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Pierce Arrow: Freshman co-founds Youth Allied to Learn, Lead and Help forum

Posted on 2010-11-19

Freshman Damon Mallory’s decision to take a new course while he was a senior in high school last year allowed him to experience new cultures, build friendships, and find a way to bring people together through service and learning.

From Boston, Mass., Mallory is the co-founder of Youth Allied to Learn, Lead, and Help (YALLAH), a forum for alumni of the Qatar Foundation International (QFI) exchange program. The mission of QFI is to promote education in order to build strong communities across cultural boundaries. He first became involved with QFI through a program that sponsored an Arabic language course his senior year at Boston Art Academy, which opened him up to a study abroad experience earlier this spring.

“In the spring they sent a number of students from our school to Qatar for a week and that’s where I met a lot of my friends,” said Mallory.

At the end of the trip, Mallory befriended one of the Qatari students, Fahad Al-Nahdi. However, they did not see each other until this past summer, when QFI sponsored the “A Summer of Science and Services” program in Washington D.C. After their summer program ended, Mallory and Al-Nahdi both felt there was a need for a program to allow QFI alumni to continue to build their friendships.

“Two weeks after the trip I got in touch with Fahad and was saying ‘I really want to see you all again,’” said Mallory. “We wanted to just capture the whole mission of QFI in a way that we can get all of the alumni of QFI’s program together.”

Within a few days, QFI responded to Mallory and Al-Nahdi and the YALLAH program was formed. According to Mallory, QFI, “loved the idea”.

Shortly after the proposal was accepted, it gained attention from the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). Founded by formal president Bill Clinton, the mission of the CGI is to find solutions to world-wide issues and put them into action. It has also received the attention of other organizations that see the potential the YALLAH forum has to offer.

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