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03/28/2016 12:00 AMMadison’s own Tara Maloney, a junior at The Hopkins School in New Haven, has been chosen by The National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, to receive a merit-based scholarship to learn Arabic this summer in Morocco. The acceptance rate for this nationwide scholarship is about 10 percent.
NSLI-Y is part of a U.S. government initiative that prepares American citizens to be leaders in a global world. “Now more than ever, it is important that Americans have the necessary linguistic skills and cultural knowledge to promote international dialogue and support American engagement abroad,” the NSLI-Y website states. The programs strives “to improve the ability of Americans to engage with the people of Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Persian, Russian, and Turkish-speaking countries through shared language.” The fully-funded scholarships allow U.S. students to live and learn abroad for a summer or full year.
“I’m so excited to be spending the summer in Morocco,” Tara said. “Studying in Morocco means I will learn two languages, standard Arabic and some Berber, which is the Moroccan dialect. I’m also brushing up on my French, which many Moroccans speak. Even more special, I’ll be there for part of Ramadan and Eid-ul-Fitr, the three-day celebration that marks the end of Ramadan. It’s an incredibly important holy time, and I’m so honored to be able to see how my host family and new Moroccan friends celebrate it.”
Tara hopes to study international relations in college and someday work in the foreign service.
This past fall, she spent a semester in Washington, D.C. studying at The School for Ethics and Global Leadership. SEGL is a program designed “to provide intellectually motivated high school juniors with the best possible opportunity to shape themselves into ethical leaders who create positive change in our world,” the SEGL mission statement reads. Along with 23 other students, Tara met global leaders and studied ethical challenges like Middle East peace, the Syrian refugee crisis, and the Rwandan genocide. For the teens’ final project, they drafted a policy document on the treatment of Haitians in the Dominican Republic. The students presented their findings and recommendations to members of the U.S. State Department.
"We are honored to count Tara among our most accomplished graduates,” said SEGL Founder and Director Noah Bopp, “and we know the NSLI-Y program will benefit enormously from her leadership. The impact she makes in Morocco and wherever the future takes her promises to be meaningful and profound."
Tara’s interest in government and international relations has inspired her to volunteer in local political campaigns, study at Georgetown University’s summer International Relations Institute, participate in Model U.N. conferences and co-chair Hopkins’ Young Democrats club.
The NSLI-Y program selects students at all levels of language learning. The scholarship covers all expenses, and the intensive language learning equates with a full academic year of college-level language instruction. Tara, an Arabic novice now, will continue studying Arabic through an online classroom during her senior year of high school.
For more information on NSLI-Y, visit http://www.nsliforyouth.org/