WELCOMING. ENGAGING. CONNECTING.
Global Ties Akron’s programs link people and nations to Greater Akron through professional, educational, and cultural exchange. Our programs build international bridges between our community and the world. We provide opportunities for cross-cultural exchange: city, university, and business partnerships, economic opportunities, and educational initiatives.
International Visitor Leadership Program
This is the US Department of State’s premier professional exchange program. Through short-term visits to the United States, current and emerging foreign leaders in various fields experience this country firsthand (virtually and in-person)and cultivate lasting partnerships and relationships with their American counterparts.
Open World Leadership Program
We host delegations with this program sponsored by the Congressional Office for International Leadership. It brings current and future Eurasian leaders to experience American democracy, civil society, and community life. Participants stay in American homes while nurturing professional and personal relationships in their area of expertise.
Global Concierge
We provide soft landing resources to students, scholars, and business people re-locating to Akron for a short- or long-term stay.
Photo Credit: Jeffrey Klaum
Know Your Community,
Know Your World
We provide curriculum projects that bring speakers to local schools and explore global and regional diversity with classrooms creating a curriculum with local international scholars, immigrants, and refugees to teach students about global diversity in our community.
We bring the world into the classroom through first-person international speakers who present their countries and cultures. Our programs and projects share what is global and multicultural with classrooms and educators in our richly diverse community.
We prepare students to be ready once they graduate to study and work in an interconnected and multicultural global community.
Global Threads Online Magazine
This online publication of Global Ties Akron was funded by the U.S. Department of State as a competitive grant with the Communities Connecting Heritage project through World Learning. Global Ties Akron has continued the cultural heritage magazine which features locally: the cultural heritage of Akron’s refugee and immigrant communities as told by student citizen journalists and globally: the stories of the cultural heritage of an international partner as told by youth from their community. Feature stories include language arts, ethnic history, and traditions, culinary arts, landmarks, traditional storytelling, visual and performing arts.
Global Threads Boutique
Our social enterprise retail store in downtown Akron and online features fair trade items and provides economic empowerment and earning opportunities to local refugees, immigrants, and globally affiliated entrepreneurs. Global Threads tells the artisans stories to keep their heritage alive through the products we sell and share their talent and personal life stories on the tags and in the store materials. The proceeds support Global Ties Akron’s global threads fair trade programming and our global education.
We are located within Northside Marketplace.