Youth Leadership Program with Central Europe (YLPCE 2013)

In summer 2013, Meridian International Center will implement the U.S. Department of State’s Youth Leadership Program with Central Europe (YLPCE). The program’s focus is to bring together young leaders and adult mentors from Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United States to build cultural bridges and work together to enhance their leadership skills to solve community problems. A total of 46 youth and adult leaders will participate in the two-year project aimed at developing the next generation of young leaders.

Now in its third year, alumni from 2011 and 2012 referred to the program as “a once in a lifetime opportunity”, “the best summer of my life” and “an amazing opportunity to realize your own leadership potential” realizing that “chances like these don't come often.”. The leadership program is not only about developing skills and learning how to build a community initiative but also about building friendships among international peers, sharing culture and history that is not taught in history classes and experiencing first hand a new culture and customs. Participants are selected from the following target areas from a diverse pool which brings together different nationalities, races and socioeconomic status and seeks to select not just the smartest students but more so the most driven and engaged youth.