Welcome an AFS Exchange Participant Into Your Family
Each year, AFS exchanges 11,000 outstanding high school students and teachers from around the world who want to experience what it’s like to live and study in another country.
Most families have no idea how much they’ll gain by sharing their lives with a young person from another country until they become an AFS Host Family. Imagine what it would be like having an AFS Brother or Sister from another part of the world. You can create a friendship that will last far beyond the time you share together.
This experience forever changes the lives of not only your family, but so many other people as well. What begins as an exchange of kindness, customs, and culture within a family extends throughout a high school and community to touch thousands of lives.
Why Host an AFS Exchange Participant?
AFS Host Families have reported great rewards for opening their homes and hearts to AFS Exchange Participants. By hosting an AFS Exchange Participant you, too, can:
- Enrich your family’s daily life simply by sharing it with a young person from another culture and country
- Draw your family closer together
- Introduce a new culture and customs to your children
- Show your part of India to an outstanding young person or teacher from another country
- Meet your community leaders by participating in AFS activities
- See India and our culture through new eyes
- Develop a lifelong connection with your hosted participant and his or her family
- Help an outstanding young person or teacher grow into a more confident and knowledgeable adult
- Directly benefit you and/or your children through increased knowledge, understanding and communication
- Extend your family to include a son or daughter you never had
- Provide you with worldwide networks that last a lifetime
- Allow you to experience India and its culture from a new perspective
- Allow you to learn about the customs, ideas and values of another culture
- Allow you to experience the increased warmth and vibrancy of an extended family
- Make a positive and real contribution towards creating a more just and peaceful world through intercultural understanding
- Allow you to develop lifelong bonds and friendships
“You gain a lot more than you give and the more you put into making it work the better it works. It lets you grow as a family and gives you a new view on the world.”
