VOA常速英语2015--纪念"美国之友“成立50周年

纪念"美国之友“成立50周年

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.

自从50年前在休斯敦建立以来，2.6万名美国高中和大学毕业生通过“美国之友”在拉美社区工作。

Our approach is not necessarily to help the needy¹; that is not what we do. What we do is create programs that invest in the capacity of young people to be leaders for themselves and leaders for their communities.

我们不仅仅要帮助那些需要帮助的人；这不是我们要做的。我们要做的是创建更多能够培养年轻人领导才能的项目，让他们成为社区的领导人。

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

“美国之友”总裁兼首席执行官萨拉·内森表示称，参与者通过项目获得教育，获得医疗卫生服务，或是其他社区资源。

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.

这些项目能够训练年轻人，让他们在如何辨别社区事务中获得经验，并付诸行动。

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

曾经担任过志愿工作的现任职员赖安·金斯敦正在学习计算机，而此次学习也成为了一次改造他的经历。

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.

生活在不同环境中，专注于学习语言，开发大脑的未知世界，这种感觉真是太美妙了。

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

自从1965年开始，“美国之友”的志愿者和工作人员在拉丁美洲地区发展了长久的友谊。

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

马尔塔·艾希利欧认为品行与美德与经济状况没有太大关系。

I didn’t see it as poverty; I saw it as my friends and my family. 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?”

我没有将其视为贫穷；我把它看成是我的朋友和家人。这给了我与众不同的视角：贫穷意味着什么？快乐又意味着什么？满足又是什么意思？生活又是什么？

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.

许多年以来，“美国之友”已经从暑期项目发展成了为期一年的多种项目，以及至少一个美国项目。

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.

这是我们首次将拉美洲的朋友带到美国进行培训，之后他们将出国工作。

 

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

内森表示称，我们的许多参与者都在美国外事服务部门，或是其他国际项目部门工作。

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。