AMERICAN GLOBAL XCHANGE VOLUNTEERS BEGIN WORK IN SOUTH AFRICA, WILL SOON HEAD TO NORTHERN IRELAND
Last month, four LA community leaders arrived in Durban, South Africa for three weeks of volunteer work alongside peers from France, UK, South Africa, Sierra Leone and Rwanda as a part of Global Xchange, a UK program comparable to the US Peace Corps program. The trip marks two firsts for Global Xchange: the first time Americans have participated and the first multilateral program (usually Global Xchange brings together UK volunteers with a group from one other country).
The American volunteers have been matched with South African organizations that serve at-risk youth, similar to the nonprofits where the LA activists work. You can read about the work they’re doing on the Global Xchange blog and the inspirational youth they’ve met, including a lawyer who defied death during the Rwanda genocide and a 21 year-old from Sierra Leone who, after witnessing teens from rival schools kill each other, developed a conflict resolution program that trains students in 48 high schools in Freetown to become Peace Advocates and manage conflicts.
The New Service blog has also featured Global Xchange and published a guest post by participant Andres Rivera, a street poet.
The volunteers will return home next week. After a brief hiatus, they will travel to Belfast, Northern Ireland, where they will work with British organizations focused on at-risk youth. Following their time in the UK, the volunteers will return home and nominate youth from their hometowns to participate in a similar youth program in which participants will spend three months each in Durban and Belfast.
UK WRITER IN RESIDENCE HOWARD JACOBSON ARRIVES IN DC
Next week, UK author Howard Jacobson arrives in Washington, DC as the newest artist in our ongoing UK Writer in Residence Program.
Frequently described by critics as the “British Philip Roth” and sometimes self-described as the “Jewish Jane Austen,” Howard’s fiction telegraphs the author’s sharp intelligence and fierce wit as he explores questions of morality, identity and contemporary culture. In addition to writing critically acclaimed fiction, Howard is a broadcaster and writes a regular column for The Independent, a London-based national newspaper.
Hosted by George Washington University, Howard will be teaching students and holding public events, including a reading at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center on February 25 and a film screening and Q&A on February 28. For complete details on the events, please see the event listings below or visit our Howard Jacobson webpage.
RIVERS OF THE WORLD LAUNCHES IN THE US WITH DC MEETING
Last week, the British Council launched the two-year project Rivers of the World with a five day seminar in Washington to connect the British and DC public schools that will be participating in the program. Rivers of the World links schools and more than 2,000 middle school students around the world through a common theme: their cities’ rivers.
Teachers from six secondary schools in London met with counterparts from six DC middle schools: Columbia Heights Education Campus – Lincoln Multicultural Middle School and Bell Multicultural High School, Winston Education Campus, Sousa Middle School, Hardy Middle School and Duke Ellington School of the Arts.
Through 2011, eighth and ninth graders at the participating schools will study the Anacostia and Thames rivers in art workshops and through other special curriculum. Their art and research will be displayed, along with work produced by other participating countries, at the annual Mayor’s Thames Festival in September.
Rivers of the World is a Thames Festival project delivered in partnership with British Council Connecting Classrooms with support from HSBC Global Education Trust.
TN2020 WELCOMES NEW MEMBERS
This month, Transatlantic Network 2020 (TN2020) will be selecting 40 outstanding young European and North Americans to join the network. The 40 new members will come from nearly 500 applicants.
TN2020 is a project that brings together a diverse group of young influencers (roughly 25-35 years of age) from business, civil society, the arts, science and media to revitalize transatlantic and global links for the future. Stay tuned for details on the new members.
Last month also marked the launch of a six-month collaboration between TN2020 and E!Sharp, a European magazine. The following TN2020 members will contribute articles on a range of transatlantic issues: David Noble (Canada), Steven Feldstein (USA), Yasmine Abou Mansour (Belgium), Oliver Horn (USA), Alessandro Fusacchia (Italy) and Alex Evans (UK). Read the first essay by David Noble about attending the Copenhagen climate talks.
TN2020 members from Los Angeles also helped identify Global Xchange participants from the city.
HARVARD PROFESSOR JOSEPH NYE DISCUSSES FUTURE OF SOFT POWER IN BRITISH COUNCIL PARLIAMENTARY LECTURE
As Americans examined the first anniversary of President Obama's inauguration on January 20th, the esteemed Harvard professor Joseph Nye, Dean Emeritus of the Kennedy School of Government and pioneer of the theory of soft power, lectured the British Council from the UK Parliament in London.
In "Soft Power and Public Diplomacy in the 21st Century," Nye said “…the British Council discovered [soft power] and has been practising it effectively since 1934, which is being celebrated with this 75th anniversary. It is intriguing to hear Hillary Clinton say that smart power, or the combination of hard and soft, is the new policy.” Watch the full lecture online.
TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF GATES CAMBRIDGE SCHOLARSHIP
Tonight, British Ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald will host an event to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. Established in 2000 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through a $210 million gift to the University of Cambridge, the Gates Cambridge Scholarship enables outstanding graduate students from outside the United Kingdom to study at the University of Cambridge.
The scholarships are awarded on the basis of a student’s intellectual ability, leadership capacity and desire to use their knowledge to contribute to society throughout the world by providing service to their communities and applying their talents and knowledge to improve the lives of others.
BRITISH EMBASSY T-SHIRT CONTEST
Design a T-Shirt for the British Embassy’s EU Open House Day on May 8. The grand prize winner’s design will be used to create the official embassy T-Shirt worn and sold at EU Open Day. For details on the competition, please visit the British Embassy website.
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