- Most high school students are not spending their summer practicing another language and learning about another culture. But Emma and Karissa are exceptions: both students are preparing to spend the next year in Vilnius, Lithuania with a host family and attending a local high school through the ExCEL Abroad initiative.Emma: An aspiring, multilingual diplomatEmma is not a stranger to adapting to and sharing new cultures: she spent seven weeks in Tajikistan learning Tajik and Farsi with the… Read More
- Youth with disabilities are often neglected in or even denied access to public education across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. A 2013 UNICEF Report found that many children with disabilities in the region are often not even given the chance to attend secondary school.The lack of resources for youth with special needs is still a lingering problem in many post-Soviet Union countries. But a haven for students who are eager to learn English exists in an unassuming place: a summer camp in Chisinau… Read More
- Several weeks ago, a major flood devastated sections of Tbilisi, Georgia's capital city. The damage was severe; 19 people were killed with hundreds more suffering from injuries. The Tbilisi Zoo also flooded, killing or setting loose over 300 animals. An escaped tiger fatally injured a man, while images of a hippopotamus roaming the streets of Tbilisi received global attention.Despite capturing limited media coverage, thousands of volunteers across the country mobilized within hours of the flood… Read More
- The lecture halls are rarely empty at Northwestern University when Dr. Irwin Weil lectures. Well known across campus for his ability to draw large numbers of students to his courses on Russian culture and the evolution of the former Soviet countries, Irwin Weil's life work has been promoting cultural exchange and shared understanding between the United States and the former Soviet Union.Irwin Weil, the longest-serving member of American Councils' Board of Trustees, recently published his… Read More
- American Councils President Dr. Dan E. Davidson welcomed a delegation from the Kyrgyz Republic this past week. The delegation included representatives from the Embassy of the Kyrgyz Republic to the US and Canada, along with members of the Kyrgyz Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee. Group discussions focused around the current needs in the Kyrgyz higher education system in addition to American Councils' long history of work in educational development and exchange programs in Kyrgyzstan. The… Read More
- One Reason #WhyHostingMatters: Volunteerism Makes Communities StrongerThe Huffington Post US Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Evan Ryan believes hosting is more than welcoming an international exchange student to your home it's the first step toward strengthening a community. Students from the Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) and the American-Serbia and Montenegro Youth Leadership Exchange (A-SMYLE) contributed a combined 4,000 hours of community service across… Read More
- Community and faith-based leaders from around the world came together to share insights on how interfaith relations can encourage peace and shared understanding at the International Forum on Religion and Peace in Batumi, Georgia.Social Inclusivity in GeorgiaWith the country's history of ethnic conflict in the 1990s, Georgia was a meaningful place to hold the Forum. While ethnic Georgians make up around 84 percent of the population, there are large minority Armenian (5 percent) and Azerbaijani (… Read More
- "I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." Sona exhaled, as she read aloud that final passage of Robert Frost's famous poem The Road Not Taken. Her nerves started to relax as she realized she had just recited an entire poem in a completely foreign language. Like most Armenian teenagers, reciting works of poetry isn't an everyday activity for Sona but here… Read More
- America's Lacking Language SkillsThe Atlantic Just seven percent of American college students are enrolled in a language course and 95 percent of these enrollments are in European languages like French or German, despite an increasing demand for fluency in non-Western languages. Through alarming statistics and anecdotal evidence, journalist Amelia Friedman describes the current state of decay of language education in the United States. Why Global Competence Matters: It's Not Really a Small… Read More
- American Councils is proud to announce that as a new administrator of the YSEALI Professional Fellows Program, the organization has expanded into 10 new countries in Southeast Asia to provide emerging economic empowerment leaders with substantive professional fellowship opportunities in the United States.To build on the leadership capabilities of youth in the region, young leaders from across Southeast Asia focused on economic empowerment will have access to fellowships in the USAs part of the… Read More
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