Amigos de las Americas Marks 50 Years of Work in Latin Americ

Amigos de las Americas Marks 50 Years of Work in Latin Americ

HOUSTON—

Since it was founded in Houston 50 years ago, Amigos de las Americas has sent 26,000 U.S. high school and college students to work on projects in Latin American communities.

“Our approach is not necessarily to help the needy¹; that is not what we do," said Marta Ascherio, an Amigos de las Americas regional director. "What we do is create programs that invest in the capacity of young people to be leaders for themselves and leaders for their communities.”

Amigos de las Americas President and CEO Sara Nathan said participants work on projects to improve education, health care or community resources.

“They are really also about training and giving young people the experience of learning how to identify something to do in their communities and carry it out themselves,” she said.

Former volunteer and current staff member Ryan Kingston was studying computers when he signed on for what turned out to be a transformative experience.

“It was really great to get to know kind of what it is like to travel and to live in a different circumstance and to really focus on learning a new language and developing a whole other part of my brain that I hadn’t really been working on,” Kingston said.

Since 1965, Amigos volunteers and staff have developed lasting² friendships in Latin America.

Ascherio said she learned that character and virtue³ have little to do with economic circumstances.

“I didn’t see it as poverty; I saw it as my friends and my family," she said. "And so I think it gave me this really unique perspective on: What does poverty mean? What does it mean to be happy? What does it mean to have enough? What does it mean to have a life?”

Over the years, Amigos de las Americas has expanded from summer programs to some programs that last up to a year and at least one U.S.-based program.

“It is the first program Amigos has run where we bring Latin Americans to the United States to do their training and then they go home to do their service abroad,” Nathan said.

Nathan said many Amigos participants go on to make careers in the U.S. Foreign Service or other international programs.

1 needy   

adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的

参考例句：

• Although he was poor,he was quite generous to his needy friends.他虽穷，但对贫苦的朋友很慷慨。
• They awarded scholarships to needy students.他们给贫苦学生颁发奖学金。

2 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

3 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。