A Summer Camp Experience That Changes The World

Call us dreamers. Call us idealists. Those of us who are the core staff (about 10) of Legacy International, the non-profit organization that conducts the Global Youth Village, like the term "practical idealists."

We believe that by working together, people can bring about an end to poverty and environmental degradation. That we humans can achieve security, peace, and understanding through cooperating with each other. Our commitment is to find practical, sustainable, and culturally-sensitive means for individuals and groups to promote peace, harmony, and economic and social development.

We're a small organization with a big vision. Our programs help people help themselves: person to person, face to face, hand to hand. We work directly with community members and organizations, helping them conceive agendas to address local needs, generate action plans, build coalitions with others, and gain the skills and tools needed to carry out their plans. We also teach them to teach others.

What happens? Teens in Indonesia organize community service projects in their home villages, raising funds for orphanages and conducting classes on environmental awareness. University professors design and implement the first ever classes on civic participation in Central Asia. Iraqi youths return home with hope, and a new inspiration for the future. Ukrainian women create their own non-profit organization to help disadvantaged women start their own businesses. U.S. youths learn how, step by step, to address the needs they see around them. Now they, too, are practical idealists.

We are teachers. We are artists. We are web masters. We are bookkeepers. We are also parents and families. We want a safer, more sustainable future for our children; and recognize that can't happen unless it happens for everyone's children.

Legacy International / Global Youth Village
1020 Legacy Drive
Bedford, VA 24523 USA

Phone: 540-297-5982
Fax: 540-297-1860
Email: mail@legacyintl.org