6/14/2007 - AFS Intercultural Programs Opens Chapter in Mumbai
The Mumbai volunteer chapter of AFS Intercultural Programs was formally opened today at an event at the RPG Enterprises offices. Arvind Agrawal, RPG President HR, and Pilloo Mullan, VP Communications at Clariant Chemicals (India) Limited, welcomed the many guests and gave some personal recollections and reflections from their experience as AFS program participants in 1960’s when AFS last had a program with India. Ebbe Skovdal, Chief Development and Branding Officer of AFS International in New York, and David Crespo, AFS India Country Development Director, covered international AFS developments and the accomplishments in India since the re-introduction of the program in India two years ago.
Every year AFS Intercultural Programs provides nearly 12,000 students from around the world with opportunities to live in another country. These – mostly high school age – young people are immersed in the life of their new community, living with local host families and attending school. Says Ebbe Skovdal: “This is a most powerful educational experience, which benefits the students and host families for their rest of their lives.”
About 100 Indian students have participated over the past two years and the plans are for a rapid expansion of the program before the end of the decade. AFS India will also start hosting foreign students from abroad this year. 14 students from Europe will arrive in early July to be hosted by Indian families over the coming year. “In order to do this,” we are building local volunteer organizations all over India as we are now doing in Mumbai,” states David Crespo. “Based on our successful experience so far, we are confident we will soon have seven new chapters in addition to the seven already established.”
The culmination of the Mumbai chapter opening event was the local launch of a petition drive asking world leaders for increased support of intercultural student exchange programs. The worldwide launch took place at the Nobel Peace Center in April. It is sponsored by AFS, which has been offering intercultural education exchange programs for 60 years. AFS invites all organizations and individuals who believe in promoting peace and understanding through youth exchange programs to join. The petition has a goal of gathering more than one million signatures and calls upon the world’s leaders to “enable young people everywhere to live and study in cultures other than their own by significantly expanding youth exchange programs.” The on-line petition can be found on the web at www.exchanges4peace.org
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