“The US-China Strong Foundation is a nonprofit organization that seeks to strengthen US-China relations by investing in a new generation of leaders who have the knowledge and skills to engage with China. Established in 2013 as the 100,000 Strong Foundation – and relaunched in 2016 as the US-China Strong Foundation – the organization leads a national movement to ensure the next generation of US leaders is equipped to engage effectively with China: a global strategic power, the second largest economy in the world and America’s fastest growing trade partner.”
USCS has three main missions. They are:
- 1 Million Strong: a campaign to see the number of students in America studying Mandarin in grades K-12 grow to 1,000,000 by the year 2020. Currently, only about 200,000 students in the US are learning Mandarin. (Some estimates show the number of Chinese students studying English at 300 million!).
- 100,000 Strong: a campaign to increase and diversify the number or US students who travel to China to study each year. This was the original mission of the Foundation, formed under President Obama in 2009.
- US-China Alumni Network: this campaign aims to “build an online community
of students and young professionals who understand China” and connects US and Chinese students and other 100K Strong Alumni.
This year, I was invited to become a Student Ambassador for USCS, and I accepted immediately! I think the work they do is very important, and we need to do as much as we can to help motivate kids to learn Mandarin (and other languages too!).
As an Ambassador, I have agreed to do three projects in my first year to advance the causes of the Foundation. The projects are
- This blog! (Baolings.blog) was started to help share my experiences in China and my stories learning about China and Chinese culture.
- A Community Outreach Program: I will be hosting and translating a dumpling-making class at Peter Chang Restaurant in Williamsburg. Before the event, I will be sharing information about both US-China Strong and the William and Mary Confucius Institute’s community programs with the attendees. You can see the official announcement here:
http://www.wm.edu/sites/confuciusinstitute/announcements/dumpling-making-class-at-peter-chang-restaurant.php - Teaching At A Local School! : I’m very excited about this! I will be going to Woodville Elementary school in Richmond and doing an after-school class on China and its culture for 2nd and 3rd graders later this year! We will do some letter-writing, we’ll read a book and learn some basic conversation. Can’t wait!
I’m very proud to have been given this opportunity and I’ll be blogging about each event here. Thanks for reading!!