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Six Ecuadorian teenagers met with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter April 10 after winning the "Copia y Coima" contest, showcasing the best poster, speech, or essay against corruption.

The annual contest, sponsored by The Carter Center and a group of Ecuadorian business people, is held in Quito and the coastal provinces. Students are asked to submit works detailing experiences of corruption and what youth can do to combat it. Many students detail incidents of grade-buying and emphasize the need to build strong values that will help young people resist the temptation to take or offer bribes.

"They wanted to provide positive examples to young people of non-corrupt behavior and to encourage students to develop their own strong values," said Dr. Shelley McConnell, associate director of the Center's Americas Program.

The contest is an extension of the Americas Program's Transparency Project that works with governments and civil society to develop monitoring mechanisms to combat corruption in government. Greater transparency in interactions between government and business interactions can improve investor confidence, spur economic growth, provide better public services to the population, and increase public confidence in democratic institutions.

In Ecuador, Americas Program staff have focused on building the capacity of government agencies and civil society organizations to fight corruption and consulted on a national anti-corruption plan. Ecuador is ranked as the most corrupt country in Latin America, according to Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index.

The teenagers told President Carter about their award-winning projects and how they hoped to inspire other students to refrain from cheating in school. They emphasized that values begin at home, and that parents should provide role models of honest behavior rather than blaming the education system. While admiring President Carter for his reputation as an honest politician, the students said they hoped that in the future honesty would become the norm rather than something that needs to be celebrated.

The Ecuadorians were hosted by students of Lovett, a private school in Atlanta that owns Siempre Verde, a 520-acre cloud forest in the Ecuadorian highlands. A research station in the forest supports tropical conservation education programs, which the Ecuadorian high school organizers hope their students can visit soon. While at Lovett, the Ecuadorian students spoke to Spanish classes, learned about the honor code and student government enforcement of it, and consulted with college counselors about applying to universities in the United States.