In a few weeks, 14 members of the Felix Mantilla Little League will board a plane that will cross an ocean and land in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Most of the kids, ages 9 and 10, have never been out of Milwaukee. In Puerto Rico, they will play baseball games against age-group peers. [...] But baseball is not the most important part of the trip. The kids, mostly from low-income families, will visit historic Old San Juan, the Arecibo Observatory and the El Yunque rainforest and will tour the Puerto Rico Sports Hall of Fame.

The 2016 East Global Citizenship Development Seminar (GCDS) organized by the International Association of Students in Economic and Commercial Sciences (AIESEC) was recently held in Shanghai. With the purpose of helping 131 international volunteers from 32 different countries along with 54 Chinese students from mainland universities prepare for six weeks of cultural exchange in China, the seminar allowed the volunteers an opportunity to learn about and respect different cultures and lifestyles.

Some 130 youth representatives from 51 Asia-Europe Meeting (Asem) countries, including Malaysia, will attend the five-day 7th Model Asem in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Themed 20 years of Asem: Partnership for Future through Connectivity, participants will address inter-regional issues on politics, economic and socio-cultural between Asia and Europe. Asean members such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore are expected to discuss on migration, health, environment and education.

Diplomats can only do so much to bridge the divides between their countries and the rest of the world. Good bilateral relations start with strong ties at the governmental level. But as public servants, diplomats operate under significant restraints and there is always a layer of formality that may or may not ever melt. [...] This Sept. 11 marks 60 years since President Dwight D. Eisenhower launched a citizen diplomacy campaign that was initially aimed at improving ties with Japan and Germany through a sister cities initiative.

Pine Forest Charter School’s Cedar Avenue campus became a center of cultural exchange Friday when 25 young African leaders visited the campus for a day of community service. The African visitors are recipients of the Mandela Washington Fellowship, part of President Barack Obama’s Young African Leadership Initiative. The program selects 1,000 applicants, between ages 25 and 35 from various countries in Africa to attend a seven-week program in the United States.

The top human rights body of the United Nations voted on Thursday to appoint an independent monitor to help protect gay and transgender people around the world from violence and discrimination. The U.N. Human Rights Council, based in Geneva, creates an “independent expert” charged with identifying the root causes of violence and discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, and then talking with governments about ways to protect them.

The U.S. Department of State is collaborating with veteran ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes on a 12-day run along the Silk Road — an ancient trade route through Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan — as part of the department’s sports diplomacy program and which will commemorate the 25th anniversary of those countries’ independence from the Soviet Union.

Last October, the Institute of International Education led a delegation of college and university officials from the United States on a cultural immersion trip to Cuba, the first of what officials hoped would be many following the return of diplomatic relations with the country. Since then, thousands of students and dozens of officials from U.S. institutions have traveled to the island in the expanded version of cultural exchange agreements between the two nations.