Connected: Careers for the Future is a a multi-faceted project designed to stimulate interest in international careers among students of color in high schools and colleges. The goal is to create a sense of excitement and hope in young people about a world beyond their borders and explore with them their potential role in it.

The project includes a motivational video, an educational guide with interactive components, and an Internet site with additional information about scholarships, internships, exchange programs, etc. The video features people of color designing and marketing software, buying and selling companies worldwide, creating foreign and domestic government policy, as well as working for the good of their own communities. The activities component of the study guide is designed to help students assess their attributes so that they may begin to envision what they can accomplish in life and plan how to get there. Although copyrighted, the material can be downloaded and reproduced for educational purposes.

In the video, African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian-Americans are seen at work in various professions. Connected brings you into these workplaces and introduces you to some remarkable young people who have carved out their own futures, and in many cases, created their own careers. You hear how they went about it -- their education, training, language skills, experience with mentors -- and how they overcame obstacles to get to where they are.

Connected is hosted by award-winning journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault, former National Correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and anchor of Rights and Wrongs: Human Rights Television. In the video, she recounts some of the highlights of her globe-trotting career as a journalist and explores the ins and outs of other job opportunities -- speaking to such notables as Andrew Young, former US Ambassador to the United Nations, Lou Gerstner, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IBM, Willie Brown, Mayor of San Francisco, and Robert Gallucci, Georgetown University's Dean of the School of Foreign Service. Funding for the project has been provided by The Ford Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.