Andrew Garrod, Co-Founder
Andrew Garrod, Professor and Chair of the Education Department at Dartmouth College, and Director of Teacher Education at the college, co-founded Youth Bridge Global in 2006 to use drama and art to bridge cultural divides, connect youth across cultures, and to provide educational opportunities in under-resourced regions of the world.
A Canadian citizen and a graduate of Oxford and Harvard Universities, Garrod was a public high school teacher in Saint John, New Brunswick for sixteen years, Canada. Since 1999, he has been conducting research in Bosnia and Herzegovina that examines adaptation to postwar conditions in children, adolescents, and college-age students and has published widely on various aspects of adolescent development; he has also directed three multiethnic Shakespearean productions in the Balkans in the last four years. In the Marshall Islands, in the Central Pacific, he has directed two major projects: one, a program that takes Dartmouth undergraduates for a 10-week teaching experience at Marshall Islands High School in Majuro, and the other, a year-long Volunteer Teaching Program that places Dartmouth graduates as teachers in multiple sites in this island nation. In 1991 and 2009, Dr. Garrod was given Dartmouth’s Distinguished Teaching Award. He is Executive Director, with Dr. Helen Damon-Moore of the Tucker Foundation, of the Summer Enrichment at Dartmouth (SEAD) program.
David Yorio, Co-Founder
David, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, co-founded Youth Bridge in 2006 with the goal of reaching across cultures and providing uplifting educational opportunities for students in under-resourced school systems.
A filmmaker, artist, and urban high school teacher, David grew up fascinated by images. His first film, Ri-Belle, which looked at volunteer teachers in the post-nuclear Marshall Islands, was selected to the New York Independent International Film and Video Festival. He also completed a second documentary, Mostari, which looked at the segregation and reintegration of schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina since the Dayton Agreement.
A US citizen and graduate of Manhattan and Dartmouth Colleges, David has worked as an inner city teacher and coach in Boston, MA; he holds an MBA from Georgetown University where he was a Georgetown Scholar. He currently resides in New York City.
Jessica Swale, Director
Jessica is a London based theatre director and choreographer. She is Artistic Director of Red Handed Theatre Company and a long standing associate of Out of Joint, Britain’s foremost new writing company. She has directed plays at Shakespeare’s Globe, the Arcola Theatre and Southwark Playhouse, Theatre Newfoundland (Canada), the American Globe (New York) and various National tours. She also writes; she is author of Drama Games: For Classrooms and Rehearsals and Drama Games: For Devising, published by Nick Hern Books. Jessica is an examiner for LAMDA and enjoys guest directing and teaching in various drama schools. She has been involved with Youth Bridge Global both as a director in the Marshall Islands (Comedy of Errors) and as co-director in Mostar (Much Ado About Nothing).
Vinny Ng, Director
Vinny graduated from Dartmouth College in 2003 and brings extensive international theater & project management experience to the team. Having served as a Project Director with Youth Bridge Global in Bosnia and The Marshall Islands, he has also been engaged in Israel, North America, and China on theater related youth projects. He has served as Director of Program Development for The China Education Initiative and was the Director of English Language Resources at the International Montessori School of Beijing. He has taught a wide-range of age groups from kindergarten through high school in both public & private schools and in addition to volunteering with Huadan, a Beijing-based participatory theatre NGO, is also a founding member of the Beijing Improv theater troupe.
Emilie Brothers, Director
Emilie is an experienced Youth Theatre Director, Facilitator and Teacher of Drama. Originally a Canadian, Emilie completed a B.A. in English & Theatre Studies at McGill University in Montreal and moved to the UK to complete an M.A. in Directing for the Theatre at Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Since then, Emilie has worked as the Head of Drama in challenging London secondary schools as well as a Director, Writer and Producer for an All-Boys Youth Theatre Troupe in South London. More recently, Emilie has enjoyed working as a Drama Teacher and Applied Theatre Specialist in Manchester. Emilie is also pursuing a PhD in the field of Applied Drama at the University of Manchester, and this year established a franchise of Bigfoot Arts Education in Manchester & Stockport, the UK’s leading Arts in Education Company. Emilie has worked as an Associate Director and Designer in all of Youth Bridge Global’s work in Mostar, Bosnia and she is committed to improving the lives of young people through Drama.