He’s the man Jane Goodall calls “my little brother.” But that’s about the only “little” that can be applied to Fred Mednick—a man with big ideas, global vision and super-sized energy. “Some people do extreme sports,” he says. “I run an extreme non-profit.”

Mednick was headmaster of a prestigious private school and working on his Ph.D. dissertation when he had some realizations that changed his life. “So I fired myself,” he’s fond of saying, and Teachers Without Borders (TWB) was born.

Mednick’s dissertation research included surveying teachers worldwide. “They were writing great stuff,” he says. “And the more I researched, the more I knew they needed access to each other and to information.” When he learned there were 59 million of them—the world’s largest grouping of professionally trained people—his dissertation’s focus became their potential role as catalysts for community development. His life’s mission became finding a way to foster that role for the world’s teachers.

TWB’s members are teachers and volunteers in 84 countries, and it relies on local partnerships to create programs that are relevant, sustainable and invited in by the community. The organization works with teachers, students and communities, primarily in developing nations. Key TWB programs are teacher training and helping teachers worldwide connect with each other to share ideas and experiences. An online Certificate of Teaching Mastery was launched recently, its e-learning platform donated by the Cisco Learning Institute (CLI). The program gathers teachers from around the world in small cohorts. They learn from each other and also post their work to an electronic portfolio available for public viewing.

Giraffe Hero Fred Mednick, with mentor, Jane Goodall.

One of TWB’s flagship programs is building Community Teaching & Learning Centers (CTLCs). These are as varied as the needs of the local residents they serve. Typically, they include an “online,” computer-equipped room and an “offline” community gathering space. CLTC programs can include preschools, HIV/AIDS training, literacy and mentorship.

Funded by grants and individual donors, TWB also secures corporate sponsorships such as free shipping from DHL, a global shipping company, to get donated computers to their recipients. Donors to TWB can sponsor a teacher’s work toward a Certificate of Teaching Mastery, corresponding with the teacher via email, and getting the DHL receipt for delivery of the course materials to the teacher.

One of TWB’s unanticipated outcomes has been the bridging of cross-cultural divides, even in high-conflict areas. In the course of his work with teachers, Mednick has been instrumental in bringing diverse groups together—Israelis and Palestinians, Indian Hindus and Muslims—sometimes at his own peril. Living grant-to-grant has brought him financial dangers, as well. But, Mednick says, “There are times in life when the service of man and womankind has to transcend security. … Do the right thing. Life’s short, and we all need to make the human choice in whatever we do.”

Fred Mednick has made that choice, as has Jane Goodall, in her own work and in becoming honorary chair of her “little brother’s” international advisory board.

More on Mednick’s work at www.teacherswithoutborders.org