Teenagers and exchange programs
Fri Feb 29, 2008 at 12:23:02 PM PDT
Overseas exchange programs are not uncommon for teenagers, but one Maine teenager got more (or less) than he expected on his year abroad. Jonathan McCullum of Maine spent a year in Egypt. The teenager came back having lost more than a third of his body weight and blames his host family, Coptic Christians who fast “for more than 200 days of the year.” Jonathan, 17, lost 57lbs in his year in Egypt, staggering home to his parents at a mere 97.8lbs, according to this article in The Age
But he does not view the experience as a culture clash. Rather, he said, it reflected mean and stingy treatment by his host family, whose broken English made it difficult to communicate.
"The weight loss concerned me, but I wanted to stick out the whole year," he said in an interview at his family's home outside Augusta.
Friends and teachers at his English-speaking school in Egypt urged him to change his host family, but he stayed put after being told the other home was in a dangerous neighbourhood of Alexandria.
After returning to the US, he was hospitalised for nearly two weeks. The 17-year-old has regained about 9kg, but his parents say he's not the same boy he was when he left under the auspices of AFS Intercultural Programs.
The host family in Egypt deny that the boy was forced to fast with them, and say he ate normally with them.
The host father, Shaker Hanna, rejected McCullum's story as "a lie," suggesting that he made it up because his parents were hoping to recover some of the money they paid for his stay as compensation.
"The truth is, the boy we hosted for nearly six months was eating for an hour and a half at every meal. The amount of food he ate at each meal was equal to six people," Hanna said. He added that the boy was active, constantly exercising and playing sports.
Hanna, an engineer, said his family went out of its way to prepare special foods, including fish and chicken, for McCullum during the fast periods.
McCullum disputes that. The family served meat early in his stay, he said, but that ended during the fast period.
I gotta say, I’m siding with the emaciated boy on this one. But the questions arises – why didn’t the parents know about this? Apparently, AFS Intercultural Studies encourage the parents not to contact their children because it interferes with their immersion in the host country. I can’t find any sign of that policy on AFS’s website, which states the following on their risk management policies:
A hallmark of AFS is its attention to managing the risks of educational exchange.
A risk is a chance that something could go wrong, and AFS puts a priority on its work to control and reduce risks for participants on AFS exchanges.
Risk Management doesn’t just mean buying insurance and talking about safety. It’s an entire system of methods and procedures that looks at where problems could occur on exchanges and how best to address them. At AFS there is a team of people focused on this goal.
Risk Management doesn’t guarantee that a difficulty can’t occur anywhere in the world, but it does head off many that might otherwise interfere with a good exchange experience. AFS uses internal tools like Quality Standards for screening and training, and external tools like professional monitoring of country conditions, to help keep risks from turning into problems.
On the occasion when something does go wrong, AFS is known for the quality of its response. If someone gets ill or hurt, for example, AFS’ excellent travel/medical program allows us to put their care first. If someone needs help in their host country, the AFS support network of thousands of returnees and volunteers provides someone local to assist. Sometimes even a problem can turn into a success, through good risk management.
International exchange is a journey for a participant into something new, and new things can bring risks. Risk Management at AFS makes it possible to embrace the new and still have a safe, successful exchange.
AFS did not comment in the article, so there is no way of knowing their reaction or if they’ve taken steps to investigate the situation. There wasn’t any information on this particular instance on the website either. I have to say that if a foreign exchange agency told me that as a parent I shouldn’t be in contact with my child while s/he is overseas, the last thing they’d see is my ar$e disappearing out the door with my child. That’s just stupid. Plus, even though I’m trying to be non-judgemental, I’m entertaining some serious doubts about this family. Jonathan McCullum is apparently planning to go to Zimbabwe to “help build houses and trails.” Ok, I’m really sorry, but your son just comes home having lost 57lbs and then signs up to go to Zimbabwe, a country known to have serious food shortages, not to mention a totally dysfunctional government not known to be particularly welcoming to NGO volunteers? You might want to rethink that one before signing that permission slip, Mom and Dad.
So tell me, fellow MTs – under what circumstances, if any, would you let your teenager go overseas?
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