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.
Shown here is a 2019 project for Australia on Building Inclusive Communities: Leadership in a Multicultural Society during a meeting at the Akron Community Foundation.
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 with classrooms and educators in our richly diverse community what is global and multicultural.
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 located in downtown Akron and online features fairtrade items and provides economic empowerment and earning opportunities to local refugees, immigrants, and globally affiliated artreprenuers. 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.
Akron-Accra Partnership
The Akron-Accra partnership was formed through an agreement between the cities of Akron, Ohio and Accra, Ghana to work toward exchange and build opportunities in the fields of science, business, culture, and education. Global Ties Akron has been an active part of this initiative for five years. Currently, we are managing a grant through the U.S. Embassy in Ghana for The UGBS Global Online Collaboratory Hub, entrepreneurial education, and soft skills development platform pilot. The project supports the University of Ghana’s newly launched UGBS Innovation and Incubation Hub by providing a digital community-based platform for its students to collaborate locally and globally.