Future Leaders Exchange Program

Cassandra (Cassie), a FLEX Abroad participant from Mississippi placed in the country of Georgia, has built wonderful relationships with her host family, school, and community overall. At school, she is excelling, consistently achieving the highest grades and demonstrating a strong commitment to academic excellence.

Cassie is involved in many extracurricular activities. To cater to her passion for painting, Cassie joined a studio in Tbilisi, led by renowned Georgian painter Irma Archvadze. Cassie is also an active volunteer at American Corner Tbilisi, where she teaches English to 4th and 5th graders and assists with the movie club. Additionally, she volunteers at the STEM club, contributing her time and skills across multiple programs at American Corner. When not home, at school, or volunteering, Cassie takes part in a trilateral online research project designed for Georgian and Ukrainian high school students. She collaborates closely with her peers from both countries, sharing insights on ecological issues in the United States.

Finally, Cassie has joined a fencing club after meeting a neighbor who is a Georgian fencing champion! She was invited to attend masterclasses at the Fencing Federation of Georgia, giving her an exciting opportunity to learn from top-level athletes.

Every person that Cassie meets says that she is a loving person. She has also connected well with her host mom and two host siblings. They are pleased to have her as a family member. Her host mom mentioned that Cassie’s positive attitude and openness is a delight and makes her want to ensure that Cassie has an unforgettable experience.

Congratulations, Cassie!

I recently started taking ice skating lessons. I always wanted to, and I was finally in a position where it was possible, so I signed up. After a few weeks, I was talking with some in my class, and she said something along the lines of, “It’s too bad you’re coming alone--did none of your friends want to come with you? It’s pretty brave to go alone.” I was a bit shocked because I hadn’t even asked any of my friends to come along. This was a huge time and financial commitment, and I was perfectly content going alone. If anything, I was happy to have the time to myself and get to meet new people. Yet, this moment made me realize how far I had come and that this eagerness to try a new activity and meet new people on my own was something I had gained after my exchange year. It’s so easy to say that FLEX Abroad changed who I am as a person, but really looking back and seeing how I’ve grown personally and academically is inspiring.

I’m very lucky to currently be attending Georgetown University in Washington, DC and to be able to use the skills I learned abroad to effectively engage with peers and professors from all over the world. Additionally, I’ve joined numerous clubs and tried new things, like staffing a Model UN conference. I’ve also embraced the Slavic department, where I’ve continued learning Russian and forged great relationships with teachers, constantly attending office hours and different Slavic department events.

Being able to create these new bonds with different people is something I learned while developing relationships with people in my host country, people with whom I’ve stayed in touch. I like to think of myself not just as an individual, but as a mosaic of everyone I’ve ever met and loved. I’m so thankful for FLEX Abroad. because I now have a whole network of people I’ve grown to love and who have helped shape me and change my perspectives on many things. From adapting to living with a host family to learning how teenagers in Kazakhstan spend their free time, I can see immense progress in the way I look at new situations and learn to be flexible in any new circumstance.

Upon arriving back to the U.S. from my year abroad, I’ve had the opportunity to meet and work with many wonderful alumni of FLEX Abroad, YES Abroad, and NSLI-Y, all wonderful, like-minded people all with their own experiences and stories. Working as a FLEX Abroad Area Representative, I’m able to give back to the program that gave me so much. In this position, I get to plan events, work with other alumni, and learn from other alumni as I continue to grow and look towards my future.

I’m also honored to have met so many FLEX inbound alumni, some of whom I’ve stayed closely in contact with and have received help recruiting participants for my own foreign projects. One of these projects, my central Asian Media Literacy Project, implemented thanks to the U.S. Department of State’s Citizen Diplomacy and Action Fund (CDAF) grant is an example of how the alumni world has helped me chase my goals and work closely with students in the central Asian region. Through this program, I get to work with multiple NSLI-Y and Fulbright alumni to educate students in Central Asia on media literacy and how to detect and combat disinformation. To recruit participants, I asked my alumni friends from those countries to help promote our project. We were hoping for 50 applications, but we ended up with over 700. Not only does this speak to the connections I was able to make with inbound alumni, but it furthers the idea of “FLEX once, FLEX forever,” as many of these students are just as passionate as I am.

Finally, FLEX Abroad has helped guide me in the direction I want to go academically. While I don’t have a concrete plan, I have developed a deeper passion for everything intercultural and specifically in Central Asia. Since my year abroad, I have been back twice—once to Almaty and once to Bishkek—where I have further developed relationships, learned more about the region, and gotten to explore new relationships and perspectives.

It’s easy to talk about an exchange year being the best year of your life, and as much as I could agree with the sentiment, a part of me hopes it’s not. I see FLEX Abroad now as a catapult into the rest of my life, where I can take the skills learned and use them to continue the trajectory of my personal and academic life. Without FLEX Abroad, my life would have taken a whole different path, and I would be a completely different person, which isn’t bad, but still I am so thankful this is the route I have taken. And I am so grateful that I was one of the lucky few who earned the immense opportunity to participate in the FLEX Abroad program.

I have always been an athletic, sporty person, so there was no question that I wanted to join the school soccer team when I arrived in Georgia. However, on my first day, I found out that my school had only one soccer club, and it was all boys. Naturally, this made me nervous because I had always played with girls and wondered if I would be good enough to play on their level.

I talked to some girls at my school, and they told me how unusual it is for a girl to be on the team – it has only ever been just boys. I was too nervous to join the team during the first two weeks of school. Instead, I would go to one of the fields near my house and practice alone, with FLEX alumni friends, or even with people I met at the field. It was a great experience – I had the opportunity to play with kids of all ages and backgrounds and even met a sweet family from Ukraine. The experience also helped me gain the courage I needed to try out for my school team.

I told my local friends that I would join, and although some were skeptical, I pushed through my fears and joined the team. All of the guys were super welcoming and nice to me and later even confided that they were initially doubtful and surprised that a girl could play soccer with them on their level. I was also shocked at how hesitant I had been initially. Playing soccer and staying active is an important part of my life, but I had let others make me doubt myself. Playing on my own and creating my own experiences was the exact push I needed to join my school team, and I am so happy I did. I ended up having so much fun and quickly became part of the team.

I now play both volleyball and soccer at my school and am grateful I put myself out there despite my peers’ initial hesitation. It’s given me friends, a community, and so many memorable moments. I also know that my decision will have a lasting impact on my school and in my teammates’ lives. And this is part of my purpose of being in another country: to break down stereotypes and build lasting ties across borders. The road to leaving a positive impact is one step outside of your comfort zone. Take the leap, and surprise those around you by being your most authentic, vulnerable self. For me, it has been the best way to leave a good impression.

Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) Abroad participant, Alexander A., is the U.S. Department of State’s April 2024 American Abroad Student of the Month. Alexander is from Massachusetts and is currently attending high school in Georgia.

Alex has adapted successfully to the different structure and expectations of his host school like classes being taught in Georgian and longer school days than that of his American high school. He was inspired by friendliness and kindness from school administrators and classmates and learned to embrace the extra-curricular side of high school life.

Alex began assisting in English conversation classes for the school’s elementary program within the first week of starting class, with no prior teaching experience. “The role required striking a delicate balance between being entertaining and emphasizing the significance of following the classroom rules,” Alex shared. He often used his knowledge of American culture to lead discussions in cultural differences, which helped his students gain insights into the United States and its traditions but also helped Alex broaden his knowledge as it gave him an opportunity to see Georgia through their eyes. His experiences led to playing a larger role during the school’s winter English camp. Alex also took part in TEDxforYouth, where he was selected by his host school to give a speech entitled, Embracing the Limitless Possibilities of “What If” to Shape a Future, Where Dreams and Imagination are the Catalysts for Change.

Alex started a student-led club, Buckswood Sports Committee to promote sports and general

physical activity within the school. They organized a school-wide ping pong tournament to raise money for a local organization that supports underprivileged children. Alex also organized his school’s first basketball team in seven years. The team even won the very first game against other local schools! His host school installed basketball hoops in the gym and began looking into hiring a basketball coach. Alex shared, “I am so glad to see our school represented and competing in basketball.”

Outside of school, Alex has given presentations to Georgian FLEX alumni about applying to universities in the United States. He spent the New Year’s holiday with extended family in their village, going from house to house singing the Georgian traditional Christmas song “Alilio.”

On September 2, 2023, I arrived in Tbilisi, Georgia for the first time with exactly three words of Georgian in my head. გამარჯობა (gamarjoba - hello), სასიამოვნოა (sasiamovnoa - it’snice to meet you), and მადლობა (madloba - thank you)--the only words I had managed to remember from my brief summer of self-study.

At my first dinnerwith my host family, I remember not being able to understand the conversation at all, and I listened, with gratitude, to my host sister Mariam’s translations. However, Iwas eager to communicate directly with everyone in my new family, from six-year-old Taia to my host mom, Tika. Lucky for me, I had the best Georgian teacher in the world—my host aunt Natia—and we spent hours the first week learning the alphabet and basic verbs. Though FLEX Abroad arranged structured lessons for my group, my informal “lessons” with my family were far more instructive! Morning car rides to the program office were filled with unfamiliar vocabulary, and I eagerly put the new words and phrases I learned in lessons to practice at home, trying my best to avoid using English.

One afternoon, I was sitting outside with my little sister Taia and struggling to memorize all the different colorsin Georgian. So instead, we made it a game,and she would point to a color and I repeated it back to her in Georgian, and then I taughther the same word in English, and she would get to study English as well. My language learning process has been side-by-side with my host family’s, and I have loved sharing funny English sayings alongside trying to understand untranslatable Georgianwords like შემომეჭამა (shemometchama, which translates to, “I accidentally ate it”) and გოიმი (goimi – something close to meaning “loser”).

It also really helped that my host family always had guests over, so as I met their aunts, uncles, childhood friends, and classmates, I was sure to constantly listen in and do my best to understand just a few words of what was being said. My resilience was unrelenting as well. I made countless mistakes in pronunciation, spelling, and accidentally once said, “I have a mouse,” when I meant to say, “I have a question.” Regardless, I was improving and able to have my own conversations with everyone in my family. As I understood more of what they were saying and could clearly feel their love, I only became more motivated to continue learning such a beautiful language.

My dedication wasn’t perfectly wearproof, though. Sometimes listening to hours of a conversation that I couldn’t fully understand wore out my brain and I couldn’t contribute anything more than a “კი” (ki - yes) and a smile. Yet I never shied away from the discomfort of not being able to comprehend, and over the first few months, I truly learned the value of understanding the feelings behind someone’s message rather than merely their words. Overtime, constantly listening to Georgian conversations by spending time with my host family, watching my host brother Luka’s favorite TV show, and studying vocabulary in my free time began to pay off as I realized I understood more and more parts of spoken conversations, and most importantly of all, the central message of what was being said. As my communication abilities advanced, I had more opportunities to put the language to use as well.

For years, I have been an art enthusiast, and I love visiting art museums and observing acclaimed works of Monet and Francisco de Goya. So when I had the opportunity to visit the Tbilisi Academy of Arts and observe in-progress works of budding artists, I was in awe of the different styles and individual beauty of every piece. During my time there, I spokeGeorgian with one of the academy’s instructors and expressed my appreciation for the students’ work and his teaching. By breaking down a language barrier, I was able to share my love for art and was even invitedto come back to the academy, an offer I have taken him up on by returning multiple times since, meeting other students and attending art galleries on display.

As I have gained more confidence in speaking beginner-level Georgian, I have been able to make unlikely friends across all of Tbilisi. Every morning, I take public transport, and I look forward to seeing the university professor who always tells me a new story about her son. Each Tuesdayand Thursday, I have aGeorgian dance class and converse with Georgian moms who tell me stories about their youth and what living in the Soviet Union was like. I still remember my hour-long conversation with my taxi driver, Levani, when the traffic was especially bad on the way home. By leaving the comfort of my native language, I have made myself vulnerable and uncomfortable, but I have also opened myself up to forming meaningful connections with Georgians.

Over the past year, it feels that grief has been a big part of my life. Last year, I lost my grandpa and then in October, only six weeks after going abroad, my best friend of four years passed away suddenly. Unable to attend her funeral and be there for her family, I didn't know how to process my grief and guilt on my own. But the truth is, I didn’t have to because my host family was there for me every step of the way and supported me through it all. Although I will forever miss my loved ones who have passed, Georgia has given me new best friends in my host siblings and more grandparents and great-grandparents who love me just as much. By being abroad, I have gained a new family for a lifetime.

On the surface, learning a language like Georgian can seem like an arduous process of challenging grammar, complex noun cases, and never-ending unique verb forms. And when I first arrived, I remember often being asked by locals, “Why learn Georgian?”—only about four million people speak the language, and it is completely unrelated to any other language family. But speaking Georgian is my expression of love for the people who have welcomed me with open arms into their country, making toasts in my honor at Supra (Georgian feasts) and teaching me the lyrics of popular Georgian bands. Without learning the local language, I would not have been able to truly connect with my family, friends, and strangers, who have been more than happy to share their culture and learn about mine in return.

I sat nervously as I watched the rest of my cohort leave our Russian class. When I arrived earlier, I brought with me a list of questions for my teacher that I had gathered over my first month in Kazakhstan. I didn’t know if I’d be able to ask them or if she would want to answer them all, but I certainly didn’t think what followed would end up having such a positive impact on my life on program.

Initially, I was nervous to stay. I was anxious about the language barrier or asking something dumb or inadvertently offensive. But I knew this was a great opportunity to learn and grow, so I remembered my “Toolbox” from orientation this summer and said “Yes!” to approaching people and asking for help. Now, looking back on the hour we spent together, I think of it as one of my favorite memories so far on exchange. I learned so much about the history and languages of my host country and about my teacher as well. It turns out that my teacher’s specialty is psycholinguistics, a field I am interested in studying in the future. We also talked about initiatives currently being undertaken in Kazakhstan to support Kazakh as an official language and the complexities of switching the Kazakh language from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin alphabet.

I had the opportunity to stay after some of the following classes as well, where I learned more about Kazakh history, both in the pre- and post-Soviet era. It was interesting to hear what it was like for my language teacher to grow up in the USSR. Over time, I’ve developed such a kind, open relationship with her. I’ve been able to talk to her about my own problems and the challenges I’ve faced in my first few months as an exchange student, and she’s given great advice to help me through them. I am very grateful for her.

When I first landed in Almaty, I imagined myself forming close bonds with my host family, school peers, or American Councils staff members. While those relationships are also very important to me, I certainly never expected that my Russian teacher would be as great a source of help as she has been. Making new friends and forming relationships in my host country looked different than I first expected. It truly makes me appreciate the power of “Saying yes!” to opportunities and putting myself outside my comfort zone.