We use the term “Collaborative Leadership Programs” to describe all of our student travel. Collaborative refers to all the relationships and learning that happen when students work alongside peer students and local leaders from the host community.

WLS is more than a travel provider. We are a school change agent. We not only help our schools build immersive travel programs, but we integrate these programs into classroom learning in order to drive innovation.

We are disciplined about the travel programs we work on in order to pursue our mission to “partner with K-12 schools to reimagine learning and create next-generation leaders.” We focus on long-term, partnership-based travel programs with schools that are seeking to bring greater purpose to learning. We support the integration of these programs into classroom learning via support services for educators such as workshops, coaching, and conferences.

There is an understandable backlash against service learning done wrong. For too long, organizations have offered experiences that are poorly planned, episodic, and transactional. Volunteers arrive and depart with the illusion of helping. The reality is that these volunteers can do more harm than good.
At World Leadership School, we believe that traveling students can be a powerful force for good if service learning is done responsibly. We have a long track record of positive results in the communities where we operate. Many of our programs involve Community Projects, while other programs focus on NGO collaboration or work with our partner nonprofit, TeachUNITED.

Our approach to service learning is “Walking Together.” We build long-term, year-round relationships with communities via our country coordinators, who live close to our communities. We pair a maximum of two traveling schools with a host community to ensure sustainability and deep relationships. We listen to and work alongside local leaders in order to accomplish community goals, rather than come in with new ideas. Our students are prepared ahead of time to listen and learn, rather than help.

We also ensure high-quality service learning because we:

Focus on one place, one partnership. Our groups spend their entire time in a single community and the focus is building a strong partnership. Our traveling schools go back year after year to this same place. Though students change each year, many faculty return year after year to the same community.
Work like an NGO. Since 2007, our sister nonprofit World Leadership Foundation has invested $950,000 in donations raised each year by students. These funds are invested in Community Projects, which are planned by the communities in which we operate.
Our traveling students also support many of the same rural schools served by TeachUNITED, which spun off from World Leadership Foundation in 2020. TeachUNITED works to transform rural education in Tanzania, Costa Rica, and rural USA through an innovative combination of side-by-side instructional coaches, teacher workshops, tablet technology, and online learning.

Each year, World Leadership School staff, instructors, and country coordinators manage approximately 900 students and faculty on immersive programs across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the U.S. Our staff and instructors have extensive experience and training in risk management, which is a focus of our annual spring instructor training retreat. World Leadership School offers risk management workshops to our partner schools.

Our approach to risk management emphasizes three principles:

Risk management is a continuous conversation that happens at all levels of a program at once and we structure that conversation with a simple tool we call AMP (Analyze, Manage, Prepare). This conversation happens at the level of our Staff, who are in close connection with school leaders and parents; our Coordinators, who work with our communities before, during, and after a program; our Instructors and Faculty, who build a close working relationship; and our Students, who run AMP sessions each morning.

Keep it simple. We make risk protocols simple so that our Staff, Coordinators, Instructors, Faculty, and Students are all on the same page.

Education and risk management go hand in hand. When programs are integrated with classroom learning, risk management improves. We help our schools integrate off-campus programs into the classroom via a variety of educator development services.

We strive to responsibly manage risks. Our itineraries minimize highway travel and maximize immersion in rural communities that we know well. We update our risk management protocols, integrate feedback into program design, and invest in safety and communication equipment. For a complete summary of our approach, read this article in Independent School magazine.

Despite these efforts, World Leadership School cannot guarantee safety nor can it eliminate the inherent and other risks of international student travel. For information regarding program activities and associated risks, risk management, and student and parent responsibilities, please contact our office.

For more information about our COVID-19 policies, please visit the COVID-19 page.

Most of our programs have 10-15 participants, 1-2 faculty from the traveling school, and 1-2 Instructors. We strive for a 1:4 ratio of adults to students. WLS also designs full-class programs with 60-80 students and 10-15 teachers. We work closely with these schools to divide the larger group into smaller groups during the day.

Many World Leadership School students travel each year to places like Peru and Costa Rica with no knowledge of Spanish, to Tanzania with no knowledge of Swahili, to Haiti without knowledge of Haitian Creole, etc. We believe communicating across cultural lines in the absence of a common language is an important 21st century skill. To help students manage homestays in another language, we help students develop a survival vocabulary in the local language. We also take language fluency into account when doing homestay pairings.

Many of the students from our programs come back from their extraordinary experience and wonder: “What is next?” There are many ways to stay engaged once a program is over. Past World Leadership School alumni have taken their WLS experience deeper by working with their partner community on a research project throughout college.

We love to hear from all past program participants and students! Please take this quick online survey to give us an idea of what you’ve done since your WLS experience. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and Instagram, stay connected to the WLS Alumni Network, and be sure to check out our blog.

Our instructors are seasoned educators who have between 10-15 years of teaching experience in the classroom, wilderness settings, or overseas programs. Many of our instructors are full-time classroom teachers and have a background with the National Outdoor Leadership School or the US Peace Corps. Our instructors have traveled extensively in the developing world and are current on their Wilderness First Responder training. Our instructors are amazing human beings who love working with children, engaging with the world, and leading immersive experiential learning. We bring all our instructors together each April at our annual staff training. For instructor profiles, see “Who We Are.”

Contact us! Either by email at info@worldleadershipschool.com or by calling (303) 679-3412 — we would be thrilled to speak with you!

Costs & Itinerary