Splendid Spotlight with Jennie Jiang from Global Village Project

Global Village Project provides tuition free middle school for recently arrived refugee girls in the Atlanta area. Jennie Jiang is the former Marketing and Communications Specialist and I’m so excited to speak with her about her story.

Global Village Project is such a great example of powerful storytelling! I often use this organization as an example when I’m talking about creating excellent content. Content that supporters want to see! 

Tell us a bit about the Global Village Project from your perspective.

The Global Village Project is a special purpose middle school for refugee girls. We are the only school in the country designed specifically to meet the needs of refugee girls. All of our students have only been in the country for less than 3 years. All of them are refugees who come from all over the world. We have the joy of being the ones to welcome them to this new country and prepare them for high school. We are very innovative and for the past 12 years we’ve designed a program specifically designed to meet their needs. I’m very lucky to have my role in this and find new ways to tell our story. 

I was looking at your website earlier and, you’re right, you’re the only one in the country doing this kind of work. And it’s such important and valuable work. If I read correctly, most of these girls are about 3 years behind in terms of schooling. So for you to come in and fill that gap is amazing. Our schools don’t have the infrastructure to provide that for these girls, and you do. 

That’s right. A lot of our girls come from a background of interrupted schooling. On average they’ve missed up to 3 years, other times up to 6 years of interrupted schooling. The school systems aren’t equipped to help them, because they are marginalized in many other ways. They’re new-comers, they’re new English learners, they’re all students of color and prominently low income and first generation students. So by creating a model specifically for them and that meets their needs is really special.

To give you a little background on me, I’ve worked for many years with a high school called Academe of the Oaks  which has a beautiful scholarship program. I first heard about your nonprofit because some of your students got scholarships to attend that school. 

Let’s dive into the 5 questions. What’s your favorite thing about what you do and your role with Global Village Project?

I love this question, because it’s very easy for me to answer. Global Village Project makes my job super easy, because I get to find new ways to communicate our impact. We have such a robust and unique impact, I never struggle to convince people to care. I love finding new ways to tell that story. For example, in one of our recent campaigns I got to interview several of our students and alumni for a website I created. People can follow along with their journey. It’s so nice to have the freedom to be creative while also working on a project you deeply care about and believe in. 

 Yes! I imagine the creativity flows more when you’re passionate about the work you’re doing. Are the girls who are in school right now wanting to share their story, or is there a privacy component because they're middle schoolers? What is that like? 

 They are all minors so we always preface any conversation with a discussion about what the interview will entail, so they have a very clear understanding about the expectations and are comfortable. And because they’re minors we always have a phone call with the parents to make sure they’re comfortable and understand as well. 

Do you find they want to share? That generation is more plugged in online than any other generation, so what is that like?

 It varies student to student. Many are very excited to talk about their time at GVP and open to talking about their journey up to that point. Arriving in this country and getting to vocalize those experiences. Some are quieter and more hesitant. That could be simply differences in personality to different coping mechanisms for dealing with trauma. 

Let’s fast forward 5 years from now. What are you doing and what is Global Village Project doing?

 To answer the second part of your question, for GVP I think we’re in a really exciting period of growth right now. We welcomed a new Head of School, Elizabeth Elango, who is absolutely wonderful. We’ve been having some really exciting conversations on what expanding may look like. Will we be admitting more students and gaining more teachers? Perhaps adding on additional grade levels? Adding on a high school? More locations? There are so many opportunities and so much need.

We’ve been operating with this model for years. We know it works. And we know it changes lives. 

To answer the first part, I recently accepted an offer to begin graduate study this fall. So I will be transitioning out to begin my doctorate in Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies. My time at GVP definitely influenced that, since there’s such a strong focus on women empowerment and fighting oppression.  

Well, congratulations! That’s so exciting. Let’s talk about what has been a favorite social post or movement that you’ve experienced?

 I’d have to say our last Welcome Walk. Typically our Welcome Walk is a huge event that draws 200-300 participants, but of course with Covid we had to go all virtual. It was a huge pivot to try to capture that energy and excitement through a virtual event. But I loved what we created, particularly the video content. It was all centered around “What does ‘welcome’ mean to you?” All the submissions we got were very touching and poignant, especially those submitted by alumni. And it was a great success! We raised more money in that event than all our other Welcome Walks, so that was amazing. 

Why do you think that is?

 Every year we have more and more success with that event, and it brings such a strong sense of community that even online we were able to connect and inspire with our story. 

 I think you built a lot of internal momentum with that event. You have people posting a video of themselves on their feed, then you’re posting it on your feed, and it just builds momentum with other people wanting to get involved. I love to hear it was your most successful one yet!

 Another thing I think really helped it to become a success was we made it as easy as possible for people to get involved. We had a social media bank with pre-made cards and templates, so people could just download them and post them on their own. 

 This was your social street team! I always say it shouldn’t feel like they’re doing work, it should feel like they got a tool kit, and you gave them that tool kit! You made it feel fun and effortless.

Click here to watch instantly!

Give us a pro-tip. What’s one thing that makes your role or your goals easier to achieve? 

 It helps me that we have such a collaborative team at GVP, because there are so many opportunities to plug me in with what’s happening, but I can’t be everywhere at once. It’s very helpful to have a culture where, if something fun is happening in class, they reach out to ask me to come take pictures. Or people will send me pictures, or keep me updated about alums graduating from high school or college. So having that community makes my job very easy. 

 Do you have a main hub for all that communication? Like a Slack channel or GoogleDrive? 

 There’s a designated time in our in-person meetings, when we’re able to have those, where the person in my role is given this information. And we also have group chats. Not necessarily for sharing on social media, but because we’re excited about something that happened and want to celebrate. 

Also UpSplash has been a great resource to pull high quality images for free, without that “stock photo” feel to it. I don’t use them for social media, but when creating programs, for example, for World Refugee Week, to share photos of the student's home countries. 

Finish this sentence for me, “More nonprofits should be…?”

 I love this question because I’m very passionate about the answer I’m going to give.

I think more nonprofits should be social justice oriented rather than social service oriented.

I care a lot about nonprofits being very cognizant of building their work around awareness and understanding of the social issues impacted too. Not just in terms of individual journeys, but in structural conditions. One of the impacts of that shift of understanding is you end up partnering more with people, rather than the mentality that you are helping them. It’s crucial in recognizing the full humanity and dignity of the people you serve, and in building a better world together. 

I love that. I think there’s kind of two ways of thinking. There’s the “savior”, who thinks “we’re saving them.” Sort of just giving them a band-aid. Here’s a band-aid, we’re fixing the problem. Versus, what you said, partnering! Partnering with these people. Inviting them to the table. It reminds me of a conversation I had with Dia Parker at Athena's Warehouse where she answered this question “more nonprofits should be community led.” Making that shift is how we move the needle to actually making change happen.

Bonus question, what’s one thing you wish people knew about your organization?

 I hope people get a sense from our communications about just how strength based our model is and how important that is to our value system. If you look at the larger discourse around immigrants and refugees, there’s a push for them to assimilate, and GVP really has zero tolerance for that way of thinking. We always encourage our students to speak their home languages alongside learning English, because that’s so important to preserve. It’s all about “what knowledge and experiences are the students coming in with?” not the differences we’re trying to fill or make up for. That’s the kind of education I wish everyone had access to and something GVP does differently.

You saying that reminded me of my dad. When he moved here he was in high school, but they spoke Greek at home. At school he had to speak English. So having the freedom to speak their home language alongside learning English is really amazing and something that, unless you’re in it, you may not realize is an issue. So thank you for sharing that. 

So I know you’re off to graduate school soon, but what’s on the horizon for Global Village Project?

 We have a fall packed with activities coming up. We will be bringing the Welcome Walk in person again this fall, which I’m super excited about. For more information, please follow us on social media, @GlobalVillageProject. Sign up for our newsletter to find out more information. I’ll also mention we’re accepting applications for Georgia Tax Credit Scholarship Program, which if you are a Georgia resident and taxpayer, it’s a free way to support GVP by redirecting some of the money you would normally pay in state taxes as a donation. Applications are open through December. 

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