iEARN-USA and Partners of the Americas (Partners) announced this week that they will continue their alliance to further strengthen the relationship between their two networks of educators -- who are committed to building relationships across cultures and improving their communities.

As two known leaders in cross-cultural collaboration, the alliance between Partners and iEARN-USA aims to address key challenges and opportunities facing educators in the Americas, including bilingual education. Many Latin American governments have outlined national bilingual programs, yet lack the resources to implement effective language education.

To this end, iEARN-USA will offer classrooms access to other cultures and bilingual materials as an alternative to costly study abroad programs and language academies. Today, iEARN’s global corps of educators connect through online projects with other classrooms in more than 140 countries via virtual exchange. These projects add a global citizenship component to local curricula while exposing students to online communications technology and authentic language interactions with their peers from other countries.

“iEARN-USA is thrilled to partner with Partners of the Americas on intercultural learning activities to build bridges,” said Dr. Tonya Muro, Executive Director of iEARN-USA. “We look forward to collaborating on other projects and activities to further strengthen this valuable partnership in the future.”

Among other benefits, a limited number of memberships to iEARN-USA’s network will be offered to registered U.S. teachers in Partners. Their classrooms will be able to access the full range of iEARN’s online collaborative projects offered across the world and connect and communicate with a network of global peers.

“Partners is extremely excited to be renewing our alliance with iEARN-USA and further strengthening the relationship between these two unique and important networks,” said Steve Vetter, President and CEO of Partners of the Americas. “Education is a global priority and through this alliance we will work together to provide greater resources and support to teachers and classrooms throughout the Americas.”

To train educators in iEARN projects, Partners will award travel grants to master teachers from Latin America, Brazil, the Caribbean, and the United States to journey to their partner chapters. iEARN-USA will share strategies for how Partners teachers can incorporate virtual exchanges into classroom activities and standards-based curricula, including the Common Core and 21st Century Skills.

Since the early 1990’s, Partners chapters have been involved in iEARN initiatives. Today, teachers from 12 partnerships are engaged in iEARN projects ranging from simple teddy bear exchanges in English, to studying native birds in students’ regions around the world.

In addition, Partners and iEARN-USA are excited to announce that they will be co-presenting a workshop on bilingual education through virtual exchange to over 100 educators at the annual Partners Convention in Guadalajara, Mexico on October 25.

“The annual Partners Convention is a great opportunity to share like-minded missions and objectives to further support mutual understanding and cross-cultural dialogue amongst educators,” Muro said.

The mission of Partners of the Americas is to connect people and organizations across borders to serve and to change lives through lasting partnerships. These partnerships create opportunity, foster understanding, and solve real-life problems. Inspired by President Kennedy and founded in 1964 under the Alliance for Progress, Partners is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization with international offices in Washington, D.C. Learn more at www.partners.net or via Twitter @partnersamerica.