Warren Bobrow (Westchester Rotary Club) is our District Rotary Youth Exchange (RYE) Officer, and owns a consulting company for hiring employees.  8000 students from 80 countries are participating in exchanges, and 2500 students involve US participation.  He introduced John Jegede of Nigeria (Yoruba ethnic group), whose father has been involved in Rotary.  John is a Junior at Miracosta High School and is enjoying school activities and his year with host families here.
 
 
Students are 15-18½ years of age when they begin their year abroad in mid-August.  Students arriving in the US start with a train tour around our country, and then stay with usually 2-3 host families during the year.  Students participate in family and school activities and sports, and make many new friends, quickly becoming fluent in the language.
 
The host Club has a Youth Exchange Counselor who is not in a host family.  Host Clubs have about $100 per month expenses for Rotary events.  Training is provided in advance for host families, who are responsible for providing food, room and transportation for the student.  Ideally, host families should have their own children at home.  The student needs to stay at the same school for the entire school year, so host families need to be near the school.
 
Outbound Youth Exchange students to other countries are sponsored by a Rotary Club here, which is responsible for about $200 expenses for jacket, pins and banners.  The student needs to know Rotary by being involved in Club activities before leaving.  Our District has room for recruiting more outbound students.  The students need to have a sense of adventure, interest in other cultures, be good representatives of Rotary, and may need to know another language if going to a country with that language, although students pick up fluency quite rapidly when immersed in a different culture.
 
There is also a Short-Term Exchange, which will be arranged between individual families in 2 countries who each have a student of suitable age.  Each student will stay for 3 weeks with the other student at home with the other family during the summer.  The New Generations Exchange will be for 19-27-year-olds, lasting about 3 weeks-3 months and usually involving some planned event such as an internship, service project or course of study.
 
Rotary International requires specified youth protection precautions for students in each participating exchange District.  Students arrange their own airfare and personal expenses.  Warren encourages Rotarians to recruit suitable outgoing exchange students, to have Clubs sponsor incoming exchange students, and to recruit hosting families.  He can be reached at 310 670-4175, or Warren@allaboutperformance.biz.