Salvadoran Teens Become Youth Ambassadors

One of the selected students addresses the audience during a send-off event.

Nine students from different public schools became the new group of Salvadoran Youth Ambassadors that will travel to the United States this year.

The new Youth Ambassadors will travel to the US in two separate groups.  The first group of six students and one adult will depart on January 11 and will go to New York and Michigan, and the second group of 3 students will travel in June.  

The Youth Ambassador program has been in existence for three years now in El Salvador and 33 youth have participated.  The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) at the Department of State awarded a grant to Georgetown University’s CIED to run the program which sends high school students and an adult teacher/leader to the US for a three-week program on entrepreneurship, business development, civic education, and leadership skills. Follow-on activities for alumni then take place when they return to El Salvador from their US exchange.  

CIED and PAS recruited students from underserved, economically depressed areas who have demonstrated the leadership potential to impact the development of their communities and country.  Students that benefitted with the program come from programs such as Supérate, Fundación UNO and the BNC’s English Access Microscholarship programs.