job skills, and serve their communities by building over 20,000 affordable and increasingly green units of housing. Today, there are 273 YouthBuild programs in 45 states, Washington, DC, and the Virgin Islands, and 14 other countries have begun to replicate the program.

Stoneman says today’s most pressing civil rights issues are closing education gaps and addressing the disproportionate number of people of color in prison.

“The dominant culture needs to invest in opportunities for education, job training, employment, and service for young people born into poverty,” she said.

Stoneman is a Harvard graduate, with master’s and doctorate degrees from Bank Street College of Education.

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