Kids Change the World: Stories for Global Health Diplomacy

Amanda Yao (Chinese 2019), Benjamin Gertsen (Chinese 2008, 2009), and Christopher Yao (Chinese 2015), with their global health diplomacy organization, Kids Change the World, have worked in recent years to raise funds to provide corrective surgeries for children born with cleft lip and/or palate. To further their work, they applied for a 2020 Alumni Development Fund grant to develop their Stories for Global Health Diplomacy project, a book series aimed at strengthening mutual understanding between Chinese and American youth. Their ADF grant funded the publication of the first book in their series, written in both Mandarin and English, and distributed to students at their partner schools.

"We received outstanding feedback that the book not only increased [students’] understanding of medicine, but also how medicine and science are universal languages that bring people together, just as languages do. This first book has laid the foundation, as intended, for subsequent books in a series joining medicine and cultural diplomacy together."