Along with Vince Alongi, who at the time was responsible for the embassy’s social media and was my road companion for ten years, we had noticed a great need for new opportunities.

At the end of each long workday, we had the custom of having a whisky and smoking a cigar while reviewing what the following day would bring. And always, on a recurring basis, the topic of "doing something" for the youth of the interior would come up.

Thus, as we were devouring the kilometers on the return trip to Montevideo, "Youth Correspondents" was born—a program that sought to give young people the opportunity to be journalists.

As soon as we returned to the office—that is, the day after getting back—the first thing we did was pitch the idea to our boss, Susan Bridenstine, who became just as enthusiastic as we were. Such was the eagerness and interest sparked by the project that no one in the office stopped participating, collaborating, or pitching ideas. In addition to Vince, everyone pitched in wherever necessary: Silvana Patrone, Pablo Castro, Blanquita Gari, Marcelo Serra, Mauricio Puente, Adela Durán, Lucía Arbelbide, and Verónica Pérez Urioste.

The first problem that arose was funding, since our budget did not have the necessary funds for an "off-program" program, if you'll pardon the redundancy. But luck was on our side. Around that time, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had created a special fund to finance original projects that met a series of pre-established goals and objectives.

That is where our initiative went. And destiny would have it that not only was it approved and taken as an example for other countries, but we were granted five times the money we requested. Youth Correspondents was now a reality.

The program was implemented in mid-2011 and called upon all young people from the interior between 15 and 18 years old whose vocation was in journalism. The requirement to participate was having no prior experience.

Each of the young and vocational correspondents provided their materials from their home departments, reporting on the various news events happening in their towns, thereby bringing the realities of the interior closer to the capital. In this way, 18 budding journalists spent a year doing journalistic coverage, writing on their own blogs, and participating in various profession-related activities, such as workshops and seminars taught by professionals from prominent media outlets who shared their experience in the field. Four were rewarded with a work trip to the United States, visiting the cities of Washington D.C. and Miami.

The 18 youths had the opportunity to attend seminars given by United States government representatives, as well as to interview and exchange views with prominent Uruguayan politicians, who shared their general experience and spoke specifically about the relationship between the work they performed and the press.

They are referred to as "the 18..." because Montevideo was specifically excluded. The program had set out with the objective of giving a voice to residents of the interior, who are often ignored by the capital.

Even today I remember a dialogue that took place in the city of Salto. We were presenting the program to a group of young people at the headquarters of the Uruguay-United States Cultural Alliance, trying to get them excited to participate, when one of the attendees interrupted me. "All very nice, but the same thing always happens: the ones who end up winning are from Montevideo," he told me. Great was his surprise, and that of the other attendees, when I clarified that Montevideo was not part of the program, as it was exclusively intended for the interior of the country. "There are going to be 18 selected participants representing each of the departments," I explained.

Immediately, questions about the details of the program began. In fact, Salto was one of the departments with the highest number of participants, and its representative (a young lady) was one of the four final winners.

Following the proposal, from every corner of the country a group of teenagers dressed up as journalists to publish written articles, videos, and photographs.

Canarios Informados; Artigas News; Eyes on Colonia; Cerro Largo Noticia Joven; Maldonado Online; Paysandú Breaking News; Rivera Informa; and Mirada Salteña were some of the 18 blogs created by the participants featuring news from the interior of Uruguay, which they were required to keep updated.

Each participant was given a netbook and a digital camcorder to work with. We never gave them a break. They had their own initiative to publish topics of interest to them, but not a day went by without us in Montevideo asking them for reports on specific events in each of their departments. They always had homework to do.

The future journalists not only received all the necessary equipment to carry out their work, but they also participated in four seminars featuring journalists, politicians, and other members of society. Two of those seminars were held in Montevideo and the other two in Colonia and Maldonado. There was also no shortage of visits to print media outlets, radio stations, and television channels, where they had the opportunity to interact with their future colleagues.

The first seminar in Montevideo lasted two days and began with an official lunch at the embassy itself, styled like a corporate luncheon, with the keynote speaker being the late former president of Texaco, Minister of Industry and Energy, and ambassador to France, Jorge Lepra. As soon as the lunch ended, the first day of work at the Hotel Ibis began, where for a day and a half they received lectures and talks from the most recognized journalists and correspondents accredited in Uruguay.

At the end of each event, it was our custom—in addition to evaluating the program—to ask the young people about their concerns and requests for the next meeting.

Thus, we dedicated the following seminar to radio. A single phone call to Washington was enough for Iscar Blanco, director of Voice of America for the region, to drop everything and catch the first flight to Montevideo. Iscar, a Colombian married to a Uruguayan woman and with a great sense of humor, tortured the youngsters during two days of sessions at the Hotel Nirvana in Nueva Helvecia, where he barely left them a few hours to rest. Such was the enthusiasm generated by the program that even actor Diego Delgrossi gladly agreed to travel to Nueva Helvecia to share some humor after dinner with the tired correspondents.

The following seminar had a distinctly political profile. The young people had the opportunity to meet former presidents Julio María Sanguinetti and Luis Alberto Lacalle, and the then-vice president of the Republic, Danilo Astori.

Sanguinetti, a thoroughbred journalist, delivered a masterclass for two hours without a pin dropping. The next day, Lacalle—then a senator—hosted them for an entire morning at the Legislative Palace, even stepping away from a Senate session. Not a pin dropped there either. In the afternoon, the doors of the vice president's office opened for these youths from the interior, who had an exchange with Astori on current affairs and asked him more than one tough question, as if they were seasoned journalists.

We reached the final seminar and, as usual, we asked them the mandatory question about upcoming speakers. "Tabaré Vázquez and coach Tabárez" were the unanimous requests of the young people. And off we went to fulfill their wish. But neither of the two agreed to participate in the program. An advisor to the current president told us it was practically impossible and that we should look toward Astori's side.

We contacted coach Tabárez through friends working at Tenfield. I had a telephone conversation in which I explained that it was a group of young people traveling together for a one-time trip from various points in the interior, but he declined the invitation. There was no way to convince him.

"Not even five minutes to take a picture with us?", was the question from the youngsters when we told them that this time we had failed in their request. "Not even five minutes," was our response. "Journalists don't always achieve their goals," I added.

At the tender age of 15, 16, 17, and 18, these adolescents made their voices heard—the voice of the interior of Uruguay. Many of them have since embraced this profession and work with great success in various media outlets in the interior and in Montevideo.