Soon-to-be Saugus High School Senior Alexander Black has been accepted to participate in the U.S. Department of State’s National Security Language Initiative for Youth Program (NSLI-Y) in Latvia.

Black was one of 540 people selected from a pool of thousands of high school students nationwide to participate in the program and receive a scholarship to fund the trip.

He is set to travel to Latvia this summer to study Russian and will live with a host family to become accustomed to the culture and spend time with locals to better understand their language.

In his free time, Black helps with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s fundraising efforts and is involved in the Future Business Leaders of America. He is also an athlete and an honors student.

In college, Black hopes to study international business while learning linguistics.

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) runs this program, which encourages the study of Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Tajiki Persian, Russian, or Turkish.  

This program, which Black is set to participate in, was first launched in 2006 to increase economic prosperity and innovation worldwide by utilizing international dialogue and critical language skills.

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