Combining skills-based education with hands-on experience and applied reflection, Georgetown's Community Impact & Leadership Academy introduces you to the critical social justice issues that affect our communities. This experiential program provides you with a firsthand look at how direct action and community engagement intersects with policy development. Through highly structured community-based learning, you'll have the opportunity to work directly with organizations on projects that serve disadvantaged and underserved communities. You'll visit Capitol Hill, governmental organizations, and community-based organizations while engaging with international human and civil rights advocates and current youth activists.
Working in small groups, you'll identify issues in your own community and propose plans of action to respond and transform real-world injustices. While doing so, you'll deepen your understanding of social justice, develop capacities for sustaining engagement, and become part of a learning community committed to personal growth through service, action, and reflection. By the end of the program, you'll have the foundational knowledge and leadership capacities you need to become a changemaker in your community and an advocate for social justice.
Develop awareness of key concepts related to community leadership and social justice
Explore social problems, causes, consequences, and transformation
Participate in dialogues and peer group discussions on prevalent issues in our society
Learn to work with peers collaboratively within a team
Visit with community leaders, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations to learn about leadership in practice
Promote social action through civic engagement and community-based learning
Attend presentations and interact with leading scholars and practitioners
Work with Georgetown's Center for Social Justice faculty and staff
Improve presentation and communication skills
Gain a firsthand look at careers in fields such as human rights, law, education, health, public service, and urban development
Program Format & Subject Areas
As a student in the Community Impact & Leadership Academy, you'll spend your time engaged in a combination of class sessions, field trips, hands-on workshops, group discussions, and extracurricular activities. Throughout the course of the program, you'll have the opportunity to explore the following subject areas:
Social justice and injustice
Community-based organizations
Social justice leadership
Civic engagement
Community-based learning
Agency and identity
Cities and gentrification
Inequality and inequity
Education
Power and privilege
Social transformation
This program gave me a new perspective on college that I never had up until this point. Georgetown is an amazing school in an amazing city, and this program showed me that.
Anthony Buttitta
The program offers so much–from the off-site visits to the daily lectures and the on campus activities. The lectures were interesting, meeting new people was great and the off-site visits were interactive and intriguing.
Jazzelle DeLaney
This is a course that I would definitely recommend as both Georgetown and the professors were very hands-on and provided a great pre-university experience.
Benjamin Jose
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