The AMENDS Global Fellows are a network of young leaders from the Middle East, North Africa, and the United States who are working to build a more equal, sustainable, and prosperous world.
AMENDS began in 2011, when Arab youth led a wave of popular protests across the MENA region. Two Stanford University students, Khalid Shawi from Bahrain and Elliot Stoller from Chicago, imagined a platform and space for MENA and US youth to gather, collaborate, and share their stories of working for change. AMENDS welcomed its first class of 36 delegates to Stanford in 2012 for a week-long Summit.
Since then, AMENDS has welcomed 177 fellows from 26 countries to annual gatherings at Stanford University, Koç University, and the University of Oxford. These alumni form an active network committed to transformative work in the areas of arts and culture, business and technology, education and empowerment, health and environment, and human rights and community action.
To better serve this growing network, AMENDS Global Fellows became an independent non-profit organization in 2017. We aim to support our fellows by:
- providing a platform for fellows’ ideas and initiatives;
- facilitating active engagement and communication among fellows and with the public;
- providing resources and opportunities for capacity building, mentorship, networking, and project implementation.
The AMENDS student team at Stanford continues to lead a core part of our programming, selecting new delegates annually to participate in a launch summit and join the AMENDS Global Fellows network.