American Field Studies, PRogram partner

“I finally was able to break the controlling grip that I had on my emotions and let my heart, and thoughts work together.”

- Summer Search San Francisco Student

Thank You AFS for Fifteen Years of Outstanding Support!

AFS is an international, voluntary, non-governmental, non-profit organization that provides intercultural learning opportunities to help people develop the knowledge, skills and understanding needed to create a more just and peaceful world. Summer Search began our partnership with AFS in 1992 and has since sent over 150 Summer Search students to intercultural programs in countries like Brazil, Thailand, Ghana, Hungary, Italy, and China.

AFS is an important partner for Summer Search. Almost all of our participants are very low income. Most have never been out of the state or on an airplane. They have had little exposure to young people from different socio-economic backgrounds. To travel overseas is an enormous undertaking and substantial personal risk. AFS recognizes these issues and responds to them directly and thoughtfully. In particular, they provide an in-depth orientation for our participants; they make very deliberate and careful country placements and, most importantly, seem to consistently offer the strongest and most nurturing homestay placements of any program we work with.

Our students return from their AFS experiences inspired and ready to take on new challenges. Most importantly, our AFS participants become models of hope and inspiration in often dispirited schools and communities.

Summer Search is excited to continue to grow our partnership with AFS. In the summer of 2006, AFS granted us over $94,000 in scholarship monies to support 38 students on AFS programs abroad. This summer, almost 50 Summer Search students will be going abroad with AFS’s support of over $120,000. We are grateful and honored to partner with AFS and share their vision of providing life-changing opportunity for young people to develop their full potential as global ambassadors in a world without borders.