Teachers Without Borders (TWB)
TWB is a non-profit (501c3), non-denominational, international NGO founded in 2000, devoted to closing the education divide through teacher professional development and community education. Our organization focuses on the building of teacher leaders. We work primarily, but not exclusively, in developing countries, in order to build self-reliance, health, and capacity. We base much of the spirit and focus of our work on the inspiration provided by Jacques Delors' report: Learning: The Treasure Within.
In short, the purpose of Teachers Without Borders is to invite, gather, distill, synthesize, and disseminate the best collective wisdom from teacher leaders from every culture to make all teachers even more effective in contributing to the creation of a world that works for all.
At 59 million, teachers are the largest single group of trained professionals in the world AND the key to our children's future. Equally amazing is the estimated need for more than 30 million NEW teachers to achieve the goal of the U.N.'s "Education for All" initiative by 2015. The issues are complicated by the number of children who do not go to school at all - 104 million, 50% of whom live in countries touched by conflict.
Despite its crucial connection to economic and social development, teacher training is often uneven, protracted, or unsupported. In addition, teachers are rarely included in educational policy change or significant decision-making. Teachers are not just a resource for our children, they are the key to development. They know who is sick, who is missing, who has been abducted into the sex trade or conscripted into a military gang, who has been orphaned by AIDS, who is achieving and who is not. In short, teachers are society's glue, and they certainly deserve our assistance; otherwise, we are all left with a gaping digital, educational, and economic divide. If the key to economic development and our young people's future is education, then teachers should have resources, tools, and access to the Internet, as well as each other.
United StatesTeachers Without Borders was founded to addresses these issues. TWB is supported entirely by individual donors and corporate/foundation grants. TWB is governed both by Local Trustees and an International Advisory Board. We operate with a small staff of Country Coordinators and experts. The by-laws and Board statutes of Teachers Without Borders forbids us to engage in any political lobbying or advocacy. We are not allowed to join any unions or Labour Congresses of any kind, for to do so threatens our non-profit status, as determined by the tax-exempt code. Coordinators, working on behalf of Teachers Without Borders, may not engage in such activities.
CONTACT US
TEACHERS WITHOUT BORDERS
2880 74th Avenue, S.E.
Mercer Island, Washington USA 98040
phone: 011 (206) 230-8126
fax: 011 (206) 236-2826
inquiry@teacherswithoutborders.org
www.teacherswithoutborders.org
Founder (Dr. Fred Mednick): fred@teacherswithoutborders.org
