International Exchange Programs

IVsDrumming Exchange programs enable people from other countries and cultures to develop their own impressions of a different country, its culture and its people. Phelps Stokes has extensive experience managing global exchange and scholarship programs, such as the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Southern Africa Refugee Scholarship Fund and the Southern African Scholarship Fund financed by USAID. Counted among the alumni of these programs is the current Permanent Representative of South Africa to the United Nations, Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo.

International Visitor Leadership Program

For more than 50 years, the International Visitor Leadership Program, sponsored by the United States government, has brought emerging leaders to the United States to share expertise and extend professional networks, build lasting relationships based on mutual understanding and experience the United States first hand.

Phelps Stokes has been a valued private sector partner to the International Visitor Leadership Program for nearly a quarter century in the design and implementation of carefully crafted educational and cultural programs for thousands of foreign professionals in science, government, media, law, academia and the business world. Phelps Stokes-designed programs address the participants’ professional interests as well as the foreign policy goals of the U.S. Department of State and our embassies abroad, building opportunities for continued international cooperation.

BrazilianJournalist_Classroom In addition to working with the U.S. government in this endeavor, Phelps Stokes draws upon the strength of fellow members of the National Council for International Visitors, a national network of community-based organizations in nearly 100 locations around the country now celebrating half a century of leadership in citizen diplomacy. With their help and local knowledge, Phelps Stokes creates substantive programs on topics ranging from leadership development, rule of law and democracy building, human and civil rights, NGO management, trade, international security and conflict resolution. Through structured meetings, site visits, and experiential activities in geographically-diverse areas of this country, international participants and American counterparts alike are enriched by a cross-fertilization of new ideas, new resources and new perspectives to serve their communities more effectively.

Through the International Visitor Leadership Program, Phelps Stokes also gives U.S. communities and emerging local leaders and organizations personal connections with the global community while providing future world leaders with the opportunity to deepen their understanding of the United States.

Official State Alumni website

Official Exchanges Connect website

Customized Programs

Phelps Stokes’ experience in designing customized international programs dates back UkranianTour2 nearly a century, and includes exchanges between African chieftains and Native Americans as well as educational internships, scholarships and mentoring programs. Today, experienced Phelps Stokes staff members offer a range of backgrounds and skills to research, develop and implement customized services to other public and private partners including corporations, universities, nongovernmental agencies and government agencies. Services are individually tailored to client needs to maximize personal contact with U.S. counterparts and can range in complexity from providing logistical support for international delegations to designing full service programs that can last from several days to several months.