Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. has joined the United States Embassy in the opening of the International Visitor Leadership Program’s (IVLP) 80th Anniversary Celebration, a week-long series of virtual engagements highlighting the contributions that Filipino IVLP alumni have made to community and national development.
The IVLP is the U.S. Department of State’s flagship professional exchange program that annually sends nearly 5,000 current and emerging leaders worldwide on short visits to the United States to meet with American counterparts for knowledge sharing, professional networking, and cultural and social activities.
“As an alumnus of the program, I can tell you from firsthand experience that I have only positive takeaways from the program,” Locsin said in his remarks during the launching on Monday, Dec. 7, 2020, as he recalled his participation in the IVLP in 1997.
Locsin said the program has been a “channel for synergy, construction and deconstruction, proliferation of ideas, and transformation.”
The IVLP has produced more than 225,000 alumni, including more than 500 heads of state or government since its inception in 1940. More than 2,000 Filipinos have participated in the program.
The program enables leaders to return to their home countries with new ideas and expanded networks so they can be even more effective in their advocacies and careers.
U.S. Embassy Chargé d’Affaires John Law explained that the alumni of U.S. exchange programs like IVLP have “consistently been our most outstanding partners for making a difference in people’s lives.”
To kick-off with the week-long celebration that runs from Dec. 7 to 11, 2020, the U.S State Department and the U.S. Embassy launched an online #FacesofExchange campaign to highlight the impact that the IVLP alumni have in their respective communities.
In his remarks during the launch, U.S. Department of State Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Education and Cultural Affairs Matthew Lussenhop emphasized that exchange programs such as IVLP enrich U.S. relationships with other countries, and “helps transform people, transform relationships, allow foreign audiences to meet American counterparts, and to build up those ties between people.”
The U.S. Embassy said it will also host a series of online discussions that feature the work of IVLP alumni in different fields such as women entrepreneurship (Dec. 8), community volunteerism and civic engagement (Dec. 9), juvenile justice (Dec. 10), and peacebuilding and peace art (Dec. 11).