Why Host with AYA

Hosting a student from a foreign country is an opportunity to enrich your life! Each year, hundreds of American families choose to host a teenager from another country to:

• Cultural Exchange: Immerse yourself in another culture without leaving home and share your American culture with someone new.
• Personal Growth: Fosters empathy, communication skills, and adaptability as you navigate cultural differences and learn to welcome a new member into your home.
• Global Perspective: Encourage critical thinking, empathy, and a broader worldview, ultimately fostering global citizenship and interconnectedness.
• Lifelong Connections: Hosting an exchange student often leads to the formation of lifelong friendships and connections.
• Educational Enrichment: Provide educational benefits for your entire family. For host children, interacting with a student from another country can enhance their language skills, cultural awareness, and curiosity about the world. Likewise, the host family can share their own knowledge and experiences, enriching the student's understanding of their host country's history, society, and culture.
• Gratitude & Perspective: Many host families have reported that hosting an exchange student allowed them to gain a completely new appreciation for their own families and communities. Through the fresh perspective of an international student, they began to see their everyday lives in a different light. These families expressed gratitude for the seemingly ordinary moments—shared meals, conversations, and daily routines—that transformed into something extraordinary as they welcomed a new family member into their daily lives.
• Wanderlust: Hosting can inspire a passion for travel, language learning, and intercultural exploration, sparking a lifelong interest in global affairs and cross-cultural communication.

When you host a student from another country, you’ll be surprised by how much you will learn about yourself, your family, your community and the wonderful world around you!