The following IHEC Blog post is a copy and paste of an e-mail I received from Lisa Heyn, Policy Specialist at the Alliance for International Educational & Cultural Exchange, and it is re-posted with her permission. Please take a moment to review the information and if you support this effort then please take a moment to send a letter as it literally takes less then one minute to submit the templated message the Alliance has prepared if you don't have time to write your own letter!
The Senate State-Foreign Operations appropriations subcommittee will hold its first hearing on FY14 funding tomorrow (Thursday, April 18th) which is why it is critical that we boost our efforts today and spread our message far and wide via Twitter and letters to Congress!
So far, 161 letters have been sent. While this is a great start, we need to have many more letter sent to lawmakers today, especially to House and Senate appropriators! Our goal is to have at least 500 letters sent by the end of today!
An editable sample letter is available on the Alliance Action Legislative Alerts and Updates webpage. If possible, please include specific examples demonstrating the (economic) impact of exchanges in your community. You can find your Members of Congress here.
We also need to gather as many Tweets as possible today using the hashtag #ExchangesImpact – please take our message to Twitter and tweet your Members of Congress about the importance of international exchanges, using their individual Twitter handles. For a complete list of Member Twitter handles, refer to these House and Senate lists. Sample tweets are included below for your use.
Thank you for taking action today by tweeting about #ExchangesImpact, and for helping us reach our goal of having at least 500 letters sent to Congress in support of FY14 funding for Department of State exchanges at $625 million.
Sample Tweets
· Support FY14 funding at $625 million for Dept. of State exchanges, a proven and cost-effective PD and smart power tool #ExchangesImpact
· Leadership, cultural learning & language study: International exchange programs prepare Americans for the global economy #ExchangesImpact
· Exchanges teach Americans critical skills and enhance U.S. global competitiveness #ExchangesImpact
· Exchanges are a cost-effective investment, expanding the vision of current & emerging leaders across the globe #ExchangesImpact
· International exchanges enhance U.S. national security & smart power by engaging future leaders across the world #ExchangesImpact
· Exchanges change lives and minds, creating a vast reservoir of goodwill toward the U.S. across the globe #ExchangesImpact
Photo credit: studentofrhythm
No comments:
Post a Comment