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WASHINGTON - As a member of the delegation visiting Singapore recently to push the case for bringing the Summer Olympic Games to New York, probably the last thing Congressman Charles B. Rangel expected was a personal welcoming committee.
That is precisely what he got, however, as two young U.S. Embassy interns greeted him warmly and introduced themselves as Charles B. Rangel International Affairs Fellows, assigned to the area under the Howard University foreign affairs program bearing the Congressman's name.
Chelsia Wheeler is a 2004 Rangel Fellow, now enrolled as a graduate student at American University. She is assigned as a summer intern to the U.S. Embassy in Singapore. Among a variety of duties assigned to her was that of organizing the Embassy's July 4th reception which the New York delegation attended.
Her friend, Christen Rhodes, also a 2004 Rangel Fellow, and a graduate student at George Washington University, was visiting Chelsia from her internship assignment at the U.S. Embassy in Laos.
The last time the two were in classes together was in the summer of 2004 when they attended the Howard University Rangel Enrichment Program prior to receiving their State Department assignments.
The Rangel Program offers two internships - one in a Congressional Office on Capitol Hill, and the other at a U.S. Embassy overseas, the current assignments for Wheeler and Rhodes. In addition, the Howard University directed program pays tuition, living expenses, and travel. Upon completion of the master's degree, the Fellows join the diplomatic corps of the State Department as Foreign Service Officers. Designed to increase diversity in the diplomatic service, the program receives funding from the Congress through the Department of State and also has been awarded grants by the MacArthur and UNA Chapman Cox foundations.
The Charles B. Rangel International Affairs Program, which graduated 20 participants in closing ceremonies for 2005 last Friday.
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