EdGE
Education through Global Engagement
Omprakash has been saying it for over 10 years
—and we certainly weren't the first—
but finally, thankfully, it's catching on:
“It would hardly be a fish who discovered the existence of water.” An anthropologist named Clyde Kluckhohn wrote that in 1949.
56 years later, writer David Foster Wallace invoked that adage in a college commencement address and added: “The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about.”
About halfway in between Kluckhohn’s penstroke and Wallace’s speech, an educator named Paulo Freire was writing about “conscientização” as a necessary foundation for confronting oppression and pursuing social change. From his native Portuguese, Freire’s term translates into “raising critical consciousness.”
In 2012, Omprakash looked around at the international volunteering / gap year / service-learning / global engagement industry of which we had become a part over the previous seven years, and we didn’t like the sight, smell or feel of the water we were swimming in. We decided to make a bold effort towards raising critical consciousness, and we named the effort EdGE — Education through Global Engagement.
By now, it’s fairly commonplace to point out that many efforts to do good — especially as volunteers, interns, service-learners, gap year students, global citizens, etc. — end up reinforcing fundamental inequalities between ‘helpers’ and ‘beneficiaries.’ In scholarly papers, op-eds, blogs, and lists of ‘top tips for ethical volunteering,’ many critics have argued for the importance of egalitarian partnerships and have insisted that we must learn before we serve but few provide a programmatic pathway for actually making this happen. EdGE remains the trailblazer.
EdGE is a human-centered learning platform driven by the fundamental insight that the most radical thing we can do — the biggest ‘service’ we can perform — is to see the world through the eyes of others, and to disrupt dominant narratives by generating new ways of knowing.
You've probably heard the saying that knowledge is power. But what kind of knowledge are we talking about, and what kind of power does it give us?
To be agents of social change, we must understand the reality we seek to transform. Through EdGE, we look to gain such understandings of ourselves and our contexts. Through EdGE, we look to affirm and acknowledge that we are all capable of joining a profound and humanizing struggle; that a revolution within ourselves must predate the revolution we seek in the world; and that the decision to cross chasms of culture and power for the sake of sharing smiles, meals, dances, sweat, stories and questions with total strangers is inevitably complex, but — done right — offers enormous transformative potential for all involved.
Come on in — the water is uncomfortable and it feels amazing.
We make custom built classrooms and curricula
for both pre-departure
and post-trip to maximize your learning.
Online education isn't always as good as it sounds. Our
radical team of EdGE
mentors changes
the dynamic.
EdGE is geared towards helping you create and share field-based inquiries about the social issues which your host organization confronts.
This is much, much more than “cultural orientation training." Our classrooms are built by experts and accredited by universities.
You're encouraged
(but not required)
to work with an
Omprakash Partner — {{edge_home.omprakash.partners | number}} autonomous organizations in {{edge_home.omprakash.countries | number}} countries.
The insights EdGE offered, but more importantly, the questions it asked, for so many of us, opened life-altering doors of reflection, dialogue, and action. To me, these doors represent just how formative and transformative the experience has been from the very first week of EdGE to now.
The standard EdGE pre-departure course is 12 units long. We begin with reflection on our own intentions and assumptions, and then we examine problematic trends in international volunteering and within the broader landscape of aid and 'development.' Then we explore inequality from various angles before digging deep into the buzzy concepts of 'culture' and 'community.' Finally, we end on the topic of storytelling. How can you use an international field position as a platform to tell a 'polyvocal' story?
You pick an EdGE mentor who works with you in the pre-departure classroom, provides guidance as you create your Capstone, and supports you once you come back home. EdGE mentors draw from their professional and academic expertise to provide you with personalized insight and support before, during, and after your international experience.
EdGE pre-departure training provides you with the tools and structure for conducting an empirical inquiry about a social issue that is important to you and your host. During your field position, you will build a digital archive — a 'Record of Perspectives' — and then you will synthesize this work into a Capstone Project to be published and shared throughout our network.
EdGE changes your perspective on international volunteering like no other. It helps you reevaluate any prejudices and biases you may not even be aware you have, and learn how to best be an informed and engaged intern. It gives you extremely valuable resources and a network of people to help along the way.
Environmental Justice | Global Health | Education & Social Change | Social Entrepreneurship | Refugees, Migrants & Borders | Disabilities in Global Context
All who successfully fulfill the requirements of EdGE are awarded a Certificate of Critically Informed International Development (CIID).
See a sample CIIDI really loved how Omprakash EdGE opened my eyes to a whole new world of international aid, public health, anthropology, and research that I've never known about. It has inspired me to differentiate my paths in life and I love the way the program is structured.
You’re in the right place. You'll find ample opportunities in our diverse network of Partners, and then use EdGE to get the mentorship, training, and support that you need. Already found an opportunity outside the Omprakash network, but looking to deepen your learning and impact? You’re still in the right place! EdGE training and mentorship is a perfect complement to self-directed international experiences.
Volunteers and interns receive personalized support with finding a field position in our network (if desired), dealing with logistics like flights and visas, and grappling with the ethical complexities of trying to ‘serve others’ when crossing significant differences of culture and power. We accept applications on a rolling basis, so join us anytime!
The tuition for the standard EdGE program is $750. There are no additional fees if you choose to work with one of our Partners. Participants are responsible for their own airfare and living expenses while abroad, and our Partners aren't trying to profit off of you (or they wouldn't be Partners!). Most Partners can offer food and accommodations for less than $15 per day. Plus, EdGE students are eligible for the Omprakash Ambassador Travel Grant and can conduct crowdfunding campaigns on the Omprakash platform.
Omprakash is fully accredited by the American Gap Association (AGA) and we pride ourselves on working to raise the standards for ethical, affordable, and educational gap years. Gap year students can match our EdGE online learning platform with volunteer and intern opportunities within our network or beyond it. We accept gap year students on a rolling basis throughout the year, so get in touch anytime!
Gap year students receive personalized support with finding a field position in our network (if desired), dealing with logistics like flights and visas, and grappling with the ethical complexities of trying to ‘serve others’ when crossing significant differences of culture and power. And a gap year EdGE Capstone project has tremendous potential. We want to provide you with your ideal, Goldilocks level of support and training so you feel bolstered, not smothered.
The tuition for the standard EdGE gap year program is $750. There are no additional fees if you choose to work with one (or more) of our Partners. Participants are responsible for their own airfare and living expenses while abroad, and our Partners aren't trying to profit off of you (or they wouldn't be Partners!). Most Partners can offer food and accommodations for less than $15 per day. Plus, EdGE gap year students are eligible for the Omprakash Ambassador Travel Grant and can conduct crowdfunding campaigns on the Omprakash platform.
Want to embed yourself within a grassroots social impact organization while also staying tapped into a digital community of other thinkers and doers? Perfect. EdGE provides you with training and mentorship as well as a digital platform on which to document your work.
Researchers receive personalized mentorship and support with finding a field position in our network (if desired), dealing with logistics like flights and visas, and designing and conducting an immersive international research project: from formulating questions to identifying appropriate methods to contemplating research ethics and ultimately collecting and analyzing empirical data. Our mentorship team can offer extensive expertise for a variety of projects.
The tuition for the standard EdGE program is $750. There are no additional fees if you choose to work with one of our Partners. Participants are responsible for their own airfare and living expenses while abroad, and our Partners aren't trying to profit off of you (or they wouldn't be Partners!). Most Partners can offer food and accommodations for less than $15 per day. Plus, EdGE students are eligible for the Omprakash Ambassador Travel Grant and can conduct crowdfunding campaigns on the Omprakash platform.
We're not trying to be some costly third-party that usurps or dilutes your classrooms. We're trying to co-create top-tier programming with you, complete with cutting-edge blended learning techniques, customizable curricula, and critical pedagogy. We can add depth and continuity to the piecemeal promotion of 'global citizenship' across your campus.
The EdGE platform is a powerful learning environment that’s designed to be absolutely flexible. We can build custom cohorts for specific groups of students. Students within a cohort can be assigned access to up to 3 EdGE classrooms, plus ‘area-specific’ learning content. Each cohort gets a customized logistical to-do list, the ability to crowdfund, and the ability to blog together in a public or private group. There's too many other bells and whistles to fit in this paragraph. Let’s talk!
In these 4 years of building EdGE, we have learned one thing quite well: every campus has an archipelago of disjointed opportunities for students to practice 'global citizenship.' Some of the islands are strong — usually small and led by 1 or 2 dedicated faculty. Other islands, frankly, are not providing healthy outlets to students. We believe every campus can and should hold the whole archipelago to the same high standard. We can make that happen quite quickly, and — most importantly — we can make it happen at a cost that won’t perpetuate campus inequalities.
Of course, if you think your organization would be a good fit as an official Omprakash Partner, we encourage you to apply to join our network. But if that fit isn’t quite right, you may still benefit from partnering with EdGE, and we’d love to talk. If your organization facilitates global engagement through volunteering, interning, or researching, EdGE can add extreme, industry-leading depth to your operations.
You may have your own international field site collaborators and therefore have no use for our network of Omprakash Partners. No problem. The fact remains that when it comes to ethical and educational global engagement, the bar has been raised. It's not enough to 'place' people abroad with a little cultural orientation workshop and a packet of readings. This industry gets accused — often justifiably — of facilitating neocolonial and ethnocentric voluntourism, and the status quo must change. EdGE is built; it’s robust; and it’s changing the paradigm. Join us!
We built EdGE to be exceptionally flexible and customizable. No matter what level of integration you're looking for, we'd be happy to co-create a platform that seamlessly fits into your operations. EdGE adds many more levers to your cockpit, and you remain in control. We also have a very talented web development team that can create APIs, allowing you to embed the EdGE platform within your organization's online architecture.
...and we're confident that EdGE excels in providing peace-of-mind on all accounts. There is no need to sacrifice one for the other or compromise on any. Omprakash has been facilitating deeply meaningful and affordable global engagement for over 10 years, and our EdGE program is the industry-standard for ethical and educational global engagement.
There are countless opportunities for heavily-chaperoned, heavily-packaged, heavily-priced 'experiences' for young people looking to volunteer abroad. Omprakash firmly believes that authentic experiential education doesn't need to be derived from expensive hand-holding. And there's no need to pay for a 'placement.' With Omprakash EdGE, students pay a small tuition (standard is $750) for enrollment in the EdGE learning and mentorship platform. Then students pay for the basic travel and living expenses relevant to their host Partner (usually <$15/day + flights, immunizations and visa expenses).
Omprakash takes the safety of our network seriously. Omprakash Partners are competitively-selected, locally-led, well-established organizations that know well how to care for their visitors. There is no substitute for their knowledge. And the EdGE training and mentorship ensures that students are thinking deeply and at length about their field position so that their mindset is serious, professional, responsible and prepared to make a positive impact.
