With a recent grant of $150,000 from the Freeman Foundation, Concordia Language Villages has reached $1.2 million in funding for its critical language programming. The combination of five grants during the past year will help continue and strengthen the Language Villages' internationally-renowned immersion language instruction in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and other highly important world languages.

The Freeman Foundation was established in 1994 in memory of Mansfield Freeman, a co-founder of AIG, to support international understanding between the United States and the nations of East Asia. The grant will benefit the Chinese, Japanese and Korean Language Villages.

Other support in the past year includes:

• A $350,000 grant from the National Security Language Initiative program STARTALK, a government initiative aimed at increasing the number of Americans learning critical need languages. The funding will be used for student scholarships and continuing education for teachers of Arabic and Chinese.

• A $150,000 Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Innovation Fund award for scholarships to the Arabic, Chinese, Korean & Russian Language Villages. This fund supports international study and language immersion for high-achieving, low-income high school students.

• A $300,000 grant from the Luso-American Development Foundation to be used toward the start-up costs of the new Portuguese Language Village, scheduled to open in summer 2008. The foundation was created by the government of Portugal in 1985 and is recognized as one of the prominent actors in transatlantic relations.

• A $250,000 appropriation by Congress to fund the new Arabic Language Village that opened during summer 2006. The money was used to underwrite the creation of the curriculum and will continue to ensure that the program is culturally supported.






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