Montgomery Sister Cities Youth Ambassador Program​

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Connecting Montgomery County Youth to the World

People have come to Montgomery County, Maryland, from every corner of the globe. Montgomery County Sister Cities, Inc. (MSC) was established to connect Montgomery County to the world by encouraging and fostering friendship, partnership, and mutual cooperation through educational, cultural, social, economic, humanitarian, and charitable exchanges between the people of Montgomery County and people from nations around the world. 

 

The MSC Youth Ambassador Program fosters citizen-to-citizen diplomacy by engaging the diverse youth of Montgomery County—while helping them develop essential leadership and teamwork skills. Along the way, students deepen their knowledge of their own community and experience the richness of its cultures.Following the success of our inaugural cohort—commissioned in 2025 —MSC is proud to recruit the program's next class of Youth Ambassadors.

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Who We're Looking For

MSC seeks to recruit high school students with connections to or interest in one or more of our five sister cities:

• Morazán, El Salvador

• Daejeon, South Korea

• Xi'an, China

• Hyderabad, India

• Gondar, Ethiopia​

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We're looking for enthusiastic, independently driven students who are ready to represent their communities and grow as global leaders.

 

Program Details 

What Youth Ambassadors Do

• Attend a total of 8–9 training sessions

• Plan, implement, and participate in MSC Youth Ambassador events and activities

• Represent MSC at conferences and community tabling events

• Take part in activities that may include travel

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Six of the eight to nine sessions are classroom style and include:

• Global leadership principles

• Project planning for a team capstone project

• A new cultural experience highlighting one of our five sister cities

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3 of the additional sessions include private leadership tours; meetings with local and state officials and simulations with partnering members of the State Department.

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The Student Project

Youth Ambassadors work as a team to design and execute a capstone project across the six sessions, using time outside of the Saturday sessions to complete and polish their work.The project topic is chosen by the students, with a focus on themes such as:

• Citizen-to-citizen diplomacy

• Serving the underserved

• Cross-cultural understanding

• Representation

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Program Specifics

Objectives

• Personal, professional, and leadership development

• Program management

• Capstone project planning

Components

• Leadership seminars

• Cultural excursions

 

Leadership Seminars

Throughout the program, Ambassadors learn from experienced practitioners, including coursework in partnership with the United States Institute of Peace. Seminar topics include:

• Diplomacy basics

• Diplomacy foundations and cultural synergy 

• Conflict analysis

• Doing businesses in foreign markets

• Standards of global professionalism

• Leadership in global environments: proper protoco

• The demand for ethical and responsible behavior

• Integrity and honesty in global markets 

• Capstone project implementation and outcome reporting

• Capstone presentations

 

Apply

Ready to explore the cultures of Montgomery County and lead your community? Applications are open from September through November. Click here to apply.

 

Questions? Contact us at MSCyouthambassador@gmail.com, we would love to hear from you.