Being a good citizen doesn’t involve being born here.  It means doing what is right in the moment.

Foreign exchange student Aleksander Basilaia demonstrated this concept when a crisis arose thousands of miles away from his home country of Georgia. One day shortly after arriving in the United States, while he was out shopping with his host family, Aleksander encountered a woman having a medical emergency.  She was unable to breathe properly, and without hesitation, Aleksander jumped in to help her by instructing her to lay on her side, helping her to breathe and stay calm until paramedics arrived to stabilize her.

Aleksander, a junior, comes from Georgia, a country in Europe, that borders Russia, Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Aleksander was nominated by DHS counselor Evan Halstead for the Character Counts Citizenship Award despite only being in America for a couple of months. Aleksander won the Character Counts Award for saving the woman’s life while she was in a medical crisis.  When asked why he helped this random woman, Aleksander said, “It was the right thing to do.  I learned a lot from being a Boy Scout in Georgia.¨  Additionally, he helped to break up a fight between two girls on campus.  

His caring attitude and his ability to act swiftly in an emergency are the main reasons Mr. Halstead nominated him for the award.  His selfless actions that day saved a woman’s life, making him more than deserving of the Character Counts Award.