Hosting a Youth Exchange student from another country is a challenge — and an opportunity. Involvement with an exchange student challenges a host family to become familiar with another culture, while providing the opportunity to share a student's hopes and ambitions. These challenges and opportunities promise to enrich the lives of every member of your family.

Because Rotary has student exchanges with more countries than any other exchange organization, you could have a student from any one of 167 countries living in your home. Not only will you provide an unforgettable service to a student from abroad, but you also will educate your family about the world around them.

Types of Exchanges
Each year, local Rotary districts and clubs worldwide arrange thousands of international exchanges for high school-aged students. The primary goal of the program is to foster world understanding by way of intercultural exchange.

There are two principal types of exchanges:

Long-term exchanges:
These exchanges usually last an academic year in the host country, during which the student lives with more than one host family (usually three families for three months at a time) and attends school.

Short-term exchanges:
These vary from a few weeks to three months. They often take place when school is not in session and usually do not include an academic program. Short-term exchanges usually involve a home stay experience with a family in the host country, but also can be organized as international youth camps and tours that bring together students from many countries.

The Minneapolis Rotary Club has a committee that helps to select High school students recommended by their school counselors to spend a school year abroad.  The committee is also responsible for finding the visiting students host homes through Rotarians or non-Rotarians and helping them as necessary.  If you are interested in working on this committee or would like to provide a home for a visiting student for 3 months you can contact the committee chair by clicking here.