San Dimas High School senior Nadia Naghedi Baradaran Hajjar is one of 650 winners of the National Security Language Initiative for Youth Scholarships.
The scholarships are awarded for students partaking in overseas immersion programs to learn languages not commonly taught in the U.S.
Hajjar plans go to Morroco this summer to study Arabic, in a program offered by peacekeeping organization Legacy International.
The youth scholarships are funded by the U.S. Department of State and administered by a consortium of nonprofit organizations.
The goals of the scholarship program include sparking a life-long interest in foreign languages and cultures, and developing a corps of young Americans with the skills necessary to advance international dialogue in the private, academic or government sectors.
