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New York City - The global relief and development organization Mercy Corps today announced the appointment of Robert F. Sherman, Ph.D. as the executive director of the Action Center to End World Hunger. Sherman will lead all aspects of the Center, including program development, fundraising, communications and outreach, and site management. The Center will open on October 16, 2008, coinciding with World Food Day.
Sherman joins Mercy Corps after 14 years at the Surdna Foundation, where he served as the founding program director for Effective Citizenry. Designed to promote the civic involvement and democratic participation of young people, Effective Citizenry's $6.5-million grantmaking portfolio has supported youth organizing and media, young people's direct involvement in public policy development, service-learning, and a range of strategies to help young leaders advance social change and justice. Sherman managed all aspects of the program.
Sherman will assume leadership of the Action Center immediately prior to its mid-October opening. Located in Battery Park City, the 4,000-square-foot Center will employ multimedia, interactive exhibits to illuminate the complex causes of hunger and poverty, bring to life the daily experiences of aid workers and the communities they serve, and provide a platform for direct action - whether visitors have one minute, one day, one month or a lifetime.
The Center will welcome visitors of all ages, with young people, parents and educators as key audiences. Visits to the Action Center are meant to be the first step on a path of longer-term, deeper engagement - through personal and collective actions - on the crucial issues of hunger and poverty.
The Action Center to End World Hunger is a cornerstone of Mercy Corps' Global Engagement Initiative, which seeks to dramatically alter the way young Americans think about the world and their role within it. This Initiative also encompasses the Global Citizen Corps, a network of thousands of high school students in the U.S. who run awareness-raising campaigns around issues like the global AIDS epidemic and lack of access to education. The Center, the Corps and other programs will reinforce the efforts of a growing, diverse community of online activists gathered on www.mercycorps.org.
"I am honored to lead the Action Center at a time when all of us, particularly young people, are awakening to a new understanding of global interdependence and ways that local actions can reverberate positively around the globe," said Robert F. Sherman. "The Action Center promises to be a ground-breaking platform for activism and building public will. This will be a challenging and exciting next step for me."
Prior to joining the Surdna Foundation, Sherman spent more than a decade working at the intersection of grassroots activism, community relations, philanthropy, and marketing and communications. He served as executive director of Increase the Peace Volunteer Corps, a New York City-wide race relations initiative created inside the Office of the Mayor. He also led the Community Relations Institute for the New York City Commission on Human Rights, where he focused on grassroots responses to racial tensions.
Sherman holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the Institute for Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi University, and a B.A. from Haverford College.
"We are thrilled to have found an executive director who is so experienced in - and passionate about - working with young people to create social change," explained Neal Keny-Guyer, CEO of Mercy Corps. "Under Robert's leadership, we are confident that the Action Center will thrive and become a true hub for engagement and action to combat global hunger and poverty."
A West Coast version of the Action Center will open in Portland, Oregon in fall 2009. Full details about the Action Center to End World Hunger are available at ActionCenter.org.
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