Anna Pulaski (’22-New Kent), who currently takes Russian 2 at MLWGS, has been accepted into the summertime NSLI-Y program! The National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, provides merit-based scholarships for eligible high school students and recent high school graduates to learn less commonly taught languages in summer and academic-year overseas immersion programs. The languages include Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Korean, Persian (Tajiki), Russian, and Turkish.
This is a pretty big deal, as it’s a very competitive program. Anna will be participating in the NSLI-Y program virtually, through the University of Wisconsin, but she’s told me that there’s a possibility for her to study in Russia next summer as part of this same program.
From the NSLI-Y website: The U.S. Department of State’s NSLI-Y is part of a U.S. government initiative to foster international cooperation by ensuring that Americans have the necessary linguistic skills and cultural knowledge to effectively communicate globally. NSLI-Y provides overseas critical language study opportunities (Russian has been identified as a “critical” language) to American youth through merit-based scholarships to spark a lifetime interest in critical foreign languages and cultures. NSLI-Y immerses participants in the cultural life of the host community, giving them formal and informal language practice and sparking a lifetime interest in foreign languages and cultures. Participants receive intensive language instruction, live with a host family for all or part of the program, and participate in a variety of cultural activities.
“Please join me in congratulating Anna,” said Russian teacher Michael White.
