Embassy Adoption Program is an excellent initiative to promote multicultural relation building through a people centric approach: Masood Khan

WASHINGTON, May 26 (SABAH): “Embassy Adoption Program is an excellent initiative to promote multicultural relation building through a people centric approach that has far reaching impact, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Sardar Muhammad Masood Khan said while appreciating a group of 25 Grade 5 Students from the Janney Elementary School after they gave a heartwarming presentation on Pakistan at the Embassy as part of the Embassy Adoption Program (EAP), a global education and enrichment initiative of DC Public School.

“The breadth of knowledge of the students about Pakistan and the empathy they had developed for Pakistan and its people are amazing”, he added. The students gave mesmerizing capstone presentations, covering areas of Pakistani art, geography, sports. Some chose to learn Urdu, while others concentrated on Pakistani Arts and Culture, presenting an incredible range of talent. They developed a ‘Jeopardy game’ series on Pakistan where quiz questions were based on Pakistani arts, national flower, animals, landscape which was followed by a flawless Pakistani Anthem performance that enthralled the audience. The chorus was led by grade 5 student Margaret Melia.

The Ambassador further desired to explore possibilities of having these exchanges with counterpart schools in Pakistan. He also stressed the need for people-to-people exchanges. As part of their capstone project, students prepared a collective art work depicting Pakistan’s diverse landscape, a football with students’ names on it as well as a truck art miniature and presented them to the Ambassador.

Sardar Masood Khan while thanking the students, appreciated Ms. Sarah Buscher, Program coordinator from Janney Elementary School for her efforts in preparing the students so well. He also thanked Ms. Penelope Musto, Director Education partnerships Washington Performing Arts and Ms. Atara Muhammad, in-charge Global Education DC Public Schools for providing the valuable opportunity for a very successful cross-cultural exchange. The Embassy Adoption Program, a joint collaboration between DC Public Schools and Washington Performing Arts, is aimed at imparting skills necessary to succeed in an increasingly interconnected and culturally diverse world. The program allows fifth and sixth graders to learn about the language, culture, history geography, arts & culture of their partner country. Teachers host their diplomat partners for classroom visits during the course of a school year. At the end of the program, students give a capstone presentation to demonstrate what they have learned.