YES is an innovative high school exchange program funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. This public diplomacy initiative builds bridges of international understanding, especially between Americans and people in countries with significant Muslim populations.
YES Alumni JOIN NOW!>>
Students, families and alumni: Share your stories, news and events Here !
Since 2003, over 2000 young people from countries such as Ghana, Turkey, Egypt and Indonesia have come to the US to live as a “son” or “daughter” in an American family and attend high school for an academic year or semester. YES students share their host families’ everyday lives,
engage in school activities and volunteer in their communities.
They learn about American society and values while helping
to educate others about the customs and culture of their homelands.
February 08, 2009 – Back home in the Indonesian city of Semarang, Dinar Puspita, a slight and cheerful 17-year-old, says her afternoon prayers with friends at the mosque in her school. In Riverdale in the Bronx, Dinar is now a high school exchange student in an increasingly Orthodox neighborhood where synagogues are prevalent.
Read more >>
April 13, 2009 – More than two dozen secondary school students from the predominantly Muslim south of Thailand spent March 22 to 28 living with American host families in Bangkok to prepare for their high school exchange program in the United States next year.
“Sometimes a bunch of kids can accomplish more in a small amount of time than a country can achieve in decades. We YES students started to remove the misconceptions and initiated a movement against prejudice. We have taken a step for world peace.”
Emrah from Turkey, hosted in Washington
“I believe it is amazing and in fact unbelievable how the YES scholarship
in such a short time has already changed people. Natural parents here in Egypt, after being extremely worried about their children, are feeling very much at ease now. The warmth that their children are finding within their host families in the States is being projected and magnified here”
Sherifa Fayez, Director of AFS Egypt
 |
