March 15, 2005
To Whom It May Concern:
The dark, Soviet-era cinderblock tenement apartment was jammed with earnest young Romanians leaning forward as they spoke about their IMPACT Club projects to improve their communities. Outside, soot-filled clouds hung over this coal mining valley in mountainous Transylvania, where despair, unemployment, and corruption are staples of everyday life for most residents.
These remarkable gatherings of young people are multiplying throughout Romania, thanks to Dana and Brandi Bates and their New Horizons Foundation. IMPACT, an apt description for this five-year old initiative for building democratic engagement and social capital among Romanian young people.
The statistics I have reviewed are remarkable, showing how the New Horizon's experiment in applying service-learning, social capital development, and personal faith can lead to a harvest of hope, even in the most dire circumstances. Behind the record of growth and accomplishment, New Horizons has built a strong Romanian leadership structure of adults and young people who have become owner operators of all manner of service and social change initiatives - with particular focus on the corrosive drag of corruption on Romanian society.
It has not been easy for the Bates and their Romanian colleagues. At a recent national conference I spoke to in the university town of Cluj, college students, Orthodox Church leaders, and school and government officials gathered to share notes on how to advance civil society through education and service-learning. It is daunting to battle generations of corruption, low trust, and mismanagement, but through the efforts of New Horizons, I detected more than a little optimism. One donor came forward at the Cluj meeting to say he is willing to support initiation of 30 new IMPACT Clubs in the coming year.
International development grounded in social capital formation is a terrific theory that comes alive in the remarkable work of the New Horizons Foundation. In my more that two decades of work in service-learning and youth leadership development in the U.S. and globally, I have rarely been more enthused about and supportive of an initiative than New Horizons. I hope you will also look closely at this amazing effort, and feel free to contact me if I can offer added insight.
