Press release from the American Councils for International Education:
Want to give your family an incredible experience while building people-to-people understanding across the world? The nonprofit American Councils for International Education is now accepting applications for families interested in hosting a foreign exchange student in Buncombe and Henderson counties, including the City of Asheville, for the 2019-20 school year. These exceptional high-school students, from 50+ countries ranging from Albania to Tanzania, have won scholarships supported by the US State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to spend a year attending high school in the US, sharing their culture with an American community and learning about US values and culture. This is part of our nation’s 60-year public diplomacy effort aimed at building stronger international understanding at the grass-roots level. In the words of one host parent, “It’s pretty hard to hate people if you have someone from that place who you love.”
American Councils places exchange students (ages 15-17) in the US through two programs:
- The Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Program (http://inbound.americancouncils.org/programs/yes), established in October 2002 in response to September 11, 2001. It offers students from countries with significant Muslim populations exposure to life in the U.S., and seeks to foster increased understanding and mutual respect between the U.S. and the 38 countries.
- The Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) Program (http://inbound.americancouncils.org/programs/flex) brings students representing 17 countries from Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine. Since its inception in 1993, FLEX has brought over 26,000 exchange students to the US.
Deadline for applications is May 30, but families who apply in March and April have a much greater chance for a successful placement, as the pool of students is limited.
Please note: School board regulations in the area require that host families to have a child of their own attending the same school as the exchange student.
Learn more at www.facebook.com/WNCExchangeStudents and http://inbound.americancouncils.org/why-host or e-mail John Staatz, local coordinator for American Councils (staatz@msu.edu).
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