Community Connections

The goals of the Community Connections program are to:

• provide participants with professional training and exposure to day-to-day functioning of a free market system;
• encourage public-private partnerships in Europe/Eurasia by including private sector and government participants on U.S. visits;
• create links between U.S. and Europe/Eurasia regions and communities.

How you can get involved!

If hosting one of our visitors in your home for any length of time is of interest to you, please contact our Director of Programs, Enrique Meza (Enrique@SanDiegoDiplomacy.org).

The Community Connections Program, managed by the Bureau for Europe and Eurasia at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and administered by World Learning, is designed to promote public diplomacy through the exchange of cultural ideas and values among participants, U.S. families and local community host organizations.

It seeks to establish and strengthen links between U.S. communities and communities in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

The Community Connections Program offers home-stay based practical training opportunities in the U.S. for foreign based entrepreneurs, local government officials, legal professionals, non-governmental organization leaders and other professionals.

During his visit to San Diego, Arushan from Russia had some fun portraying Khrushchev pounding the table. Now when we host Russians, we speak of how scared we were of each other during the Cold War. If only we had met face to face sooner.