North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Command Transformation
November 1, 2013
NATO Civil-Military Fusion Centre Reaches Out to Young Members in Community
MCS 2nd Class Adam Bennett, NATO ACT Public Affairs
Over 200 high school students from the Global Studies and World Languages Academy at Tallwood High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia attended a recent NATO ACT sponsored education and knowledge sharing exchange.
The NATO Civil-Military Fusion Centre (CFC), in coordination with Allied Command Transformation (ACT), presented a brief on Hezbollah to Tallwood High School which serves as the NATO challenge sponsor. The CFC briefed on current topics as part of a NATO effort to engage with the local community.
Linda Lavender, Complex Coverage Team Lead at CFC, briefed on Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon, and the potential long term effects of the group’s decision to officially announce and escalate its involvement within the Syrian conflict.
“This is great,” said Lavender. “It is really important for NATO to find ways to reach out and build relationships with the community that they represent and support. I think it’s important for young students to become educated about some of the emerging issues evolving outside their borders.”
The academy aims to prepare students to contribute to the world community through multicultural and international perspectives in languages, geography, history, politics and economics. A CFC-published report on Hezbollah’s role in Syria was used as the basis for the brief. Inviting CFC, a NATO office whose primary mission is facilitating knowledge sharing between civilian and military entities, gives the students broader perspective on world issues.
“It’s a great resource to have NATO come and talk to us,” said Kelly Walker, director of the Global Studies and World Languages Academy and teacher at Tallwood High School. “It adds credibility to what we are doing here at the Global Studies Academy and I think the kids got a lot out of it. We have been studying the region and we have an exchange with Israel so learning all that we can about the region is crucial.”
Lavender briefed two separate sessions to the students, each time to an audience of 100. The students were eager to engage and asked questions during the brief – and continued the discussions on afterwards.
“The kids were engaged and asked great questions,” said Lavender. “They were thoughtful and they responded very well to the information being presented. I think this is a wildly successful venture and it should be continued.”
The CFC, first introduced by ACT in 2008, is a core capability of NATO Allied Command Operations (ACO) in Europe. It has emerged as a trusted and reliable source of information for civilian and military organisations seeking to enhance respective situational awareness within the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, as well as other emerging complex crises worldwide.
The CFC has also presented briefings on this topic to organisations such as; Headquarters Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, Naval Warfare Development Command, UN Operations Crises Centre, and the Maritime Civil Affairs and Security Training Command.
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