Global Education Destinations recognized Bolles eighth-grader Parker Parrish ’28 for her exceptional performance in the “Who Will Take Care of Us? Access to Healthcare” Buddies Without Borders (BWB) online forum held January 20-March 2.

BWB online forums are month-long, web-based collaboration and competition projects attended by students ages 12-18 around the world. The “Who Will Take Care of Us? Access to Healthcare” online forum in which Parrish participated asked around 40 students from more than 20 countries to meet regularly over seven weeks to brainstorm ideas to improve the healthcare systems and programs in their assigned countries.

Parrish’s team, the Medical Mavericks, studied and analyzed access to healthcare in Taiwan. Their work earned them the “Best Team” award for their plan’s creativity, sustainability and fairness. Parrish worked alongside three other students on the project: Gülbeyaz Ceylin Gündoğdu (Vali Muammer Güler Social Sciences High School, Turkey), Joelle Steve Joudeh AlAkroush (Amman National School, Jordan) and Ishika Dhar (Shiv Nadar School Gurgaon, India).

BWB team coaches also selected Parrish as a BWB Pioneer Award winner for consistently exhibiting leadership and inspiring others to work for the common good. With this distinction, she is qualified to apply to lead a BWB Club to initiate local action, per Global Education Destinations. This is the second session in a row that BWB has recognized Parrish.

BWB online forums are held three to five times per year, and around three to five representatives from each country are selected to meet weekly online. According to Global Education Destination’s website, students are grouped as equal global citizens into teams, assigned a country as their joint identity, and together throughout the month, they debate and co-author recommendation papers to solve a predefined United Nations Sustainable Development Goals-related challenge. Each team is coached by a college student and sessions feature guest speakers. All papers are reviewed and ranked by international educators including college admission officers and subject-matter experts.

For information about Bolles’ Global Learning and Engagement program, click here. #BollesGlobal