Thanks to AYA host families, thousands of international students have lived and studied in U.S. high schools across the country. Host families empower students with opportunities to interact with each other as well as American classmates and communities. This supports international dialogue, understanding and the development of global skills.
Global skills are becoming highly sought after in the workplace, as technology and issues of international significance continue to require cooperation across boundaries of geography, language and culture. A couple of years ago, Yarsolava, a FLEX student from Ukraine, shared this post about attending a conference with students from 35 different countries. The post touches upon how host families empower students like Yarsolava to find a voice and develop confidence and leadership skills from a foundation of respect and cultural understanding.
Baltimore Conference
By: Yarsolava, AYA Student, Ukraine
This is the picture of me and my friends at Better Understanding for Better World 2013 Baltimore Conference. During those amazing five days I met the exchange students from 35 different countries! Together we discussed global problems and the ways we can help to solve them. “Think globally—act locally” was the main idea that the organizers tried to bring to us.
On this conference I realized that as FLEX alumna I CAN make a change in the world around me and that my work can be even more effective in collaboration with other innovative people which I think is one of the main ideas that FLEX program teaches us.
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