WASHINGTON (October 23, 2014) – The Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, U.S. Embassy Islamabad, and Meridian International Center are pleased to announce the 2014 Emerging Leaders of Pakistan (ELP) Fellows. This Fellowship supports and empowers the next generation of Pakistan’s civil society leaders by creating a sustainable forum of collaboration.
This year’s contingent of fifteen dynamic civil society leaders, who were selected through a highly competitive process, embody Pakistan’s ethnic, religious, and geographic diversity. They are educators, entrepreneurs, journalists, social activists, social innovators, and community organizers who are working to solve some of Pakistan’s most pressing challenges. They are committed to their communities and country and represent a broad cross-section of Pakistani society. For all of them, this represents their first visit to the United States.
The ELP Fellows will visit the United States November 1-23, with stops in New York City; Washington, DC; Detroit; and the San Francisco/Bay Area. The goal of their visit is to encourage peer-to-peer collaboration, strengthen relations between Americans and Pakistanis, and empower the fellows with skills and innovative ideas through interactive meetings.
They will meet with high-level officials from the White House, US Department of State, Department of Defense, media, civil society, philanthropic organizations, and the private sector, including former US Secretary of State George P. Shultz; Steve Inskeep of National Public Radio; Bhairavi Desai of the New York City Taxi Workers Alliance; Jacqueline Novogratz of Acumen; Pakistan’s Ambassador Jalil Abbas Jilani; members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and foundations such as Carnegie Corporation of New York and Rockefeller Brothers Fund. They will also visit the United Nations, the New York Times, National Broadcasting Company (NBC), and National Endowment for Democracy, among others.
