It’s good to know our leadership fellows are hard at work building bridges and promoting educational exchange across the country!

Leadership fellow EJ Mitchell has been partnering with the Cincinnati Country Day School to launch a local Project Pengyou Chapter and he has big plans for engaging the community with the Pengyou Program. Here’s what EJ and friends at the CCDS chapter are rolling out in the next month or so:

In an effort to demystify China and break down cultural barriers, Project Pengyou CCDS is developing the Pengyou Program, a social platform designed to welcome new international students into the Country Day community. The word pengyou—Mandarin for friend—is the operative word of this initiative.

By pairing current Country Day students and alumni with incoming international students, the Pengyou Program aims to build sustainable friendships within the CCDS community.

EJ explains that the goal of the Pengyou Program is twofold: to connect students to their international counterparts, but in a low-risk, structured environment. CCDS expects to have a total of five new students coming from Chinese cities as far apart as Shanghai, Chengdu and Urumqi, who represent a variety of cultural backgrounds.

The school also hopes to place the incoming students in host families within the Country Day community. Sometimes there are not enough families interested in hosting, a fact which CCDS and the Pengyou Program hopes to amend by generating interest in the community. The staff at Country Day have even expressed support for a faculty-led trip to China in the future to strengthen the current exchange program.

Awesome work CCDS Pengyous, we look forward to seeing all the innovative and meaningful ways you’ll connect with each other!

Read more about EJ’s journey with CCDS and the Pengyou Program here.