Youth leaders from the Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago dashed around the Lawn this week as part of a scavenger hunt designed to familiarize them with Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village.

The University of Virginia’s Center for Politics hosted the 36 school students and six educators as part of the Youth Ambassadors Program. Operated by the Center’s Global Perspectives on Democracy Program in partnership with the Georgetown University Center for Intercultural Education and Development, the exchange was sponsored by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

The group participated in educational events and programs focusing on leadership development and civic engagement; worked with Habitat for Humanity on a service project; and attended a session on politics and government with politics professor Larry J. Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics. The visitors also met with Charlottesville-area peers and hosted a Caribbean-culture street performance on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall. The exchange concluded with a study tour of the Eastern Shore of Virginia that focused on environmental protection and entrepreneurship.