Jewish Impact Journeys
Jewish Impact Journeys

Become the kind of leader the world needs.

Immersive community engagement programs in the Global South for Jewish university students — designed with grassroots partners, grounded in Jewish values, and built as a spark for careers in global justice.

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Vision & Mission

An interconnected world of Jews fulfilling their values through genuine community-based partnerships across the globe — learning and working side by side with local leaders building solutions to the defining challenges of our time.

A generation of young Jewish adults is searching for meaningful ways to connect their deepest values to the world — beyond familiar frameworks, into genuine and lasting community partnership.

At the same time, the rollback of roughly 80% of U.S. foreign assistance programming has broken the pipeline for the next generation of global development professionals. Jewish Impact Journeys exists to address that gap.

Why this is different

Impact travel, not voluntourism.

Participants learn from and alongside the communities they visit, in programs co-designed with local partners. Community partners are teachers, not recipients of aid — compensated for their time, expertise, and teaching. The value is explicitly in participant learning, leadership formation, and lifelong civic engagement, never in labor delivered.

Before

Preparatory curriculum grounding participants in Jewish values, global development frameworks, and the specific community context they will enter — including the ethics of short-term immersion: who benefits, how to show up with humility, and how to be accountable.

During

Immersive community engagement alongside local community members, NGO staff, and grassroots leaders, in work co-designed with community partners. A Jewish values-focused curriculum runs through every encounter — shmitta, tzedek, anavah, and other cencepts frame what participants see in the field — with Shabbat as the week's integration point.

After

Structured reflection using the What, So What, Now What framework; peer cohort community; and pathways into careers in international development, policy, and global service via the OLAM Network.

Curriculum & learning philosophy

An educational program with a focus on experiential learning.

Our curriculum philosophy draws from Working Side by Side: immersive programs are best when participants are genuinely prepared, when community partners are treated as teachers, and when reflection is built into every stage of the journey.

The program is grounded in Jewish values — tikkun olam, tzedek, chesed, anavah, and others — and designed as a catalyst: a spark for careers and lives in service of a more just world.

Jewish values framework

Grounding participants in the Jewish obligation to engage globally, and connecting those values to contemporary development practice.

Global development literacy

The history and current landscape of international development, the politics of aid, and the role of grassroots organizations.

Community partnership ethics

The ethics of short-term immersion, grounded in Fair Trade Learning principles and mutually beneficial partnerships.

Career pathways

Connecting participants to professionals in the field, plus graduate program and fellowship opportunities in international development.

Who is this for?

Students who want to be changed and who want to change the world.

We work with university Hillels, synagogues, day schools, and any organization convening groups of young Jews. Undergraduate and graduate cohorts of 10–20 travel with adult leaders and Jewish Impact Journeys field educators.

01

Students with a developing interest in human rights, global justice, environmental sustainability, or international development careers.

02

Students interested in Jewish identity formation and in connecting Jewish values with contemporary global challenges.

03

Students looking for an experience that is intellectually serious, not just feel-good.

04

Students open to having their assumptions challenged.

Telling the story

Evaluation is a core program component.

We capture each cohort's experience through a before/during/after assessment framework measuring participant learning, Jewish identity development, and program impact. The program is intentionally designed as a case study — producing a replicable model and evidence base for future cohorts, additional destinations, and broader scaling within the Jewish global service field.

Our Journeys

Five countries · 2026–27 programs
Inaugural cohort 6 or 8 days
Guatemala

Roots, Resilience & the Living Highlands

Guatemala's indigenous highlands have been practicing what Jewish tradition calls tikkun olam for generations. The program moves through colonial Antigua, the volcanic basin of Lake Atitlán, and Quixaya — a 400-acre Kaqchikel Maya farming cooperative of 1,200 members, reachable only through Somos's decade-long partnerships. Shmitta is examined alongside indigenous land stewardship; tzedek is applied to cooperative economics.

LENGTH5 nights / 6 days · or 7 nights / 8 days
COMMUNITY PARTNERSWellkind · Quixaya Cooperative
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8 days
Belize

Land, Sea, Conservation & Community

Corozal Bay Wildlife Sanctuary holds one of Belize's most stable manatee populations, the country's only bull shark nursery, and its only stromatolite reef. The rangers who protect it are former fishermen who now lead conservation of the bay they grew up working. Seven nights across two ecosystems: protected coastal forest in the north, and the reef communities of Caye Caulker.

COMMUNITY PARTNER · Corozal Bay Wildlife Sanctuary
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8 days
Costa Rica

Cloud Forest, Coast & the Nightly Vigil

Two theories of protection in one program. Monteverde shows what a permanent institution can hold; CREMA bets on repetition — a nesting beach only stays protected if someone walks it again every night of the season. Three days in the highlands where fog condenses onto cloud forest canopy, four on the Pacific beaches of the southern Nicoya Peninsula.

COMMUNITY PARTNERS · Center for Rescuee of Endangered Marine Species · Turtle Trax
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8 days
Panama

Islands, Education & the Living Reef

Bocas del Toro is a Caribbean archipelago where Ngäbe-Buglé villages, Afro-Caribbean fishing communities, coral restoration, and surf tourism share the same islands. Give and Surf has built education programs here since 2011. Participants spend five afternoons in those classrooms, alongside the local teachers who show up every day — anavah in practice: arriving where the local teachers are the experts.

COMMUNITY PARTNER · Give and Surf
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8 days
Peru

Stone & Water: The Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu

Eight days, one question: how did the Inca engineer a valley to move water, food, and people — and who lives in that valley now? Cusco reveals the layer beneath the layer; Moray reveals the Inca as scientists; Ollantaytambo as builders; Machu Picchu shows the whole system at once. The curriculum anchors in ayni, Andean reciprocity, alongside arevut, Jewish mutual responsibility.

REGION · Cusco & the Sacred Valley
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Get in Touch with Us About Your Next Journey
Custom programs

Design your own program.

Every itinerary can be rebuilt around the community partner, academic focus, and length that fit your group — in any of the five countries. Tell us what your students are studying and what you want them to carry home, and we'll build the week around it.

Design a program with us
Our team

Who we are

Jewish Impact Journeys trips are facilitated by our travel partner Somos Impact Travel, with program design, curriculum, and monitoring and evaluation led by our Core Team in the United States.

CORE TEAM

Andrew Carmona

An 18-year USAID veteran specializing in monitoring, evaluation, and learning. Since 2015, Andrew has led or participated in more than 50 program evaluations in 22 countries and 15 sectors of work for governmental, NGO, philanthropic, and private sector clients such as the U.S. State Department, Millennium Challenge Corporation, Mastercard Foundation, JFNA, JDC, and others. Andrew participated in two alternative spring breaks to El Salvador and Guatemala while a college student, eventually becoming a trip leader and a passionate advocate of experiential learning and global justice. In 2013, he co-founded Voces y Manos, a non-profit organization focusing on sustainable agriculture in Guatemala.

Shoshanna Sumka

Shoshanna Sumka is an experiential educator, author, facilitator, and nonprofit leader with more than two decades of experience in global learning, social justice, and community engagement. Shoshanna built an award-winning alternative break program at American University, later led Global & Community Engagement at Sidwell Friends School, and served as Executive Director of the Independent Schools Experiential Education Network (ISEEN). She co-authored Working Side By Side: Creating Alternative Breaks as Catalysts for Global Learning, Student Leadership, and Social Change and Health and Safety for Secondary School Programs Abroad (NAFSA), and has published and spoken widely on experiential education and social justice.

Somos Impact Travel

Somos Impact Travel

Our travel partner and program operator, with a decade of experience running immersive programs for student groups in Latin America. Somos designs and facilitates every journey on the ground, and holds the long-standing community relationships that make these partnerships possible. Founded by environmental educator and NGO leader Shad Qudsi. somos.travel

Partners
Hillel International

Sharing Jewish Impact Journeys programs with campus communities, and the primary recruitment channel for university-age participants. hillel.org

OLAM

The premier network of professionals and Jewish organizations committed to global service, international development, and humanitarian aid — a key connector for career exploration. olamtogether.org

Get in touch

Let's talk about your group.

Tell us about your campus or congregation, your students, and your timeline. We'll come back with an itinerary built around the partner organization that fits.

Fill out the inquiry form to the right and we'll reach out — or book a 30-minute discovery call with us directly.

Book a 30-min call
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We'll be in touch within two business days.

Which trip are you interested in?