Leaders

For many Social Citizens and Millennials alike, the desire to do what you love and love what you do is taking precedence over more traditional factors such as salary and work hours. Barbara Bush and Jonny Dorsey (a Social Citizen Ambassador) embraced their own dreams to promote social good and created the Global Health Corps (GHC). The nonprofit organization (and former grantee of the Case Foundation) aims to “mobilize a global community of emerging leaders to build the movement for health equity.”

Enter GHC and its annual Fellowship program, which is now accepting applications for its 2012-2013 placements until February 17, 2012. It is through this unique approach of identifying young leaders under the age of 30 and empowering them to utilize their skills and fresh perspectives that is creating valuable change in the U.S. and around the world. Fellows commit 13 months to GHC and during that time may find themselves working in communications, finance, health, and many other subject areas with partner organizations such as: Mothers2Mothers, FACE AIDS, and Village Health Works.

Barbara and several of the DC -based GHC Fellows recently stopped by the Case Foundation to update Social Citizens on new developments for GHC and their expansion of the Fellows program.

 

 

Wondering how GHC applies to someone who does not have specific health, international or leadership experience? According to Barbara, she’s seeing a growing trend in GHC Fellow placements with partner organizations where groups are specifically requesting people with skills outside of the "traditional" fields. Barbara and her colleague Katie Bollbach elaborate on what it takes to be a GHC Fellow this video interview.

 

 

Learn more about GHC and find out how you can support this movement to build health equity around the world.

Each week, we’ll cull the interwebs for the most relevant articles, videos and commentary about Millennials and social change, and then present them right here in a weekly round-up.

It’s not to say we won’t also provide our own fresh content and perspectives throughout the week, because we will -- as will our provocative and savvy Social Citizen Ambassadors. But you can view this space as a central repository for all of the great stuff that’s filling our newsfeeds, twitter feeds, and Facebook streams. We’ll do the curating for you, just come by and pay us a visit – and drop a comment every now and then to let us know how we’re doing and what we’re missing. And now for this week’s round-up…

 

The Millennials: Best Generation Ever

Despite being touted as the most tech-savvy, educated and entrepreneurial generation by many, Millennials still face plenty of challenges today. As Cliff Kuang, Editor at Fast Company's Co.Design noted, “Simply put, they were born at the worst time in 50 years as far as careers go, having entered a horrid job market.”

In their latest infograph, Fast Company suggests that as a result of these “challenges,” Millennials are finding a “silver lining” to this situation by breaking out of traditional career paths and leveraging talents, skills and entrepreneurial ideas to shape their own futures. In this stat-packed infograph, Fast Company posits that this new found innovation is driven largely in part out of an economic necessity, and that’s a good thing.

 

The Next Generation of Leaders

It’s no secret that a change is coming to offices around the world as an increasing number of workers from the baby boomer generation retire. This inevitable “changing of the guard” has employers looking ahead for new ways to attract and retain younger employees—in particular Millennials who are poised to take on leadership roles within organizations.

Lauren Rikleen who runs the Rikleen Institute for Strategic Leadership just released an executive briefing called “Creating Tomorrow’s Leaders: the Expanding Roles of Millennials in the Workplace.” In the thought piece, Rikleen notes that “to successfully accomplish this [shift] will require capitalizing on the Millennials’ generational strengths and helping them overcome perceived weaknesses.”

Read more of Rikleen’s insights into this evolving leadership dynamic and learn what this change may mean for you and your organization or career.

 

Time Magazine Selects the “Protester” as Person of the Year

Just this week, Time Magazine paid tribute to this nameless and faceless figure of the protester, by awarding its “Person of the Year” title and cover to each and every one of them. Kurt Andersen from Time noted, “’Massive and effective street protest’ was a global oxymoron until — suddenly, shockingly — starting exactly a year ago, it became the defining trope of our times. And the protester once again became a maker of history.”

At Social Citizens, we look to this for inspiration in how people can change the course of history through dialogue and action. Taking a step back and removing ourselves from the specific issue, geographic area, or end result, we see the creation of movements that are bringing people together and facilitating change. What do you see?

 

And, that's where we've rounded out this week, but stay tuned and let us know your favorite picks and "wish I wrote this" moments. We're excited to reengage and look forward to making 2012 the year of the Social Citizen.