Program for Global Citizenship
The Upper School Program for Global Citizenship (PGC) emerged from a Board of Trustees’ conversation about where the institution was – and wanted to be – with regard to developing students’ capacity for creative and ethical action on behalf of self and others. Launched in 2008, the PGC is squarely rooted in the School’s mission, which states in part, “Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School develops in students...a sense of service to the world community.”
Our three-year program for rising sophomores centers on the cornerstones of servant leadership, diversity and inclusion, and citizenship. It combines honors-level coursework in international affairs, ethics and cultural anthropology with an international service learning cohort trip facilitated in partnership with Where There Be Dragons and capstone projects in social enterprise and digital media in the senior year. Shared inquiry, project-based and experiential learning feature heavily in the program, as does the expertise of faculty and staff at our affiliate partners and other Atlanta NGOs, such as The Center for Civic Innovation, the Center for Civil and Human Rights,The Carter Center and the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).
Helping our students become conscientious citizens of the world, ensuring they understand that their actions can have profound consequences—for better or worse—fostering an inclusive, intellectual curiosity about the human experience and nurturing a justice-oriented entrepreneurial vision for the world are the driving goals of the PGC.