Congratulations to the U.S. Women’s National Team for winning the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019!
Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) Marie Royce traveled July 5-8 to France as part of the United States Presidential Delegation to the FIFA Women’s World Cup Final Match between the United States and the Netherlands.
“It is my honor to be part of the U.S. Presidential Delegation to the Women’s World Cup Final. As Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, I have witnessed firsthand the power of sports in building diplomatic relations between the United States and countries around the world,” said Marie Royce. “I am particularly grateful to members of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team who have participated in our Sports Diplomacy exchange programs. Go Team USA!”
Recognizing the powerful role that sports can play in women’s and girls’ empowerment, the State Department supports sports exchange programs to advance sex equality around the world. Alumnae of our ECA Sports Diplomacy exchanges include many current and past Members of the U.S. Women’s National Team, including U.S. Team Captain and Superstar Alex Morgan (Tanzania 2017), current Head Coach Jill Ellis (Liberia 2016), Goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris (Liberia 2016), and former Captain and Women’s World Cup Champion Julie Foudy (Brazil 2013).
Alex Morgan said of her Sports Envoy experience in Tanzania, “I went to try to lend a helping hand, to give advice…but I feel like what…ended up happening was I learned so much about their stories…and how people around the world are trying to increase the respect for girls and women in sports – like we are respected here in the U.S.”
Leveraging the popularity of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, ECA launched the
“Step In, Dream Big” initiative to encourage women and girls around the world to step into their potential and realize their dreams. The initiative kicked off in March with a Facebook Live Q&A with Alex Morgan and screening of her movie
Alex & Me—a film geared for youth about the power of dreaming big—with 21 viewing parties at U.S. embassies and American Spaces worldwide. During this webinar, Alex Morgan answered questions about role models in sports, the values of sports in building leadership skills, and sex equality from the grassroots to the professional levels in soccer.
Throughout 2019, ECA is supporting a series of exchanges as part of the “Step In, Dream Big” initiative, including a Sports Visitor program from June 30 to July 13 that brings together young female athletes from 13 countries for a Women’s World Cup-themed soccer program in New Jersey. The athletes will interact with American peers in the Julie Foudy & espnW Sports Leadership Academy to celebrate the lessons of Title IX while developing plans to empower their communities at home.
Continuing our longstanding partnership with espnW to empower women and girls at home and abroad through sports, the U.S. Department of State and espnW Global Sports Mentoring Program (GSMP) will kick off its eighth edition in the fall of 2019, bringing international leaders in the sports sector to the United States for a month-long mentorship with senior female American sports executives. The alumnae of the espnW GSMP are active in over 60 countries propelling positive social change through sports, especially for girls, with a cohort reuniting in Lyon, France for the Women’s World Cup.
ESPN Senior Vice President Laura Gentile says, “We are grateful to the U.S. Department of State for its leadership and commitment around the world to advance the status of women and girls, and especially for its partnership with us to create more opportunities for women to lead on the pitch, in the classroom, and in the boardroom.”
In 2018, GSMP was honored with the Stuart Scott ENSPIRE Award. Soon after the GSMP this fall, ECA’s International Visitor Leadership “Women’s Empowerment through Sports Journalism,” will welcome participants from every corner of the world. This program will demonstrate the positive strides in sports that American women and girls have witnessed in the decades since Title IX while addressing the obstacles that female sports journalists still face.
For press inquiries in the United States, contact ECA-Press@state.gov. To learn more about State Department sports diplomacy, follow the program on Twitter @SportsDiplomacy and Facebook @sportsdiplomacydivision. See more about Alex Morgan’s Sports Envoy program to Tanzania here.
To learn more about ECA, follow @ECA_AS and @ECAatState.
Assistant Secretary of State Marie Royce joined over 1,000 entrepreneurs in The Hague this week for the ninth annual
Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES). Hosted by the United States and the Netherlands, this 9
thedition of GES focused on global opportunities for the next wave of entrepreneur-led innovation in scalable tech, from artificial intelligence and robotics to blockchain, big data, new science and more. The Summit kicked-off with welcome addresses from
U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo and the Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who invited attendees to begin reflecting on the progress of entrepreneurship around the world and develop innovative practices across multiple sectors.
The Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE), which launched this year, was introduced to participants at GES. AWE is designed for women with brilliant ideas to engage in U.S-style education with guided facilitation from local alumni, women business leaders, and key interlocutors to ensure business development.. Assistant Secretary Royce shared information on this awe-inspiring program through her remarks, interviews, and meetings at GES. These engagements around AWE expand the reach of ECA exchange programs and our dedication to supporting women entrepreneurs.
Assistant Secretary Royce also met with over 100 exchange program alumni from various USG programs (Mandela Washington Fellows, TechWomen, etc.) who joined GES. Several alumni from previous GES were also selected to be 2019 GES Alumni Ambassadors. They were active in building connections with emerging entrepreneurial leaders and sharing the innovative ideas they gained from previous Summits.
Leading up to the Summit, these Alumni Ambassadors shared experiences, tips and advice for current GES participants, and continued to do so this week. They are real life examples of how entrepreneurs are taking action in their communities and contributing to global prosperity.
The GES Alumni Ambassadors and other participants will continue sharing takeaways from GES 2019 virtually at https://www.ges2019.org/ and on social media under #GES2019.
Congratulations to Maria Monchari Omare, Nguyễn Hà Quân, Claudia Baez, and Susan Hay Patrick for receiving this year’s Professional Fellows Alumni Impact Awards (AIA)! The four winners competed against many other Professional Fellows alumni with compelling stories about their work and making a difference in their communities.
The Office of Citizen Exchanges will honor these four alumni at the Spring 2019 Professional Fellows Congress in Washington, D.C. from May 28-30, 2019. Nearly 300 Professional Fellows from 60 countries will attend, having completed their professional fellowships with government entities, civil society organizations, and businesses across the United States.
Learn more about Maria Monchari Omare, Nguyễn Hà Quân, Claudia Baez, and Susan Hay Patrick and each of their achievements:
Nairobi, Kenya
U.S. Host Organization: Association of University Centers on Disabilities
Fellowship Placement Organization: Institute for Community Inclusion, University of Massachusetts Boston
Dates of Fellowship: Spring 2017
Maria Omare is the Founder and Executive Director of The Action Foundation, an organization working to improve the education, health, social, and economic outcomes of young children and girls with disabilities living in poverty. She is a disability inclusion advocate, social entrepreneur, and educator committed to inspiring change and hope in under-served communities. Maria has grown The Action Foundation from focusing on a small group of schools, parents, and learners with disabilities, to building a grassroots movement transforming disability-inclusive development in Kenya. In October 2017, she led the creation of Somesha, a program that is reaching hundreds of teachers through immersion workshops and virtual peer learning. Her experience in Boston through the Professional Fellows Program helped her to see the possibilities for improving service in her community and identify huge gaps in early intervention services offered at home. Maria’s fellowship inspired her to build a support network of caregivers for young children with disabilities in Nairobi. She was also actively involved in engaging local communities in the development and implementation of the national education policy for educators of students with disabilities.
Lam Dong, Vietnam
U.S. Host Organization: American Councils for International Education
Fellowship Placement Organization: Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, Seattle University
Dates of Fellowship: Spring 2017
Quân is a highly motivated, impact-driven, social entrepreneur. The Professional Fellows Program empowered him to organize and educate coffee farmers in his region, promote best practices and strengthen the coffee ecosystem, and create resources for youth. Quân’s placement at Seattle University’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center allowed him to join an amazing network in the global coffee hub and learn directly from IEC advisors such as Zev Siegl, co-founder of Starbucks, and Bill Gates. Because of his experience in Seattle, Quân created Coffee Warriors, an initiative that strengthens sustainable development and promotes networking among the coffee industry in ASEAN. Coffee Warriors has introduced the U.S. coffee ecosystem to the stakeholders in Vietnam with support from IEC Program Manager Amelia Marchworth. Amelia traveled to Vietnam as an American partner and co-organized a coffee exhibition, workshops, and coffee cuppings. Quân also created an exchange program for coffee farmers in Indonesia and Vietnam, the two largest coffee producers in ASEAN, with funding from a YSEAL Seeds for the Future grant. Quân also created an exchange program for coffee farmers in Indonesia and Vietnam, the two largest coffee producers in ASEAN, with funding from a YSEALI Seeds for the Future grant.
Bogota, Colombia
U.S. Host Organization: International Center for Journalists
Fellowship Placement Organization: ProPublica
Dates of Fellowship: Fall 2016
Claudia Báez is an investigative data journalist and a co-founder of Cuestión Pública, a Colombian independent investigative media outlet. During Claudia’s fellowship placement at ProPublica she worked on the entrepreneur and innovation team and spent time covering the U.S. Presidential campaigns. As a result of Claudia’s participation in the Professional Fellows Program, she founded Cuestión Pública, an investigative journalism media outlet that covers corruption and abuse of power cases in Colombia. After just one year of operation, Cuestión Pública raised $9000 USD in grants and crowdfunding campaigns, and $2600 USD in memberships, a significant revenue for a media organization in Colombia. Cuestión Pública exposed the wealth of 20 members of Congress, information that was previously not available to the public. Claudia also co-created "El Poder de Elegir" a fact-checking app to combat misinformation on WhatsApp, a popular private messaging platform used in Colombia. This project was inspired, by her fellowship placement at ProPublica during the Professional Fellows Program.
CEO, United Way of Missoula County
Missoula, MT, USA
U.S. Host Organization: University of Montana- Mansfield Center
Hosted Fellows From: Cambodia ( 2014, 2017), Thailand (2017 ) and Vietnam (2017)
Traveled to: Cambodia (2014 and 2017), Thailand (2017)
Susan Hay Patrick has been an NGO leader for almost 40 years. Since 2006, she has served as chief executive officer of United Way of Missoula County, one of Missoula’s most respected nonprofit organizations. Susan has mentored five Professional Fellows and traveled to Southeast Asia twice to teach, train, and speak on NGO management and governance, fundraising, strategic planning, program evaluation, and leadership. She currently chairs several community-wide collaborative efforts in Missoula focused on student success, preventing suicide, improving early childhood education, ending homelessness, and preventing childhood obesity. In 2015, she chaired Invest in Missoula Schools, a citizens’ committee that worked successfully to pass two bonds totaling $158 million – the largest in Montana history – to improve the facilities and technology at all Missoula County Public Schools.
Congratulations to exchange alumni David W. Blight, Jeffrey C. Stewart, and Eliza Griswold for winning the Pulitzer Prize in their respective categories!
David W. Blight, a 1992 Fulbright U.S. Scholar to Germany, received the Pulitzer Prize in History for his book, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. The Pulitzer committee recognized Blight’s book as “a breathtaking history that demonstrates the scope of Frederick Douglass’ influence through deep research on his writing, his intellectual evolution and his relationships.” Blight serves as the Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. During his Fulbright program, Blight conducted his research on Afro-American History and the Civil War Reconstruction Period: A Comparative Historical Memory in America and Germany.
Author Jeffrey C. Stewart received the Pulitzer Prize in Biography for his book, The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke. The Pulitzer committee described the book as “a panoramic view of the personal trials and artistic triumphs of the father of the Harlem Renaissance and the movement he inspired.” Stewart was a Fulbright U.S. Scholar in American History to Italy in 2002, where he studied American Intellectual History at the Crossroads. He has spent his career studying the issues of race and culture as they relate to art, history, literature, music, and philosophy. He has been a Fulbright Professor of American Studies at the University of Rome III, a W.E.B. Du Bois and a Charles Warren Fellow at Harvard University, and Lecturer at the Terra Foundation for American art in Giverny, France. Stewart is a professor of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Journalist and poet Eliza Griswold received the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction for her book Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America. Griswold is an alumna of the International Writing Program, where she travelled to Pakistan in 2010. The Pulitzer committee called her book “a classic American story, grippingly told, of an Appalachian family struggling to retain its middle class status in the shadow of destruction wreaked by corporate oil fracking.” Griswold is a Guggenheim fellow, and an awardee of the J. Anthony Lukas Prize.
The Pulitzer Prizes and Fellowships were established in Columbia University by the will of the first Joseph Pulitzer. There are 21 categories across journalism, books, drama, and music. The Pulitzer Prize Board generally selects the Pulitzer Prize Winners from the three nominated finalists in each category.
To date, over 100 exchange alumni have won Pulitzer Prizes! That number now includes 86 Fulbright alumni, who have won a total of 92 Pulitzer Prizes.
With 36 years of experience in the for-profit, non-profit, corporate, and social enterprise sectors, Zoë Dean-Smith provides vision and leadership for the organization’s economic empowerment and entrepreneurship focused programs, including the Global Ambassadors Program; the VVGROW fellowship; and the Fortune-U.S. Department of State Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership.
