AFS Exchange Program

[dntw8up]

Associated Press 4:43 p.m. ET Feb. 27, 2008

"HALLOWELL, Maine - Jonathan McCullum was in perfect health at 155 pounds when he left last summer to spend the school year as an exchange student in Egypt.

But when he returned home to Maine just four months later, the 5-foot-9 teenager weighed a mere 97 pounds and was so weak that he struggled to carry his baggage or climb a flight of stairs. Doctors said he was at risk for a heart attack.

McCullum says he was denied sufficient food while staying with a family of Coptic Christians, who fast for more than 200 days a year, a regimen unmatched by other Christians."

The full story can be found here: Starving student blames stingy host family - Education - MSNBC.com

[Muffy333]

I was under the impression that AFS students can contact home as much as they want and that there are procedures for what to do when the host home is inappropriate. Obviously something went horribly wrong with Jonathan's placement and AFS has a lot of explaining to do!

[ucsd_ucla_dad]

I read the story and something just doesn't seem right with it. He clearly lost the weight but it's hard to say why for sure.

[mini]

Last summer, my d. received a U.S. State Department scholarship administered by AFS to study intensive Arabic in Cairo. Her first family didn't work out, but AFS made a reasonably quick transition to another family which was WONDERFUl and with whom we are still in touch, and expect to be for a long time. We were in touch with my d. via e-mail, and occasionally, by phone, the entire time. (WE chose to restrict the latter.)

I expect there is much more to the story.

[dntw8up]

It sounds odd to me as well. The host family claims, "The amount of food he ate at each meal was equal to six people." The kid's parents say he never mentioned he was starving because of "Stockholm syndrome." The Committee for Safety of Foreign Exchange Students said exchange programs are rampant with instances of abuse and neglect and this was "not an isolated incident." Now the kid wants to build homes and trails in Zimbabwe. Eating disorders are not a common method of attention seeking for boys but perhaps this young man is an exception...

[gusaspara]

My daughter had a bad experience with AFS also. AFS does discourage contact with home. We wanted to visit her (brought it up even before she left) and were told not to. We were not informed about her location or host family until less than a week before she left. And when she felt she had to leave her first family the AFS reps were of minimal help - the most helpful and sympathetic person she found was the principal of the school she was attending. My advice would be not to send a child who is not extremely self-sufficient and outspoken to this program.

[moewb]

All programs for High School study abroad require extreme self-sufficiency on the part of the student, who must speak up for himself/herself in situations unlike home with limited language skills, and at times, a limited support structure of other students/adults in whom to confide.

Placements can fail - and the student must be willing to speak up and be heard; it is a lesson for some kids from highly supportive, rational homes, to conclude that not every home is like their own. And, it is also an effort - a step outside the box on the part of the student - to conclude that, even with effort, the student is not always responsible for the success or failure of the placement and the student can not always make the placement work.

I do suspect that this is a case in which the AFS support representive SHOULD have intervened, and, even against the student's wishes, FORCED another placement.

[gusaspara]

All that moewb said is true. However, it is still the responsibility for the agency to be reachable and responsive when a living situation is untenable - AFS was not. The upshot of my daughter's experience was that once she did change her living situation she had a wonderful experience, has been back to the country for another summer on her own and plans to go back after she finishes college

[MidwestMom2Kids_]

When an AFS kid comes here from another country, there are generally at least four adults watching them: The host parent(s). The liaison parent(s), like a surrogate aunt and uncle to help out. The local volunteer coordinator. The paid AFS staff member for the region. The host parents are with the student daily of course, but everyone else checks in with the student regularly.
The parents of the foreign AFS kids may not hear where the kid is going until about a month before the kids arrive; sometimes it is not know until as short as a week before. The AFS host families are volunteers. Sometimes it is hard for the local volunteer coordinator to know where a student will be coming.
AFS does not want the parents to visit until the year is over and does not want the kids to go home for Christmas, say. They want the kids immersed in a U.S. high school experience for a year. They certainly don't discourage calling or emailing home once a week, but they discourage daily contact with home family and friends. Again, they want kids immersed in a U.S. high school experience for a year and not feeling overly involved with what they are missing at home.
Anyway, that's how it works when AFS kids come here. We have known kids who have gone away with AFS and had great experiences.
This four month weight loss sounds awful, and it sounds like something really unusual was going on there. I am surprised that AFS didn't catch this. Did you notice that the host family had never had an active teenage boy in the house before? "'The truth is, the boy we hosted for nearly six months was eating for an hour and a half at every meal. The amount of food he ate at each meal was equal to six people,' Hanna said. He added that the boy was active, constantly exercising and playing sports." A lot of us have seen active boys eat A LOT. It sounds like the family didn't get it, and no one did any serious intervening.
AFS kids who come to the US almost always gain weight, possibly because Americans tend to eat larger portions and snack more than people from other countries.