Program Themes
In high school you begin developing the worldview that drives you, the passions and pursuits that push you forward on a defined path. GLA offers a variety of volunteer abroad programs that cater to your specific passions.
Love working with children and advocating for their needs? GLA children’s issues programs empower you to make a positive global impact for at-risk and impoverished children. Perhaps you’re focused on environment and ecology. GLA’s green-minded programs take you to destinations like Latin America and West Africa to do hands-on research. You’ll work with locals to find solutions for sustainability and discuss ways to preserve local flora and fauna. If your focus is on animal conservation, then you’ll love our animals and wildlife programs. You’ll work with researchers on wildlife sustainability in exotic locations like Costa Rica, the Galapagos Islands and Tanzania.
From sports to poverty alleviation to public health, you can find a GLA program to match your intense interests. And the best part is that the programs that feed your passion will also make a global impact. Talk about making a difference!
Program Types
In addition to our standard programs, each with their different themes, we offer different types of programs.
Our 21-day Flagship programs provide the ideal amount of time to satisfy every dimension of the GLA Experience. Although many of the same objectives can be achieved on shorter programs, students and parents report that three weeks is the optimal time to develop lifelong friendships with local people and fellow students, to make a greater impact on the community, to fully immerse themselves in a culture, and to explore difference facets of the host country.
Interact on a deeper level, and take your language skills to the next level. Designed for high school students, our GLA Experiential Language Curriculum TM seamlessly integrates language into many aspects of the program, including community service and cultural activities. Our teachers use classroom time to prepare students to speak the language as they interact with local people. We currently offer Language programs in Spanish and Mandarin.
These programs range from four to six weeks and represent the pinnacle of the GLA experience. These in-depth programs give students the opportunity to experience two different countries. Staff in each country engage students in discussion to link common themes woven throughout the program. Through these comparisons, students can contextualize the issues and attributes of a particular region versus simply visiting one country.
Click here to learn more about our Multi-Programs.
