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Adam Echelman

Non-Profit Educator

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Adam Echelman is the Executive Director of Libraries Without Borders USA, where he advocates for dynamic programs that increase access to information by meeting people where they are—whether through digital literacy classes in Laundromats or health workshops in churches. In 2017, he launched the Legal Literacy Initiative at Libraries Without Borders to help public libraries deliver legal information to underserved communities across the United States. He has served as a Visiting Professor of Practice at John Jay College, where he co-taught a program on access to justice and legal information. Prior to Libraries Without Borders, Adam worked with asylum seekers and refugees at the Karnes Detention Center in Texas and in New Haven, Connecticut. He is a graduate of Yale University and a recipient of the Gordon Grand Fellowship. He loves studying languages, is fluent in French and Spanish, and speaks (rusty) Chinese. Adam is an avid hiker, an amateur but determined artist, and a lover of Hearts, Spades, and Euchre.

“The digital divide falls along the same economic and racial lines that have long divided the United States. COVID-19 has brought this issue to the foreground. We can solve it — but only by starting first with the voices of those most affected.”

Learn more about Adam’s Landecker Democracy Fellowship project here.

Adam is also a  2021 – 2022 Detroit Grant Competition Recipient. This opportunity grants Humanity in Action Fellows and Senior Fellows between $500 – $5000 to address equity in Detroit by taking a community-centered approach to its development. Projects last 10- months and have tackled health disparities through vaccine information, combatted the digital divide through equitable internet access initiatives in Southwest Detroit, centered bus riders in regional transit dialogue and created sustainable workforce development programs for those with barriers to traditional employment. For more information on the grantees click here.

 

Updated February 2022