Augusr 15, 2006
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ROMANIAN STUDENT BENEFITS FROM BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TRANSATLANTIC FELLOWSHIP INITIATIVE PROGRAM |
The US Embassy has selected and sent this year to the United States a first participant in the “Benjamin Franklin Transatlantic Fellowship Initiative program,” a new program which has already proved to be a success. Alexandru Sinca is only 17 years old and comes from Pucioasa. He has just returned from three weeks spent at the Wake Forest University in North Carolina and several visits and study trips in other U.S. various locations, including Washington D.C and Philadelphia.
Alexandru took part in this program along with young students from other countries, including Albania, Russia, Ukraine and Macedonia. The participants in the “Benjamin Franklin Transatlantic Fellows Initiative: Summer Institute for Youth” have had an unique opportunity to foster relationships among the younger generation of Europeans and Americans in order to advance the global freedom agenda, to serve as a basis to build strong links and awareness of shared values, and to enable youth to face together the challenges of global circumstances in the 21st Century. This has been done by demonstrating the educational and cultural interests, developments, and achievements of both groups of young people using as our inspiration the legendary American statesman and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin, a man that prized religious tolerance over intolerance and social mobility over class privilege, and was a firm believer in free speech. Mr. Franklin practiced what he preached by establishing, editing, and writing newspapers expounding on this principle. The students have been providing with training in leadership development through activities that advance the goals established and followed by Mr. Franklin in his lifetime.
They also have the opportunity to experience an environment that encourages individual expression, communications, and information sharing in an effort to advance positive relationships among the various ethnic, religious, and national groups. Intense training in building and maintaining an Internet communications system was the focus of the first week, while the second week concentrated on visiting sites connected with Mr. Franklin in Pennsylvania. Community-based activism was emphasized during the last week of the Institute and provided the participants with an in-depth look at how to develop and implement follow-on projects.