US 'keen' on partnership with QF for youth meet

THE US State Department’s assistant secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs, Goli Ameri, has said that her department looks into the possibility of collaboration with the Qatar Foundation (QF) to host a youth meet for youth in Qatar.

“We are going to talk to the Qatar Foundation about if we can collaborate with them in hosting a youth conference, with some of our alumni from our youth exchange and international visitors program,” said Ameri, during a press conference held on Wednesday.

“Its still an idea and we need to explore it. We need to get back to the US and make sure that the possibility exists. We are looking to see if it’s possible,” explained the diplomat.

Ameri, the Iranian-born, American official who was appointed by US President George Bush to the job in March, has responsibilities such as cultural diplomacy and educational exchanges at the Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).

The bureau aims at fostering mutual understanding between the people of the US and other people in the rest of the world. Ameri was on a two-day visit to Qatar.

“It has been an unbelievable whirlwind two days. The experience just couldn’t be better. I’m so impressed by what the Qatar Foundation (QF) is doing, the entire Education City…just the focus on education in this country, really I’m blown away,” said Ameri.

“And I have a feeling that all the QF graduates are going to have a long-term impact on the entire region. I mean I can just see these effects rippling out to all the other Gulf countries, hopefully to Iran, Saudi Arabia and others in the region.”

During her stay, Ameri visited the Qatar University, the Qatar Foundation and Al Jazeera Children Channel, and met the graduates of the International Visitor (IV) and Youth Exchange and Study (YES) scholarship programs.

YES provides secondary school students from several Middle Eastern, African, and Asian countries with the opportunity to study in the United States for a full academic year.

“The students live with host families in the US and in the process transform the families and get transformed by the communities they live in. These students are our assets,” said Ameri.

“That’s partly the reason why, it is on Ameri’s agenda to make sure that the alumni take part in the exercise.

“We want to make sure that we don’t lose track of our alumni. They are an asset to us. We want to maintain that connection. One of my tasks is to improve our alumni relations,” said she.

The official also has two other priorities chalked out already, as her term will end in 10 months, with the departure of President Bush, something that she said, she is “painfully aware of.”

“Technology is another front that I’m interested in working. We want to reach out to the youth and they are increasingly on the internet, we want to make sure to push our exchanges on the internet as well,” said Ameri.

“And the third focus is to partner more with the private sector in Qatar.

“I had a meeting with American corporations here in Qatar, to see if they can possibly sponsor some of our programs and the response was very good,” Ameri said.

The US embassy charge d’affaires, Michael Ratney, and other officials were also present on the occasion.