Resolving Health, Education and Economic Disparities

 
Squads Abroad is a program of Global Brigades, an international non-profit that uniquely implements a holistic model to meet a community’s health and economic goals. Our model systematically builds community ownership and collaboratively executes programs with the end goal of sustainably transitioning to a relationship of impact monitoring.

Our Mission

Inspire, mobilize, and collaborate with communities to achieve thier own health and economic goals.

Our Vision

Millions of empowered community members with the resources and capacity to thrive.

Our Values

Empowerment

Creating an infrastructure that propels passion to meaningful results

Holistic Approach

Implementing programming at all levels through a multi-disciplinary model

Scalability

Perpetuating positive impact

Sustainability

Creating replicable systems that maximize impact

Financial Transparency

Demonstrating efficient resource usage

Collaboration

Facilitating a “partnership” approach that makes any act of “service” empowering

What makes Squads Abroad’s program different than others?

Funded Through Student Movement

Squads Abroad, a program of Global Brigades, funds all of its programs, leadership development and administrative costs through the fundraising efforts of more than 500 Global Brigades university Chapters and high school Squads Groups around the world. This grass-roots fundraising effort gives us the autonomy to develop programs to the needs of communities, rather than the whims of a few large donors.

Community-Led Sustainability

All of our projects include community member involvement, formation of committees and long term funding streams for future sustainability. We believe that the empowerment of local leaders is the only way that programs will continue to be maintained and grow once Global Brigades transitions its partnership with a community to follow-up.

Full-Time Local Teams

Global Brigades employs more than 100 full-time local staff members and over 300 temporary local staff members year-round. Our local staff members are the driving force behind program development, brigade coordination, community follow-up and impact measurement. We believe that programs should be locally led.

Government Collaboration

We believe in working with local governments instead of against or in replacement of. Our projects could not be possible without the support of local governments. The local governments are involved with each of our projects in varying degrees such as offering support in funding, transportation of supplies, equipment, and/or vocalizing support.
Through virtual or in-country programs, Squads are passionate groups of volunteers who mobilize abroad to create positive change. Each Squad type has a skill-based focus area that support the education, health and economic development objectives of community partners.
Squads are passionate groups of volunteers who mobilize abroad to create positive change. Each Squad type has a skill-based focus area that support the education, health and economic development objectives of community partners. Faculty choose their dates, duration (typically 1-2 weeks), and their site location from one of our six program countries.
Squads Abroad is a 501c3 non-profit organization under our parent company Global Brigades, a Platinum Level Guidestar member for Financial Transparency. Since 2004, our organization has collectively mobilized more than 70,000 international volunteers to help resolve global health and economic disparities around the world.