When the Bush regime's tenure has ended, the United States will likely address itself to the task of rebuilding its soured relations with other countries. (A survey of people in 15 countries conducted last spring by the Pew Research Center charted drops as low as 56 percent since 2000 in foreign approval of our government and its actions.) However, one international alliance of youth and human rights activists, based in Ulster County, has already begun a preemptive bid for mending fences with our world neighbors.

Global Youth Connect (GYC) resides in a factory building by the railroad tracks in Kingston. The organization, recently relocated from Woodstock, was formed in 1997 by international activists to train American youth in protecting human rights abroad, significantly in countries where US foreign policies have made a profound—if not always positive—impact on daily life. By 2001, GYC delegations of college-age students and young adults were traveling in three-week fact-finding missions to Bosnia, Cambodia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nepal, and Rwanda.

While the prevailing impression of the next generation is a slacker nation committed to pathological apathy, Jennifer Kloes, GYC's executive director, holds an opinion skewed in the opposite direction: Her work brings her in constant contact with ambitious and humane American 20-something students from across the country, each with an abiding sense that they can make a difference. The group's website also draws people interested in the three-week trips, which average between $1,500 and $1,800, plus airfare. Scholarships of $250 are provided based on merit and need. In addition, GYC casts a net among the academic community for pragmatic idealists, soliciting professors for possible student candidates.

The purpose of these voyages, says Kloes, is, simply put, "humans working with other humans to help each other." Rather than dispensing a welter of touchy-feely platitudes, GYC offers itineraries that bring students face-to-face with daily life in other countries. Within each host country, GYC delegates' travels are organized and led by local grassroots human rights organizations, allowing them to gain a perspective never seen by the tour bus crowds. In Cambodia, for example, GYC members interact with local sex workers and learn how the need to make money to survive often trumps protection against HIV. In Rwanda, the delegates sit in on a session of the People's Court or gacaca, a citizen judicial process established to expedite justice in the wake of the 1994 genocide. For a January 2007 tour of El Salvador, youths will visit villagers tucked away in rural areas and learn how the 12-year civil war has affected their lives, as well as attend events surrounding the anniversary of the signing of the country's peace accords. By meeting with people their own age in other countries, as well as participating in discussion groups and workshops, GYC delegates better grasp the political and cultural issues that define and often limit societies.

GYC is similar to the Peace Corps in that it brings American students abroad in order to ameliorate the lives of others. So, how does a 501(c)(3) organization, required to remain politically neutral for its funding, steer clear of a partisan perspective in addressing social ills of a political origin?

"It is a difficult balancing act," Kloes said. "But, in essence, we're an educational organization, which means that we try to expose people to different points of view and encourage them to come to their own conclusions."