Global Education
Passport To Cultures
TGA is proud to partner with local schools, libraries, institutions, and organizations to create opportunities for greater understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity.
Preparing a future workforce for success in a globally competitive economy involves a mastery of cross cultural and collaborative skill sets.
TGA incorporates Tulsa's broad network of cultural groups in activities that promote cultural understanding to area youth.
TGA partners with area K-12 schools, colleges, and supporters to help incorporate global education into ongoing instruction.
TGA introduces young people to opportunities that prepare them for success in globally connected educational and workplace environments.
Collette Walker, Director of Sales at the Holiday Inn City Center
"I can still remember the entire event now, almost 20 years later. I was in elementary school, and we were going on a field trip to Kids World! I remember the event appearing to be larger than life with booths from all different countries providing unique crafts, food and information about their home country. We were given a passport that was stamped by a representative at each country booth that we visited, just like when you travel around the world.
Almost 20 years later as an employee at the Holiday Inn Tulsa City Center I was honored to have the opportunity to work with the Tulsa Global Alliance and host one of their events. I am so happy to learn that programs such as World In A Box Day at the Central Library are still happening and that kids in Tulsa are given the opportunity to touch, smell, see and interact with other countries and cultures from around the world."
Remembering Kid's World 20 years later
WORLD IN A BOX DAY 2023 HAS KIDS VISIT 20 COUNTRIES AROUND THE WORLD, GET UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH LIBRARY’S MAKER SPACE
Nearly 1,000 visitors enjoyed this year’s international festival for area kids and their families – some coming in all the way from OKC! Children circulated between 20 booths representing countries from Israel to Ireland, from Ukraine to Japan, from China to Germany. A stamp in the event-issued passport was just the “point of entry” into a magical realm that each culture can be. Kids could try on national dress, take apart and reassemble nesting dolls, build castle replicas, practice calligraphy, get henna tattoos and stuff “suitcases” with pocky sticks and sesame candy.
Visitors could also watch – and at times take part in – a lineup of dance and musical performances, as well as take a deeper dive into the library’s resources. How about posing in front of a green screen, so you can then appear with our planet’s most breathtaking views in the background? Or figuring out how to make your own version of the Taj Mahal on the 3D printer? The Central Library showed guests the capabilities that lie beyond the basic stereotype of what a library can offer.
Thank you to the Schusterman Foundation for their role in giving area children the joy of learning about the world year after year and again in 2023!
World in a Box Day
Tulsa Global Alliance and our partner, the Tulsa City-County Library, annually present World in a Box Day, a global education festival, featuring TGA’s culture boxes. Children stamp their passports and take a virtual trip around the world to each of Tulsa’s eight Sister Cities and other destinations with hands-on activities and entertainment. World in a Box Day is funded in part by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies.
Tulsa Global Alliance supported Eisenhower International Festival in March 2023 with information booths representing Tulsa's Sister Cities.
In partnership with Eisenhower International School in Tulsa, the Tulsa Global Alliance Culture Boxes are a great addition to any classroom or organization presentation. Each box contains cultural artifacts, books, musical instruments, fabrics, and other expressions of more than 40 unique countries, regions, and cultures. Eisenhower International School houses the boxes and coordinates the check-out program.
For more information, email Elaine Williams
williel@tulsaschools.org
CULTURE BOXES
TGA manages the finances for Dual Language Academy, and Eisenhower and Zarrow International Schools’ exchange programs with schools in Costa Rica, France, and Spain. Their exchange students become student members of Tulsa Global Alliance.
Eisenhower and Zarrow International Schools
Middle School & High School
Bison Sculpture Dedication Remarks from Debbie Givens, Chair, Tulsa-Tiberias Sister City Partnership
I bring you greetings from your Sister City of Tulsa, Oklahoma in the United States. I’m very happy to be here for this ceremony after a long wait due to the global pandemic. Tulsa and Tiberias have been Sister Cities since 1989. During the course of our friendship, our communities have taken part in exchanges in fields such as education, emergency services, sports, and the arts. The Chair of the Tulsa-Tiberias Partnership, Debbie Givens, has been instrumental in all of these efforts, and spearheaded the commemorative bison statue we dedicate today.
This statue, which is a gift from the City of Tulsa, Tulsa-Tiberias Sister City Partnership, Tulsa Global Alliance, Garden Deva, and the Jewish Federation of Tulsa, is dedicated today as we honor the 2,000th anniversary of the City of Tiberias and the 30th anniversary of the Sister City partnership with Tulsa.
The statue depicts an American bison, which is the national mammal of the United States. Bison once roamed North America in the millions, but by the late nineteenth century, they were hunted almost to extinction. Thanks to a century of conservation efforts in Oklahoma and other parts of the United States, these animals have survived and their numbers are increasing.
Bison have been important to Native American tribes, who have depended on these animals for food, clothing, shelter, and spiritual value.
I hope that the resilience of the bison will serve as a symbol of the enduring friendship and Sister City relationship between Tulsa and Tiberias. And we hope that each and every person who sees this bison here in Tiberias is reminded of this special connection.
Carver Middle School Students Visit Tiberias, Israel
In Early February, 2022, Broken Arrow Asian Club at Broken Arrow Public Schools and TGA-Beihai Partnership collaborated to host an educational and meaningful event to celebrate Lunar New Year.
Former Booker T. Washington High School Japanese Teacher Josh New leading BTW students on a trip to Tulsa’s Sister City of Utsunomiya, Japan.
Tulsa Global Alliance works with Tulsa area schools to coordinate educational exchanges between Tulsa students and students from our eight international Sister Cities.
Study Abroad Fair
Offered for middle and high school students to raise awareness of study abroad programs offered by Tulsa area schools as well as U.S. cultural exchange programs including The Fulbright Program. Participating students learn that many Rotary Clubs offer scholarships for study abroad. University representatives from OU-Tulsa, OSU-Tulsa, Rogers State, NSU and ORU staff information tables and interact with students attending the event.
Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington High School has participated in exchanges of teachers and students with schools in four of Tulsa’s Sister Cities – Amiens, France; Beihai, China; Utsunomiya, Japan; and Zelenograd, Russia. TGA has assisted Booker T. by arranging local field trips for Sister City exchange students, scheduling meetings for them at City Hall, and purchasing travel insurance for outbound students. Booker T. Washington also hosts the annual Brazilian Youth Ambassador Program, funded by the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Carver Middle School
Carver exchanges students and teachers with Amal Nofarim School in Tiberias, Israel, and the two schools conduct an annual video conference in May. TGA has arranged welcome events and cultural activities for Tiberias students when they visit Tulsa. Carver has also begun an exchange with a school in Amiens, France.
Carver Middle School students enjoy their trip to Tiberias, Israel where they presented a gift—metal art created by Garden Deva.
Edison Preparatory School
Edison exchanges students and teachers with Robert de Luzarches school in Amiens, and TGA has assisted Edison by arranging local field trips for Sister City exchange students, scheduling meetings for them at City Hall, and purchasing travel insurance for outbound students.
Riverfield Country Day School
Riverfield conducts a bi-annual student exchange with Kaiserin Auguste-Viktoria Gymnasium (KAVG) in Celle, Germany. Twenty KAVG students and two teachers visited Tulsa in September of 2019. TGA has arranged welcome events and cultural activities for KAVG students in Tulsa.
Union High School Career Connect
Recently, TGA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Union High School through the school’s Career Connect program. TGA will facilitate connections between Tulsa’s international business community for student internships, thereby providing junior and senior level students with practical business experience outside of school a few days per month.
Will Rogers College Middle and High School
Will Rogers College High and Junior High School is preparing to organize an exchange with a school in Amiens, France.
Global Impact
Tulsa Global Alliance's international alumni are doing great things in the world after they visit Tulsa. A group of students who took part in the Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program volunteered at the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma, and then established a food bank in Kurdistan, northern Iraq. The purpose of the trip was for the youth to learn about services that could help refugees and other displaced people in their country.
Said Past TGA Board Chair, Cathy Render, “This is a great example of how international exchange programs can inspire young visitors and change life focus. It’s great to know the Tulsa spirit of community service has made such a profound impact in the lives of these students and their local communities.”
Local Impact
“Tulsa Global Alliance’s Iraqi Young Leadership Exchange Program (IYLEP) was a journey full of insight, personal growth, and true friendships gained.
IYLEP taught me that distinct and even conflicting narratives of opinion can contribute so much to progress in terms of team building, an awareness not attainable in other ways. Moreover, IYLEP brought me the living example that boundaries are only obstacles in claim when different groups of people have bonded and shared memories.
Through my participation in Tulsa Global Alliance and IYLEP, I have gained the value of many close friends that I continue to talk to, despite being thousands of miles apart. Thanks so much to Tulsa Global Alliance for the opportunity!”
—Shrea Tyagi, a Union High School Junior who participated in the Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program (IYLEP), summer 2019