MIDDLEBURY — Julian Roy, a 17-year-old Middlebury resident, is studying Persian (Tajiki) in Tajikistan for the summer through a National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) scholarship. NSLI-Y is a program of the?U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Roy, competitively selected out of over 3,300 applications from across the United States, is one of approximately 660 students who will study Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Persian, Russian or Turkish overseas this coming year. While in Tajikistan, Roy will receive formal language instruction, live with a host family, and experience the local culture as part of an immersion environment.
Roy is a rising senior at Vermont Commons School. He left this week for the six-week program.
NSLI-Y is part of a multi-agency U.S. government initiative launched in 2006 to improve Americans’ ability to communicate in select critical languages, to advance international dialogue, and increase American economic global competitiveness. Many NSLI-Y alumni go on to pursue education and careers vital to U.S. national security and credit the program experience with helping them improve their academic, leadership, and cross-cultural communication skills.
Applications for 2020-21 NSLI-Y programs are expected to be available at nsliforyouth.org in the late summer. The Department of State conducts study abroad programs for more than 1,000 American high school students and approximately 3,000 foreign high school students each year. Visit exchanges.state.gov/highschool for details.