Elevate your future.
Transform the future.
You don’t have to choose between developing your career and having a positive impact. We didn’t.
It takes a thoughtful approach and a community of peers with integrity, but it’s possible — and we think necessary — to design a path to grow your knowledge, career, and impact together, not one after another. It’s never too soon to get things done.
Whether you’re looking for knowledge, opportunities, or community, South-North Scholars can help.
First, let’s take 2 minutes to connect, and we’ll keep you updated about programs and events relevant to you.
Second, here are 3 great resources (and one key concept) for you to get started:
I want to connect with others who care.
The United Nations Millennium Fellowship is a one semester leadership development program that connects you with a global network of 3,000+ student leaders interested in socially impactful careers. You’ll form a campus cohort with 10 to 30 students, each leading a project in your university or community while meeting to learn how you can pursue careers that address the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, a set of 17 global challenges humanity faces. Millennium Fellows (including a few South-North Scholars team members) have served as youth delegates at United Nations forums in New York City, among other roles.
One of our founders, Charlie, served as a Millennium Fellow and Campus Director for Duke University in 2022 while building South-North Scholars.
I want to find opportunities to
launch a career that matters.
Our unconventional guide + database of opportunities and career paths will be here soon, but we want to share two other places where you can find a wide range of opportunities that let you gain experience directly engaging with critical challenges around the world.
Devex Job + Internship Board
Devex is a worldwide media platform dedicated to global development. It runs a comprehensive job board where you can search for available internships, full-time jobs, and scholarships across any major issue, anywhere in the world.
Opportunities for Youth
Opportunities for Youth is an online database of thousands of career and funding opportunities related to global issues — ranging from jobs and internships to graduate scholarships, grants for funding, global competitions, fully-funded conferences, virtual trainings, and online courses by the World Bank and other institutions. You can also search for opportunities by continent.
I want to learn more about global issues.
What is a “sustainable development goal”, and why are so many communities talking about it?
Seventeen may seem like a large number of goals to have at once — but not when the purpose is humanity’s development.
To understand the current conversation on global development, it’s critical to know about the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (also called SDGs).
They’re the largest, most prominent set of goals shaping international collaboration on major issues facing humanity. The SDGs, adopted in 2015, capture 17 distinct challenges — from poverty to hunger to gender equality to institution-building — and identify over 160 targets to be achieved by 2030.
We’re still trying to find a concise video that can sum up the SDGs without too much jargon (let alone targeted at young people like you and me). In the meantime, here’s the United Nations SDGs website where you can explore each of the goals:
Key concept
What is the “Global South” and why does it matter now?
The “Global South” is a key concept most often used in international politics and development to refer to developing regions that have historically faced significant political and economic challenges to their security and sustainability.
Usually, the Global South is thought to include developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, but some communities in “more developed countries” face similar situations as well.
Many people in Global South regions face some of the harshest costs and steepest challenges to meeting their needs, but there are many insightful and powerful movements — from sociopolitical to scientific to entrepreneurial — collaborating to build a better future for their communities.
We think these perspectives, which are often not heard in public discussions and classrooms, can help transform your understanding of global issues and give you deep insight into new ways to innovate and address humanity’s most critical challenges.
Here’s a website from renowned Global South researchers at the University of Virginia with key concepts, thinkers, issues, and other insightful perspectives on the “Global South” as a concept.