Mexican Students will Benefit from Training Program in the U.S.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Antonio O. Garza, Jr., met with 26 Mexican students that were selected to participate in the Georgetown component of the TIES program. The young Mexicans visited the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City to obtain their student visas.

Ambassador Garza said that this program was important because of the opportunity “for future generations of Mexican leaders to visit the United States and learn to understand a bit better our culture.”

The group of twenty-six Mexican students from rural backgrounds will be placed in several community colleges around the United States, from New York to California. Under the TIES program, they will study technical fields and then return to their home communities, where they will be able to use their newly acquired skills. This program will be funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and supervised by Georgetown University.

This program builds on two decades of experience that Georgetown University has in implementing these kinds of programs with USAID funding, primarily in Central America and the Caribbean. This group will be the first Mexicans to benefit from the Georgetown program.

Sandra O’Reilly, Georgetown coordinator in Mexico under TIES, and Paul White, USAID director in Mexico City, were also present at the event.

The TIES program is one of the specific projects that have been pursued under the “Partnership for Prosperity” initiative, which was announced by Presidents Fox and Bush in March of 2002. It was created to promote the partnership between the Mexican and U.S. governments, as well as the partnership between the public and private sectors to promote sustained development and productivity. TIES has been funded by USAID at the level of $50 million and is designed to eventually fund the training of some 750 Mexicans in the United States over five years.