Sydney Garvis

Sydney Garvis joins AIF as Program Manager of the Banyan Impact Fellowship as an alumna of the program who experienced its transformative impact firsthand. As a Fellow in the 2023-2024 batch, Sydney developed the first-ever national-level teacher training module for climate change education with host organization Centre for Environment Education (CEE) in Ahmedabad, India. She also coordinated a comparative study for UNESCO’s Greening Education Partnership and regional training for school leaders on climate resiliency, and outside of work got involved in the growing film photography community in Ahmedabad.

Beyond her various involvements with AIF, in her professional life, Sydney has raised funds for a national non-profit to support credit unions and financial cooperatives, managed grants and fellowships at the international teaching fellowship non-profit Oberlin Shansi, and read thousands of college applications while working in undergraduate admissions. Her passion for international education stems from her first job after college: teaching English to undergrad students at Syiah Kuala University in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, through the Oberlin Shansi Fellowship, where she also started Aceh Zero Plastic, a community organization to clean up and reduce the use of single-use plastics. Sydney graduated from Oberlin College with a double major in Hispanic Studies and Geology and grew up in the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia.