The Kazickas Family Foundation has awarded American Councils for International Education a generous three-year grant to launch the reciprocal component of Exchanges for Culture, Education, and Leadership (ExCEL).
For five years, ExCEL has brought Lithuanian high school students to spend an academic year in the US to attend high school and live with an American host family. The newly created ExCEL Abroad program will give US students a similar opportunity: to live with a host family and attend high school in Vilnius, Lithuania. Student selection for the 2015-16 year exchange program will begin in early February.
American Councils Chief Strategy and Development Officer Miriam Parel said, "ExCEL has proven a life changing experience for its student ambassadors, hosting families, and communities. And as we celebrate ExCEL's 5th anniversary, I am thrilled to announce that the program is becoming truly bilateral."
"Through ExCEL Abroad, American students will now have the unparalleled opportunity to live with Lithuanian families and study in Lithuanian schools. Over the course of the academic year they will come to appreciate its rich culture and history, as we do, and experience firsthand the hospitality of the Lithuanian people."
Founded in 1998, the Kazickas Family Foundation's mission is to create a better world for both current and future generations of Lithuanians. While the Foundation has expanded its grant making efforts to include culture and the arts, social welfare, technology, and medicine, its main focus is education, and most of its grants are for causes in Lithuania or projects related to Lithuania in the US
American Councils established ExCEL in 2010 in close cooperation with former US Ambassador to Lithuania Anne E. Derse, who said: "Through ExCEL, Lithuanian and American leaders of tomorrow get to know each other and gain knowledge and understanding of each other's countries, history, and societies. They bring this knowledge and lifelong contacts home with them and into their lives, careers and communities, strengthening the relations between our nations for the long term."
To date, ExCEL has sponsored 30 Lithuanian high school students to live and learn in the US for a year. As part of the program, these future leaders share their culture and history with Americans in their host communities and complete 30+ hours of community service.
American Councils looks forward to building on the success of ExCEL and continuing to strengthen US-Lithuanian ties through this new reciprocal program.
