Fort Worth (WBAP/KLIF News) – Students from Fort Worth’s eight sister cities are wrapping up a trip to North Texas. Each year, the International Leadership Academy brings students from other countries to Ft. Worth to learn diplomacy and problem-solving skills with other cultures.
About 75 students have been staying at TCU. The students stay on the TCU campus, sharing a room with a student from a different country.
They have been attending classes on leadership and global issues along with students from Ft. Worth.
“Diplomacy is a big word,” says facilitator Lizzie Roberts. “You break down that word into leadership, respect, open-mindedness.”
Roberts says organizers had students write characteristics of diplomats.
“It made this big concept become more relatable, something we can use in our day-to-day lives,” she says.
“A leader has to be a diplomat,” says Erick Gonzalez, a student from Toluca, Mexico. “A leader has to deal with a lot people and support them to become a team.”
Ft. Worth also has sister cities in Italy, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, China, as well as Mbabane, Swaziland and Budapest, Hungary.
“In my culture, when you look a person in the eye, you’re totally disrespectful,” says Temalangeni Dlamini, a student from Mbabane. “Here, if you don’t look a person in the eye, it means you are lying. It takes sensitivity to understand that the next person is different from you.”
The International Leadership Academy started the project in 1989 to help kids develop leadership skills. Ft. Worth’s sister cities program says the visit can help students in North Texas and from other countries learn about the importance of finding common goals in an increasingly-connected world.
Students have been visiting museums and meeting business leaders from North Texas.
“We went to the Stockyards, so we have learned the Ft. Worth culture,” says Boglarka Konkoly, from Budapest. “We learned how to understand each other. In Ft. Worth, I can learn several cultures, not just American but the Mexican, the German, the Swazi, and I can show my culture, too.”
“There are really welcoming people here. That is what we love about Ft. Worth,” Dlamini says.
Closing ceremonies will take place this weekend.
(Copyright 2017 WBAP/KLIF News. All rights reserved)
