Listen to actual chat audio on selected questions!

Rick: Welcome to T2A webchat for December 5th. We’re learning about international student exchange from Urs-Rainer von Arx, Vice-President of AFS. AFS is an international, voluntary, non-governmental, non-profit organization. It provides intercultural learning opportunities to help people develop the knowledge, skills and understanding needed to create a more just and peaceful world. The program started in 1919 and is active in more than 50 countries. More than 11,000 students, young adults and teachers participate in AFS programs each year. AFS is marking International Volunteer Day today so we’re glad to have Urs with us.

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Andrianavalomalala, Madagascar (email): What is AFS?

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Urs: AFS is an international organization that is dedicated to intercultural learning. In practice that means we send students from one country to another country. They're mainly between 16 and 18 years old. Most of them go to school in the other country and live with a host family.

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Tayyab, Pakistan (email): Does AFS have plans to come to Pakistan?

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Urs: AFS tries to be present in as many countries in the world as possible. We currently have between 50 and 55 countries that are in the network of AFS, but our partner organizations exchange with at least 20 additional countries. Our current priority for development is for China and India. In regard to Pakistan it would be an attractive country for AFS, in particular because it is a predominately Muslim country. However, our number 1 priority is the safety and security of our students. So, what we would need to open Pakistan is first a clear interest from Pakistan, and second a risk assessment that would assure that the country is safe enough for us to operate in.

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Erin: Why was AFS created?

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Urs: AFS was created originally with a completely different purpose than it has today. The letters AFS stand for American Field Service. In 1914 a number of young Americans associated with the American hospital in Paris created a volunteer ambulance service to carry the wounded from the battlefields of France. This ambulance service was revitalized in the Second World War. American volunteers worked along side of the allied armies in the battlefields of the Second World War to perform the same service.

On September 29, 1946 a large group of those volunteers gathered in New York to decide what to do with the organization. Having witnessed the horrors of the two wars they decided to do something so that it would be much less likely that there would be such wars in the future. When they carried wounded off the battlefields it didn't matter whether they were German, French, British, American or from any other nation. The wounded became humans to the volunteers. And so the decision was to bring young people at that time to the United States to have the experience of getting to know Americans in their homes and communities; to create the kind of bonds between people that prevent wars. That is why that among the early countries that participated were Germany and Japan.

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Melissa Mitchell: Good morning. Why is international exchange so important today?

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Urs: Intercultural exchange is as important today as it ever was, because the world today is much more inter-related. That means that all of us around the world are much more directly impacted by things that happen elsewhere in the world. If anything, the number of crises and conflicts seems to increase in this kind of world. Therefore the number of people that can appreciate differences and are committed to building international understanding and world peace needs to increase dramatically. The future world leaders must have an understanding of others and other cultures to come up with new solutions to old and new problems. AFS is an organization that provides that kind of education in global leadership and creates global citizens.

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Mo, Baghdad: Hello, Why is the age group from 16-18? Why not college students, for example?

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Urs: AFS actually started with college-aged students, but it decided that because of the way that college students are housed the participants actually don't come into as much close cultural contact with the host community. AFS students go to high school or similar in other countries. They live with a family instead of in a dormitory or flat and they share in the life of the community and become members of the community. The impact on themselves as well as the host community is many fold. I have an example in my own family. My daughter went on an Erasmus exchange (university age) to Hamburg, Germany and she was living in an international student dormitory and at the end of the year she realized that she had acquired many friends from many different countries. But, both she and her exchange friends knew few people from Hamburg. This would not have happened within an AFS program. In addition there is some research that indicates that values are still more open to influence when they are between the ages 15 and 19 then they are later when they are at university age.

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Erin: Today is International Volunteer Day. Why is this an important day for AFS?

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Urs: The International Volunteer day is important to us, because AFS is a volunteer organization. The ambulance drivers of our origins were volunteers and with over 30,000 active volunteers worldwide today, AFS is among the largest international volunteer organizations. Volunteers in the AFS are engaged directly with students and the host families through recruitment, screening and support throughout the entire program, planning and conducting activities, but also in running the volunteer AFS organizations. Throughout the world we have over 50 national AFS organizations and each of them employs a few staff and the rest are volunteers. The AFS host families are also volunteers; we do not pay host families.

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Melissa Mitchell: What kinds of students choose AFS programs?

Urs: Many different students, but they share some things in common; curiosity and a spirit of adventure, an openness to new experiences in life, a willingness to learn, but also share their own backgrounds and a big desire to make new friends.

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Erin: What criteria does AFS use to match students with host families?

Urs: In each application AFS not only asks for dates and facts, it asks the participants to describe themselves, their families and background and it does the same with the host families. The applications of the students are sent to the host country and our experienced volunteers read those applications and match families with participants. Again, the criteria they use are common interest as well as a number of traits based on experience that would make a good match. The interesting thing in our experience is there is nothing more decisive for a good match then the willingness for the student and host family to make it work.

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Melissa Mitchell: Can anyone go on an AFS program? For example if they use a wheelchair, are blind, or deaf?

Urs: We ask for medical histories of all of our students and we try to match students that need special assistance with host families willing to accommodate and support those needs. While we do find such host families, we can't guarantee that.

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Erin: How long do AFS programs last?

Urs: AFS programs have different durations. It could be anywhere from three to four weeks all the way up to eleven months. Our core programs are either five or eleven months (an academic semester or a year). People who want to learn more about our program can access our web site www.afs.org. The web site also provides links to the web sites of all of our other international AFS organizations.

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Rick:: That wraps today’s T2A webchat. Our thanks to Urs-Rainer von Arx, Vice-President of AFS and to you for joining us. We hope you can join us on Wednesday, December 12th at 1800 hours universal time, when we meet Colin Mathers. He is Editor-in Chief of the World Health Organization. Dr. Mathers recently completed new projections of global, regional, and country mortality and burden of disease from 2002 to 2030. He has spearheaded the efforts of the World Health Organization Global Burden of Disease project. That’s Wednesday, December 12th at 1800 hours universal time on voanews.com See you then!

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