How much fun, learning, and reflection time is possible in a two-week period? Teen participants with the U.S. Department of State’s Youth Ambassadors Central America project found out when they traveled to Northwest Florida. For two weeks in January & February 2020, students from Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua plunged into discussions, site visits, cultural activities, and workshops focusing on the themes of the environment, entrepreneurship, and community engagement.
Activities included a visit to Pensacola City Hall and discussion with the council executive, a volunteer opportunity with the Florida Environmental Protection Agency, a workshop with a young entrepreneur, and a popular school visit to Gulf Breeze High School. They examined cross-cultural communication, the importance of recycling, community resources for entrepreneurs, business planning, civic participation, women’s empowerment, and public speaking. They worked on crafting business plans, met with the Powerful Women of the Gulf Coast, and took a fieldtrip to the local materials recycling facility. They explored leadership and participated in several public speaking workshops that built upon each other.
After attending an agenda review session at the Escambia County Board of County Commissioners, the teens held their own local government simulation. They then discussed fundraising and budgeting with the president of the Junior Achievement of Northwest Florida and applied their newly polished public speaking skills at a visit to a juvenile detention facility. Youth Ambassadors discussed ideas for their community service projects with representatives from the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of West Florida and practiced their elevator pitches. They visited the Waterfront Rescue Mission Thrift Store, volunteered with Ocean Hour alongside two environmentalists from Colombia and Ghana, and met with the founder of a bilingual newspaper who works to promote inclusion and dialogue among communities in the wider Pensacola area. The agenda also included a site visit to a local grocery and café focused on educational outreach and environmental stewardship, and a discussion on mentoring with a student who co-founded a local STEM-focused non-profit.
In addition to skill-building and project-focused activities, there was time for cultural exploration and fun. This included dining at restaurants whose menus represented the diversity of the United States, visiting a local museum to explore how the history of a region shapes its present, and taking a graveyard tour with an archaeologist to highlight African-American history. The Youth Ambassadors also enjoyed bowling one night where they met local students participating in the Youth Diplomats program. Near the end of their stay, the Youth Ambassadors said farewell and thanked their host families with a dinner complete with cards, dances, songs, skits, and poems highlighting the different cultures of their home countries.
To see photos of their time with us, visit this album.
At their reunion in November 2020, the Youth Ambassadors shared their community service projects