2007 Doors to Diplomacy Award Winners Announced

"Doors 2 Cambodia" is the winning  website. (Photo courtesy of "Doors 2    Cambodia").

The U.S. Embassy is pleased to announce that a website dedicated to Cambodia was selected as one of two winning websites for the U.S. State Department's 2007 Doors to Diplomacy Award, which is co-sponsored by Global SchoolNet. The awards recognize the websites that best teach young people about the importance of international affairs and diplomacy. Participants, ranging in age from 13 to 18, included more than 190 student teams from 38 countries.

The winning site on Cambodia is "Doors 2 Cambodia". The site was built by a team of three students in Rochester, Minnesota. The team built upon a service class trip to Cambodia promoting citizen diplomacy. Their website shows what they learned about the country and the specific projects they undertook to support education and advocate for human rights.

Each student member of the two winning Doors to Diplomacy Award teams will receive a $2,000 scholarship.  In addition, the winning coaches will each receive a $500 cash award.

Judging was performed by student peers and educational professionals, with the final selections made by a team of State Department judges from the Bureau of Public Affairs. The winning site on Cambodia will be linked from both the U.S. Embassy's main web page at cambodia.usembassy.gov and the State Department's youth site at www.future.state.gov later this month.

Global SchoolNet is a non-profit, Internet-based education program. The Doors to Diplomacy Award was specially created for CyberFair, a contest that encourages students and educators to join together to build high-quality, educational websites on a variety of topics. These website entries will be available on the web as learning tools to millions of people around the globe.

To learn more about Doors to Diplomacy projects, visit http://www.globalschoolnet.org/GSH/doors/index.html