Alumni addressed global challenges through SDG projects, mentorship, and community-driven initiatives.
Do you wonder how you can improve your family, community, or the world? One way is by sharing your home and heart with a Kennedy-Lugar YES student. What begins as an exchange of customs and culture extends throughout a high school and community to touch thousands of lives. If you are a family living in the United States and would be interested in hosting a YES student, please contact one of the placement organizations or fill out an interest form.
Fill out our Host Family interest form and a local representative will be in touch with you about hosting a Kennedy-Lugar YES student.
Hosting an international exchange student benefits everyone involved. Your entire family will learn about a new country and culture without leaving home. Host families and exchange students share daily life, meals, and holidays. They discuss current events in their respective communities and explore cross-cultural perceptions and values. This intimacy creates lasting relationships that ultimately shape the United States' reputation abroad.
“We are honored to have such an incredible person as an exchange student. She delights us with her wit, grace, and kindness every day. Inviting Aqsha into our home has been one of the best things we have ever done.” - Host mother for Aqsha from Indonesia
"My host family […] welcomed me to their home and treated me like their own daughter. They gave me not only a place to stay and live my exchange, but they also gave me the sense of belonging here. They made everything more beautiful, opened my eyes to things in life I never noticed before, and took me to places I used to dream about. They are not only my family, but also the people to whom I should be thankful for inspiring me and for making my experience ten times more special and beautiful." - Nabella Reda, YES-Lebanon
Say "YES" and bring more understanding into the world, beginning with your own family and community! Please fill out our Host Family Interest Form!
In order to live and work in a global society, young people must embrace other ways of living so that they can build intercultural skills and knowledge. Kennedy-Lugar YES students provide a dynamic and creative learning opportunity to U.S. classrooms by bringing alternative perspectives. At the same time, these students gain an understanding of American values and explore new models of leadership.
The YES program also focuses on leadership development and works with those students during the school year to help them develop their skills. When students return home, they draw upon their U.S. experience and share their knowledge and memories in ways that help to increase intercultural awareness and dispel stereotypes that exist about the United States.
Fill out our Host School interest form and a local representative will be in touch with you about hosting a Kennedy-Lugar YES student.