F R O M T H E D I R E C T O R
Dear iEARN community, donors, and partners,
I am pleased to share this annual impact report with you, serving as iEARN-USA’s interim executive director and board advisor. While my tenure bridges a leadership transition, our vital mission moves forward without pause. In a world that often feels fractured, our collective commitment to ensuring young learners have the tools to understand, connect with, and deeply appreciate the global community has never been more urgent. Looking at the milestones achieved this past year, I write to you today with a simple, profound message: Thank you.
To our Educators: Thank you for being the architects of global connection. You do not simply teach daily lessons; you intentionally build bridges across geographic borders, diverse cultures, and distinct languages. In your classrooms, you prove to our youth that the world is far more interconnected, accessible, and compassionate than it often appears. This work does not happen without you.
To our Institutional Partners and Donors: Thank you for providing the critical resources, seed funding, and strategic alliances that allow this cross-cultural work to flourish. Your financial investment and unwavering belief in the power of global, collaborative learning are what sustain our infrastructure and expand our reach. You turn a visionary curriculum into accessible global learning.
F R O M T H E D I R E C T O R
iEARN has always been far more than a digitally connected network; it is a dynamic movement fueled by the foundational belief that we learn with the world, not just about it.
Seeing the breadth and impact of our global projects, spanning critical preparation of young people for the 21st century to profound peer-to-peer cultural exchanges, reminds us why this work is indispensable.
As we look toward the future, our focus is clear: we are actively strengthening iEARN-USA’s organizational foundations, reinforcing our baseline technologies, and expanding stakeholder partnerships. This strategic growth ensures that our unique model of global civic engagement remains vibrant, secure, and impactful for generations of students to come.
We are honored to navigate this journey alongside you, and I am personally grateful for the warm welcome and steadfast dedication you have demonstrated during this transition. Together, we are shaping global citizens who will inherit and improve our world.
With deepest gratitude,
Mohamed Abdel-Kader
Interim Executive Director & Advisor to the Board, iEARN-USA
MakingtheWorldSmaller:HopePartnershipforEducationand thePowerofGlobalConnection
Virgil Sheppard has spent nearly 25 years building something different in North Philadelphia. As President and CEO of Hope Partnership for Education, he leads a tuition-free independent school serving grades 5 through 8 in one of the city's most under-resourced communities. The school's model is distinctive: small class sizes, extended school days and years, and a graduate support program that follows alumni through post-secondary planning. Students are admitted not on academic merit, but on a family's willingness to partner and the school's ability to meet each young person ' s needs. When they leave Hope Partnership, they move on to private, Catholic, or selective public schools, including in some cases Bodine High School for International Affairs. Sheppard and his team take that transition seriously.
Global citizenship is one of Hope Partnership's hallmarks, so when iEARN's Meet the World program came across Sheppard's desk, it aligned immediately with what the school was already working toward.
All 60 students participated in exchanges with a school in Moldova. The preparation happened through social studies class, but the most memorable moments came from the conversation itself. Students were caught off guard to discover that their peers in Moldova all spoke English fluently. It prompted new questions about language learning and opened up something harder to teach in a classroom: the recognition that young people, wherever they are, have more in common than they might expect. Students who had formed impressions of the world through social media and TikTok found those impressions tested and expanded. They discussed global affairs. They talked about video games. "Kids are kids anywhere," Sheppard said, "regardless of where they are. "
The experience continued to reverberate after the exchanges ended. Conversations at Hope Partnership grew to include the United Nations, global policy, and the organizations working to support peace. The school hosted a state representative and a city council member, drawing connections between international affairs and local legislation. The world, for these students, was getting a little smaller.
The program came to Hope Partnership through lead teacher Angela Keeler, who with a background in international affairs, became the engine behind the effort. There was some initial hesitation, Sheppard acknowledged, but it passed quickly once the partnership felt solid. "She just ran with it," he said.
For other administrators weighing similar programs, Sheppard offered grounded advice: get clear early on what successful implementation actually requires, and communicate those needs upfront. Scheduling and structure are essential. And resist the instinct to frame it as additional work. At Hope Partnership, the program lived inside the curriculum rather than alongside it, which made Angela Keeler's job easier and the experience more cohesive for students.
The results, Sheppard said, were immediate and lasting. Students left the exchange hungry for more knowledge, more connection, a better understanding of their place in the world. "To see the joy on the kids' faces was really a treat," he said. For a school that spends every day preparing young people to step beyond their zip code, that kind of hunger is exactly the point.
