Pictured are Jamestown High School teachers Laurie Sullivan and Tracey Elision, who are hosting a trip to an EF Global Leadership Summit in 2027. Submitted photo

Each year, EF Educational Tours holds a Global Leadership Summit, and, in 2027 Chautauqua County students will have an opportunity to attend thanks to two teachers from Jamestown High School hosting the trip for them.

The 2027 EF Global Leadership Summit will allow attendees to travel through Europe to Prague, Czech Republic, with the focus being on Social Responsibility. The summit and tour for Chautauqua County students is set for July 3 through July 12, 2027.

While Jamestown High School is in no way sponsoring the trip, both teachers, Laurie Sullivan and Tracey Elision, teach there.

“I had done these trips with EF Tours in the past with students and I saw that Malala Yousafzai, the famous Malala, the girl who got shot in the face by the Taliban, was going to be the keynote speaker,” Sullivan said. “I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, students need to meet her. I need to meet her.’ So that was the initial motivation for me, and because I was comfortable with EF the company, I reached out to them right away and said ‘Hey, I’d like to do that please.'”

Elision joined in with Sullivan after seeing her poster on the trip and asking how to participate, as she had gone on a similar trip with her daughter in high school. This will be the first time Sullivan will be attending a Youth Leadership Summit, as they have been going on for about four years, though EF has been around since the 1960s doing tours for teenagers. About four years ago, Sullivan said, they decided to start putting on a Global Youth Summit somewhere in the world. Students from around the world attend these summits, with the 2026 summit taking place in Costa Rica.

“Students attend globally and have three days of leadership training with teenagers around the world,” Sullivan said. “They always pick a topic and our topic in July of 27 is going to be Social Responsibility. That’s why Malala is the speaker, and our students will be able to do three days of training about how to be a leadership voice back in their community, supporting a harmonious world, as they learn how to use their voice to promote social responsibility in their own country.”

Elision added that social responsibility is a big topic these days, including in New York state. She recently attended a conference on it, and said it is a big deal for students to be able to bring these lessons on social responsibility back to their own schools.

“People should be interested because in Chautauqua County and our community in Jamestown there are a lot of things we really need kids to be aware of,” Elision said. “In Jamestown High School we see that our kids need a lot of training on opening their eyes to the world and seeing what’s available and how they can help solve a lot of problems, not only in our country but in the world, and within their own community, how they can make that better.”

She added often kids can be self-centered and have not had the opportunity to come out of their own communities to find out on a global scale what is even an issue. They can also find out that kids around the world have the same issues, while also learning about global history as well.

Sullivan added that when students come home from one of these summits, things hit differently.

“They have been somewhere else,” Sullivan said. “It’s really hard to envision another culture and it’s important to understand that there are other cultures. You can get so tied into your own small, little world that you don’t have empathy for other people and there’s such empathy and so much joy in experiencing the fact that we’re not alone here and there’s so many kinds of people. So many things are the same for us, and we’re not as different as maybe we think we are.”

Elision added that the summit is a great learning opportunity for students, and they can make friends all over the place, similar to pen pals. For students to be good citizens in the future, she said it is good for them to learn about what is going on in the world. Sullivan said she tells teenagers that they are capable of so much, and that there are many teenagers that have done amazing things for the planet. She added that teenagers cannot always vision how much they can impact life in the community.

“Being a teacher in Jamestown and being new to the area, having only been here for the last six years, this is an eye opening experience for me to learn about Jamestown and the kids in Jamestown, and how Jamestown is different than being downstate, because it is a totally different perspective,” Elision said. “I just think that it’s a cultural thing that I need to do to help out and give back to the community and help give our kids a chance to go on something they would not normally have a chance to go on.”

The summit is open to any kid in Chautauqua County at any school. Sullivan said she has been an EF tour leader before, with this being her fourth trip abroad. She added adults can come too if they feel hesitant about letting their kids go to Europe for the first time by themselves, but there is an upgrade fee. Sullivan said some of her past tours she has had family members come along and have world experiences with their teenagers.

As a teacher, Sullivan said one of the best parts is seeing when the lightbulb comes on in a student’s eyes. Her students will be preparing for the tour before next year by reading a specific list of literature together, and she said when they get there there will be the opportunity to see that lightbulb come on for them.

“It’s just an amazing moment as a teacher to know that they got it,” Sullivan said. “This is the thing that made it click. And we are actually visiting as well as the summit, two concentration camps. I have been to one in my lifetime, and it was completely sobering and life changing. Next year I will do a piece of literature with my class to prep us for the trip, but I don’t think anything can prepare you to stand in Auschwitz.”

Sullivan said she wants her students to have the opportunity to stand in such a significant place, and to give them the ability to learn what books cannot teach. With the rise of Antisemitism in the world, she said she feels that they need to stand there and experience that. Elision agreed that students need to learn more about tolerance and this is a good way to do that.

“It’s a great opportunity for people to come and experience and to learn and grow as a person,” Elision said. “There is a lot. The first time I went I went as a parent with my kid and it was a growing experience. It’s eye opening and I think as a teacher it’s important because it’s what we do and teach anyway. To have a hands-on experience like this I think is extraordinary.”

Sullivan said it will be an extraordinary experience that students will remember all of their lives, adding that if someone does something they will remember it more, and there will not often be other chances like this one for students. She emphasized that the tours are very safe, with tour guides around 24/7 that are bilingual and can help navigate. She said they will be as safe as they could ever be in traveling for this experience.

“Come join us,” Sullivan said. “We’re pretty fun people who like teenagers, and dealt with them for a long time in our lives.”

For more information on the July 2027 Global Leadership Summit visit eftours.com/3046154XM. This website allows people to sign up and gives information on this specific tour, including the safe guards that the company puts into each tour to ensure the ability to travel the world without concerns.