Cluster Programs

YES, and FLEX are two of the programs sponsored by the Educational and Cultural Affairs Bureau of the United States Department of State (formerly USIA), aim to cultivate and preserve enduring ties between the people of cooperating nations.

In 1991, the collapse of the Soviet Union brought an end to the Cold War. Within one year, the 15 republics that comprised the USSR emerged from the iron curtain and declared their autonomy. The Freedom Support Act, sponsored by Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, provided funding for citizen exchanges between the United States and the Newly Independent States. Bradley envisioned the Act as a way to promote peace and understanding between the citizens of these nations, building democracy from the ground up.

For 10 years the Freedom Support Act/Future Leaders Exchange Program (FSA/FLEX) has empowered students to build lasting bridges of friendship and understanding in their U.S. host communities. Many have already returned to put their experience in the U.S. to work to help build the futures of their home countries and communities.

The September 11th terrorist attacks of 2001 and the apparent negative view of Americans held in some regions, as well as the anti-Islamic or anti-Arab sentiment that gripped some places in the United States, brought renewed focus to the need for improved understanding across our cultures. Having long known that the benefits of high school exchange programs extend beyond the student into the community at large, the international education community responded to this call with an initiative to increase exchanges between the United States and countries with significant Muslim populations. 2003-2004 marked the inaugural year of the Partners for Learning Youth Exchange Study (YES) Program.

While many exchange programs today exist in a setting of positive diplomatic relations between participating countries, the YES program begins in a time of heightened distrust and negative regard across the cultures of participating countries. Natural families of our YES students put a great deal of trust into their children’s host families and communities. In many ways, the first round of YES students and host families laid the groundwork for future peaceful relations, based on a foundation of mutual understanding, between our cultures.

While these scholarship programs were created with their own aims at different points in history, they are all similar in that they originated as bills passed by Congress, representing the will of the public to support intercultural learning as an important aspect of U.S. public diplomacy. Many communities that have hosted exchange students or sent their own children on exchanges overseas know that the benefits of exchange programs spread far beyond the individual participants. Families who host, teachers and friends in schools, volunteers and others in the community who interact with the student all benefit from getting to know a young person from a different culture. Belief in the goodwill and personal skills fostered through exchange programs is what fuels the continued commitment of resources to programs like CB and FLEX and creates the impetus for new ones like the Partnerships for Learning YES Initiative.

At the community level, the sponsored students’ experience is much like that of any other AFS student. The goals of their programs are primarily met by living with their host family and attending school. They participate in local orientations, meet with their liaisons once a month, and their support issues go through the same local channels.

However, sponsored students are also responsible for participating in a number of educational activities designed to enhance their insights into how the U.S. functions, provide impetus for a broader view of the U.S. than they might find in their immediate surroundings and assist them in gaining an understanding of how positive leadership can be exercised. For this reason, our sponsored students are placed in groups or “clusters” within Area Teams within geographically close enough proximity that they can gather six or eight times a year, guided by volunteers who help them to fulfill these learning objectives. These volunteers, who have come to be known as “Cluster Coordinators” lend their skills and experience to help achieve the cross-cultural understanding envisioned by the AFS Ambulance Drivers.

Please contact Holly Dowe 920-887-3117, dowe@powerweb.net
or Carol Yohn 920-623-5248, cey619@wildblue.net

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