TeachSurfing

TeachSurfing is a social enterprise with its roots in One Young World's 2012 Summit in Pittsburgh. Miganoush and Gretta, wanted to share the experience they had gained as young professionals. Encouraged that the same sentiment was shared by other young leaders, the pair of Ambassadors turned their idea into an organisation shortly after returning to the Summit as speakers in 2015.
The aim of the platform is to connect this supply of expertise with non-profits and educational institutions around the world. Young "TeachSurfers", on travelling to new countries, offer workshops for schools, organisations, or communities that have relevant learning demands. This initial mission was adapted to increase the programmes’ impact on marginalised individuals who had recently migrated to or sought asylum in a new country. In 2019, TeachSurfing ran a project, TSRP, coaching migrants and refugees in Germany on how to share their knowledge with local communities via workshops. This was the outcome of their successful application to the Google.org impact challenge.
Before the pandemic, a key element involved bringing together two cultures into one room, to promote integration. In order to maintain this aspect of the programme during COVID-19 enforced lockdowns, TeachSurfing started the series "Stay Home Share Knowledge", whereby a diverse group of speakers shared cultural insights virtually. The latest initiative is a dedicated university accredited online learning programme for refugees and migrants, organised with the assistance of Erasmus+, to develop their capacity as educators. This developed into the Volunteer Educators E-Learning Programme (eVELP) for young migrants and refugees based in Cyprus, Italy, Germany, and Romania. Between the general platform and these refugee-support programmes, TeachSurfing has built a wide-reaching network of 3,387 educators to date, representing more than 273 different organisations in 135 countries.
In addition to the core programmes, TeachSurfing is a software provider with a team of IT experts. It develops and provides community platforms with matchmaking functionalities to other organisations, such as the Menstrual Health Hub, Stattkapital and e-online Lernplattform of Social Impact gGmbH.
“We have a special relationship with One Young World because TeachSurfing was born there. Since then we have been in close contact with One Young World. Every time we have new knowledge-sharing events or collaboration opportunities we share them with the One Young World team. It comes from the trust we have with One Young World“