When part of our global community faces a crisis, the whole community feels it. This is how Hudson Global Scholars staff, partners, and students came together this month to communicate, support each other, and be present in the community after the earthquake in Colombia.
Hudson Global Scholars works with students, families, and school partners around the world. This means that at any time, something happening in one part of the world can affect someone in our community. This month, that event was an earthquake in Colombia. The earthquake affected communities where our students, families, and school partners live, and our global team responded with care, immediately.
When news of the earthquake reached our team, Program Manager Veronica Cueto began working immediately. She contacted Site Coordinators at our Colombian school partners to confirm the safety of students, staff, and school communities. She shared good news with the company: everyone connected to our schools was safe. At the same time, she recognized clearly what many families across the country are now experiencing.
Chief Academic Officer Pat Hoge said,
“As an international education organization, Hudson Global Scholars has students, families, school partners, and colleagues around the world. Events like this can affect any of them at any time. Supporting each other by communicating, sharing updates, and keeping one another informed is simply part of how our team works, especially during difficult times.”
For Regional Director Mario Avila, supporting the situation meant being physically present. Mario traveled to Colombia this week to spend time with the team at one of Hudson Global Scholars' partner organizations in the affected region. He visited schools together with their coordinator to make sure school partners felt supported during this difficult time.
“It is easy to see how much this country is suffering right now,” Mario said. “But it is just as easy to see the resilience of the people here. Everywhere we went, people were already planning to rebuild and to recover. Being here in person, visiting the affected areas together with our partner, was important to us.”
Veronica's communication and Mario's visit show something true about Hudson Global Scholars: our global network is not only a map of where our schools are located. It is a community of people who care for one another.
Caring for our global community is not only something the Hudson Global Scholars team demonstrates. Our students practice caring for each other, too.
In the Hudson Global Scholars student community, Student Community Manager Kim Kontos noticed an important moment. A student asked in a group chat whether everyone in Colombia was safe. Instead of ignoring the moment, the community continued to check on each other, and a discussion grew from there. A poll was posted asking students about the natural hazards common where they live, such as wildfires, earthquakes, extreme heat, and flooding, and what safety habits they had learned as children that students in other countries might never have needed to learn.
The conversation that followed was a window into what a truly global peer community can look like:
“It was a good reminder that when something real happens in these spaces, our students do not need to ignore it,” Kim said. “They can engage with it, ask each other questions, and check on one another. This is exactly the kind of belonging we hope for in our student community.”
Hudson Global Scholars was built on the idea that students should not have to choose between where they live and the kind of connected, global education they want. This same idea appears when something difficult happens in one part of our community: the rest of the community notices, cares, and offers support.
We continue to think about the families, students, and school partners affected by the earthquake in Colombia. We are grateful, once again, for a community of staff, partners, and students who support one another, in ordinary moments and in difficult ones.
This is what a global community means. It is not only present for celebrations, milestones, and everyday connections. It is present during difficult moments, too. This month, that meant a Program Manager confirming that every school was safe, a Regional Director traveling to be present in person, and a group of students, thousands of miles apart, choosing to ask each other if they were okay. We continue to think about Colombia as recovery continues, and we are grateful, as always, for a community that supports one another.