National Security Language Initiative - Youth Program (NSLI-Y)

The Office of Citizen Exchange Programs of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announces an open competition for projects in support of the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI) to provide short, medium, and/or long-term foreign language instruction and cultural immersion programs overseas for American high school students and those who have just graduated. Public and private non-profit organizations, or consortia of such organizations meeting the provisions described in Internal Revenue Code section 26 USC 501(c)(3), may submit proposals to implement these programs in countries where the following target languages are widely spoken: Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Turkish, Indic, and Farsi. Programs will be designed for U.S. citizens aged 15 to 18 at the start of the program who are either currently enrolled in high school or have just graduated. These programs should offer at least 550 U.S. high school students structured classroom instruction and less formal interactive learning opportunities through a comprehensive exchange experience that primarily emphasizes language learning. The program is designed to develop additional language study opportunities for U.S. students. Proposals from applicant organizations should clearly indicate the building of new, additional institutional language-teaching capacity overseas for these programs. ECA plans to award a single grant for the recruitment and administration of all NSLI-Y programs in all world regions.