A Changemaker Journey: the Way One School Leads by Example

2023 FIS Changemaker Conference participants.

Frankfurt International School (FIS) in Germany has become a well-known school for anyone interested in active global citizenship and student leadership. 

As news spreads of the FIS Changemaker Conference, the story of what is happening at this school is migrating around the world and inspiring interest and action at other schools. 

“We started a student leadership program in 2020,” recalls Mike Johnston, FIS assistant head of school. “The common thread at the time was change leadership and what we needed to do to create impact. We partnered with the Jump! Foundation and created a 15-hour online experience with three cohorts - one for grades 4 and 5, another for grades 6-8 and also grades 9-11.”

This happened during Covid when classes were online and many schools struggled to maintain or grow service, sustainability and leadership initiatives. At FIS, leaders pivoted quickly and asked how they could use online schooling as a way to propel the work forward; the Jump! partnership became an amazing model of how student learning and reflection could thrive in an online space. 

After the Jump! Training, a group of students was keen to continue exploring what it meant to create change, and they started calling themselves Changemakers. 

“I floated the idea of hosting a Changemaker conference about 18 months later,” smiles Mike. “What a fantastic process for young people to conceptualize planning for the future.” 

The students interviewed four potential partner organizations to help lead the Changemaker initiative; all students chose Inspire Citizens as the partner that could help grow a Changemaker mindset for everyone on campus, as well as build Changemaker skills and capacity for taking action. 

Inspire Citizens co-founder, the late Steve Sostak, started working with FIS students. Other Inspire Citizens facilitators, such as Scott and Kavita, also became involved, and the partnership grew beyond the Changemaker conference to encompass curriculum design, the PYP exhibition, and shaping personalized learning experiences when introducing a new, innovative timetable. . 

“Twenty European schools were signed up for our first Changemaker conference but then we couldn’t do an on-site event because of Covid, so we pivoted to an FIS-only event to start,” explains Mike. “Students in grade 6 and up, from both campuses, all experienced the Changemaker conference and it was really successful. At the same time, we had all of this curriculum design work going on, and so much deep learning around global citizenship and what it means to be a Changemaker.” 

After the first year of the FIS/IC partnership, Steve was able to spend time on campus and meet FIS teachers and students face-to-face. 

“The work accelerated,” Mike says. “Any time we could get Steve or Ivy on the ground, we’d put out a schedule and teachers would claim time, and the ripples have been profound.”

For example, middle school students who were inspired by the initial Changemaker Conference are now running their own Mini Changemaker Conference every year for fifth graders at FIS, and they’re using time in the innovative Day H schedule at FISW (the smaller Wiesbaden campus) to plan and organize. 

In March of 2023, schools were invited back to FIS for an in-person Changemaker conference; 17 schools and 300 participants came, and the conference featured an inspiring brother/sister youth speaker team, Nkoba and Nantume Ismael from Uganda. 

“We were introduced to Nkoba through Inspire Citizens,” says Mike. “Now we have an eighth grader here at FIS who is building a well with Nkoba and who is involved in addressing period poverty with Nantume. Inspire Citizens has been the hub with all of this, connecting people and building capacity for changemaking.” 

As teachers and students have experienced the Inspire Citizens’ Empathy to Impact cycle, they have been able to learn how the stages of “care, aware, able and impact” are key for sustainable and inclusive global citizenship. 

“This has deeply impacted our student leaders,” reflects Mike. “One student said that, before working with the Changemaker Conference and Inspire Citizens, she thought she couldn’t be a leader because she thought only the loudest kids were leaders. That same student told me last week that she wants to create modules for learning related to Changemaker mindsets and tools, and she wants to run these modules with adults. She wants this to become the focus for her upcoming IB CAS project and then do this full-time during a gap year after high school. There are so many stories within the stories of what’s happening with this work.” 

The Changemaker conference was so successful and impactful that FIS is now mentoring three other schools to host similar events in Doha, Budapest and Munich. 

An educator from the International School of Dusseldorf wrote to FIS and put it this way: “I expected inspiration and energy (from the Changemaker conference), but I’m not sure I expected awe. Our students planned next steps on the train home. They are greatly elevated and I’m sure others will see it and join as they share back and implement ‘We Will’ statements. I’m looking forward to meeting again and proudly tallying all of our Changemakers’ successes.”

Since the 2023 Changemaker conference, FIS students are becoming involved with more leadership on campus, too, and are participating in strategic planning meetings and the creation of a proposal for a revised school timetable for upper school at the main FIS campus. 

“This is connected to our greater purpose,” says Mike. “We’re committed to global citizenship and sustainability and it’s been powerful to partner with Inspire Citizens.”