Maelle Wong
Maelle Wong of Lexington will study Chinese (Mandarin) this summer in Taiwan on a National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) scholarship. NSLI-Y, a program of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), promotes the study of Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Persian (Tajiki), Russian, and Turkish. Wong was one of 440 students selected from thousands of high school applicants across the United States to receive a NSLI-Y scholarship. While in Taiwan, Wong will live with a host family, immerse in the local culture and host community, and engage with local peers to enhance language learning and represent American culture as a citizen ambassador.
Wong is a rising junior from River Bluff High School. Although raised in an English-only speaking household, she is passionate about Chinese language and culture and has been learning Mandarin for over eight years through the Lexington One immersion program. She enjoys participating in a diverse variety of extracurricular activities at her high school, which includes leadership roles in her school’s National Chinese Honor Society and Model United Nations Club. Outside school, she actively serves the community in several capacities; most significantly of which, she is a member of the Make Us Visible South Carolina steering committee, whose intention is to integrate Asian American history into Kindergarten-grade 12 classrooms to increase the visibility of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) minority. Additionally, she offers free and low cost Chinese tutoring to early language learners in the Lexington One immersion program with the goal of engaging young learners and furthering their language proficiency. In the future, she hopes to attend the Darla Moore School of International Business, with a minor in Chinese language, and eventually pursue a career in foreign service.
Launched in 2006 as part of a multiagency U.S. Government initiative, NSLI-Y increases the number of young Americans with the critical language skills necessary to contribute to U.S national security and economic competitiveness. Many NSLI-Y alumni go on to pursue education and careers vital to U.S national security and credit the program experience with helping them improve their cross-cultural communication and leadership skills.
NSLI-Y is administered by American Councils for International Education in cooperation with AFS-USA, American Cultural Exchange Service, Amideast, iEARN-USA, Stony Brook University, and the University of Delaware. Applications for NSLI-Y programs are available at www.nsliforyouth.org each fall.
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