History

History
YSI is a nonprofit organization (501c3) incorporated in the District of Columbia in 1997 by Roger Landrum and Richard Harrill, both former Peace Corps Volunteers with decades of youth service experience in the US. YSI focused first on a flagship demonstration project in Hungary where Harrill had recently served as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Local schools and communities there had a long history of volunteerism dating back to the Middle Ages, one that had been suppressed during the Communist years but was ripe for re-emerging.

In 1998 YSI launched pilot programs with local schools and universities in Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. This culminated in the incorporation of Demokratikus Ifjusagert Alapitvany (DIA), which YSI groomed to become the local leadership organization and fiscal agent for these efforts. YSI hired and developed DIA’s staff, board of directors and a National Advisory Council. This latter body, consisting of prominent Hungarian civil society leaders, was essential in providing forward guidance and cultivate policy support.