Dear Educators,

My name is Swathi Balasubramanian and I work at the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) in Washington, DC and in particular, on a program that connects youth in the United States with youth overseas through educational online projects and discussions. I am contacting you to see if you would be interested or if you know of educators who would be interested in participating in our projects that connect classrooms in the US with classrooms in Kyrgyzstan. In brief, our projects take place in English on monitored forum boards, where students discuss a variety of issues, from their hometowns and national traditions to current events. We are willing to work with teachers on developing projects that match their curriculum goals.

Our program – Global Connections and Exchange (GCE) – Kyrgyzstan – is funded by the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). In the past, IREX implemented this project in Uzbekistan and in Turkmenistan. Through online discussions, students learn about their partners’ culture, educational system, national cuisines, hometowns and opinions on current events.

In addition to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, this year, for the first time, we will be conducting online projects with schools in Kyrgyzstan. We are currently looking for the teachers who would be interested in doing online projects starting this fall and continuing throughout the academic year. Here’s a link to one of our projects that focused on art & diplomacy for your reference: http://gcetm.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=151. We would prefer to conduct shorter, 3-4-week projects, but would be happy to implement several projects with the same classroom(s).

Our online projects employ various technologies but all the online projects are either hosted on our forum board or on our closely-monitored social networking (ning) site. Usually, all you need to have are access to computers and an internet connection to participate in our projects. I’ve attached a factsheet with more information about our program in Kyrgyzstan.

If you are interested in participating in our projects, please contact me via email at swathi@irex.org or by phone at 202-628-8188 x140, and I would be happy to share with you more details about our projects and information on how to enroll. Please feel free to forward this email and information to any interested teachers you may know.

I look forward to hearing from you and to hopefully working with you and your students.

Sincerely, Swathi

Swathi Balasubramanian Program Coordinator, Civil Society Division International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) 2121 K Street, NW, Suite 700 Washington, DC 20037 T: +1 202 628 8188 x140 F: +1 202 628 8189 www.irex.org