The CLEVELAND INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM (CIP) for Youth Leaders and Social Workers, Inc., founded in 1956, is a private voluntary organization that seeks to build international understanding by international annual professional exchanges in social work, community planning, special education, and other human services. HENRY OLLENDORFF created the program to increase professional knowledge and to secure worldwide "person to person diplomacy." Each year, CIP brings foreign social workers, youth leaders and/or special educators (ages 23-40) to Cleveland for an 11-week or year-long field experience in social agencies. Living with host families, participants learn about American culture and human services while informing Clevelanders about their own methods and traditions. The U.S. Information Agency and field work agencies, governments, foundations, corporations, and individual donations finance the effort, although after 1991 USIA grants diminished significantly. In 1987 Cleveland Intl. Program had 12 affiliates throughout the U.S. operating under the Council of Intl. Programs (founded in Cleveland in 1965), which in 1991 moved to Washington, DC. By the 1990s, CIP had expanded its scope of participation to include public administrators, architects, engineers, and bankers. In 1995 Dorothy Faller was director of the CIP; its offices were located at 1700 E. 13th St. More than 1,900 people from 110 nations participated in the exchanges through the Cleveland program alone by 1995.
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