83 Fellows meet on Capitol Hill

Monday May 3– by Mona Ameen (Kuwait)

Venue: U.S Department of State.
We arrived at 8:30 am in U.S department of State , Loy Henderson Auditorium  with a total of 83 fellows from different countries, and most of them are in their conclusion of their fellowship program while we are in the beginning of our program.  The opening plenary session started at 9:00 Leonard J. Korcki from Bureau of Education, followed by a speech by former U.S Congressman Martin Frost, and Dr. Curtis Huff from Bureau of Education. After that we went for a coffee break with small chats to meet with other LFP participants.

The fellows reports came later in the second session, which started by 11:00 with a presentation from each group & country, which started with our presentation, my colleagues Sara & Talal were the speakers about our delegation representing MENA region, Kuwait & Oman as part of GCC. After that came each group presentations, which were really interesting.

We had lunch in the Benjamin Franklin Room and on our way we had the great opportunity to look at an amazing masterpieces. I had a beautiful picture standing next to Thomas Jefferson desk. Legacy International has invited The Deputy Chief of Mission of Kuwait Embassy in the U.S, Mr. Nabeel Al-Dakheel, Who introduced himself and welcomed us & invited us to visit the Embassy while we are on LFP.

Later in the afternoon, and before the wrap up session, each member has entered into a round table discussion group according to his area of interest which was really beneficial. I have been placed and participated in the discussion group that I have previously ranked as # 1 which is Legislative staff and their role in the legislative processes, which took place in Loy Henderson Auditorium, and the session moderator was Dr. Michael Haltzel, a senior fellow, Johns Hopkins University, who gave us a beneficial briefing form his wide experience on how legislative staff should act and prioritize their task and what they do.

Finally came the wrap up session with briefing from each group, and will start the second part from Legislative fellows congress tomorrow which will take place and start with a tour in the white house!