Website and Pilot Season: Coming in Summer 2020. For updates: AtlantaGlobalStudies.gatech.edu.
About
21st Century Global Atlanta is a multi-media digital story-telling project. We document and connect with the individuals and communities that are transforming Atlanta into a global metropolis, such as heritage and immigrant communities, foreign-born residents in a variety of professional fields, and thought leaders engaged in the global community. We document everyday contributions and journeys through a podcast series, documentary film, digital archives (including interactive maps and timelines), and research and public presentations.
Launched in September 2019, the project initially focused on developing the themes and processes for the project, and providing training to students in the associated Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) course. The project, in its pilot season, is focusing on “Global Spaces”. The online modules and podcast episodes we are developing include the following themes:
- Bilingual Education
explores the globalization of the K-12 curriculum
in Atlanta through the growing Dual-Language Immersion program as well
as private non-profit schools that have emerged from specific heritage
communities, focusing on how these programs prepare students to be
global citizens in the 21st century. Exploring
bilingual education has taken us to the Quadrilingual school, Chinese,
Russian, Arabic school of Atlanta, and Georgia’s rapidly growing Dual
Language Immersion programs. Our interviewees also included educators,
school district representatives and GA Department
of Education administrators.
- Clarkston explores “the most diverse square mile in America” through its residents and various organizations operate in the refugee services ecosystem. Our interviewees included teachers, administrators, students, alumni, volunteers and mentors from the Global Village Project, the only middle school in the country serving refugee girls; volunteers for the “Upper90” soccer program for refugee boys; StartME, a free business training program for promising small businesses owned by immigrants and refugees; community sustainable agriculture initiatives such as Global Growers that also operates the Clarkston International Garden; the New American Pathways, a refugee-services organization; various immigrant business owners; as well as Georgia Tech faculty involved in Clarkston.
- Atlanta Gastronomy explores markets, restaurants and engage with active members in diverse communities to find the global spaces in which culinary traditions are preserved as well as fused with other gastronomies to tell the stories of 21st century Atlanta. We explored Atlanta’s restaurants and markets that create global spaces from Buford Highway Farmers Market and Municipal Market to various “ethnic” restaurants and food critics focusing on and exploring the concept of authenticity and authentic food.
Season 2 will focus on “Atlanta: City of Peace” which will highlight community activists, scholars, and organizations engaged in local and global peacebuilding initiatives. In our approach to the operationalization of the concept of peacebuilding, we will mobilize the United Nationals Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework interpreted as a roadmap to peace and prosperity for all. Season 2 will also be embedded in a current Peace Education initiative the Atlanta Global Studies Center (AGSC) is spearheading. AGSC is currently collaborating with the Atlanta Peace Inc., a venture of the Secretariat of the Nobel Peace Laureates, Rotary International and various Atlanta-based organizations to establish a global peace ecosystem.
Season 3 will focus on global careers and also be embedded in another AGSC-led initiative, “Greater Atlanta Coalition for Global Education and Research (GAcGEAR)” which promotes linguistic and global competence in an ambitious, collaborative effort to expand capacity for global and intercultural engagement throughout the Greater Atlanta region.
