Carolyn Rounds surrounds her self with students and missionaries that help her Global Connect Courses in Athens, Greece.
PRESTON – Carolyn Rounds of Preston is the president of Global Connect Courses, an international charity that educates refugees in Athens, Greece. She is using Preston High School students to teach conversational English to refugees.
“There is not another program like it in Greece and there was need for a program not associated with religion. It was a tremendous thing,” Rounds said. “I started a emotional support program; it really addresses some of the issues they are having.”
Rounds has a background in secondary education specializing in History and Political Science. She has also been involved in local service organizations. Julia Tokatlidou of Athens, Greece, the other cofounder, has a degree from Aristotetleion University of Tokatlidou and a Masters Degree in Economics from Indianapolis University.
After the loss of her husband Blayne in 2015, Carolyn was still in her 50’s and decided to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“When I arrived in the mission field, I was a assigned to assist at the Friendship Center supported by the Latter-day Saint Charities in Athens, Greece,” she said. “The mission president assigned an Albanian sister to be my companion.”
There were five Friendship Centers in different parts of Europe. Friendship Centers are supported by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other local and world charities to offer support to refugees and displaced persons around the world. What began in 1985 grew to assist people in 188 different countries.
“We were open to teaching any life skills we could,” Rounds said. “Anything to support them during their crisis. I taught cooking, English, guitar, as well as other subjects to help them adapt to a different lifestyle.”
When COVID hit, Friendship Centers closed. Rounds was already home at the time, but still had ties to the country. She and others wanted to continue their work with refugees.
Rounds and Tokatlidou used some of the models used by the Friendship Centers to form their Global Connect Courses.
Global Connect Courses was established to provide learning opportunities for displaced people to get a formalized education certificate.
With the certificate, participants can pursue further educational or vocational opportunities. The program has over 100 applications and after completing the courses they have a 100 percent pass rate.
The goal is to help participants by helping them find direction, renewed hope and purpose.
Global Connect Courses have three areas of focus: A GED Program, Emotional Empowerment and Career Mentoring.
“We developed an interfaith self-resilience program,” she said. “Over 90-percent of the population were Muslim with some Bahai, Hindu, Christian and others, so we incorporated teachings of Islam, the Bible, Koran, Mother Teresa, the Pope, Buddha and (Latter-day Saint) church leaders.”
Rounds got permission to use Preston High School to mentor refugees with conversational English. She expects the students to befriend the people they are working with.
“One of the biggest and most important objectives is for each of the Preston students to have an opportunity to raise their awareness of what amazing people there are from all over the world,” she said. “We share more commonality than differences, that there is something each of us can do to connect.”
Instructors and advisors came aboard without much hesitation as soon as they hear about Rounds’ non-profit organization.
This program is blessing lives all over the world, not only for those teaching and mentoring but also the advisors and teachers.
For more information and on how to donate, go to www.globalconnectcourses.com.