A/S Jacobson Delivers SEED Grants

A/S Jacobson with the Salvadoran fellows of SEED

On June 27, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson delivered scholarships to 50 Salvadoran fellows selected by the SEED Program to study in the United States for between six months and two years. The scholarships are valued at over $1.4 million.

The SEED program is administered by the Center for Intercultural Education and Development at Georgetown University and receives its funding through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Delivery of these scholarships is part of the U.S. commitment under Partnership for Growth to provide opportunities for vocational training and higher education in order to help improve El Salvador’s human capital.

Fellows for this year’s SEED Program were selected from a pool of over 500 highly qualified applicants in a variety of fields. Their studies, which are scheduled to begin in August 2012, will take them to U.S. schools across the United States, including Broome Community College (New York), Northcentral Technical College (Wisconsin), Mt Hood Community College (Oregon), Kirkwood Community College (Iowa) and California State University and Dominguez Hills (California). Fields for this year’s fellows include strengthening primary education for rural children; administration and marketing for small and medium enterprises; quality control; agricultural enterprise management for export; environmental technology and vector control of transmissible diseases.

“When we invest in a young person’s future, it is not always possible to know all the doors that investment will open,” commented Assistant Secretary Jacobson during the ceremony, “but we are committed to making those investments, to give people every opportunity to reach their full potential."

In addition to Assistant Secretary Jacobson, participants in the ceremony included Salvadoran Minister of Health, Maria Isabel Rodriguez; Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, Erlinda Handal; U.S. Charge d'Affaires in El Salvador, Sean Murphy; Director of the SEED Program at Georgetown University, Paul Silva; National Coordinator of the SEED Program in El Salvador, José Alfredo Bonilla; and Mayor of Conchagua and former governor of the Department of La Union, Jesus Medina Flores.