The Tool for Success Every Student Should Have
By Lauren Frohne
Jake Hayman wants to improve your social networks—and he doesn’t mean Facebook and Twitter. He believes that having access to successful role models can transform a student’s experience in school—and his or her future.
When it comes to social mobility, the United States and the United Kingdom are two of the worst countries in the developed world. Which means there’s a stronger correlation between the parents’ wealth and their child’s future prosperity. Despite good public education systems, many students find it difficult to make the transition from education to the world of work.
That’s what Hayman wants to change.
His organization, Future First, is dedicated to helping secondary schools build and maintain alumni networks as a resource for current students. Now active in more than 450 schools in the UK, Future First just launched in its first five schools in the United States.
In 2012, Open Society and Future First began exploring the potential for mobilizing alumni in other parts of the world. The resulting research, which looked at Argentina, Brazil, Finland, Ghana, and Kazakhstan, found that most graduates are willing to give back.
Find out more by watching our conversation with Jake Hayman above.
Future First is a grantee of the Open Society Education Support Program. At Open Society is a video series highlighting the people and ideas that are inspiring our work—and changing the world.
Until September 2014, Lauren Frohne was a multimedia producer for the Open Society Foundations.
