JNS.org – The Israeli Education Ministry is launching a course to train students to be young “online ambassadors” for Israel on social networks. The time students spend engaged in these public diplomacy efforts will count towards the mandatory number of volunteer hours students must complete before graduating high school.

Around 400 students will take part in the first online ambassadors course. The training will take place in a virtual classroom, in which students from across the country will be connected. The students will contact youth organizations abroad to talk about life in Israel.

Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett said, “In sports, the best are discovered when they are young. The same goes for public diplomacy. Our ‘young ambassadors’ can be the future reservists of Israeli public diplomacy.”