New Developments in YES Inbound Programming for 2011-12
From AFSWiki
Greetings from the Sponsored Programs team!
As some of you may have heard over the past several months, we are entering into a new era of the YES Program. There are several changes to the administration of YES and just recently two Grant Agreements were signed with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs making all of it official. We would like to take this opportunity now to share detailed information with you about the upcoming changes in the YES inbound program for the NH11 cycle.
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Some History
The Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Program used to operate as multiple concurrent programs, each responsible for recruiting students from specific countries. As such, AFS-USA held the grant to operate YES activity in certain countries, while AYUSA Global Youth Exchange (AYUSA), American Councils for International Education (ACIE), and Iowa Resource for International Service (IRIS) each held separate grants for YES operations in separate countries. The countries in NH09 were divided as follows:
Each grant holder--AYUSA, AFS-USA, ACIE, and IRIS--then subcontracted with other organizations (with the exception of IRIS) to place and support YES students on program.
The following diagram illustrates how YES program activity was carried out through NH10.
What is New
Beginning in NH11, this process will change, as there is now one primary grantholder, American Councils (ACIE), in charge of all operations (recruitment and selection) outside of the USA. The process will thus change from one of parallel activity to a funneling of students into ACIE and then redistribution out to the 10 USA-based hosting organizations, of which AFS-USA is one. The same countries that sent YES students previously will still be represented, and selection, recruitment, and preparation tasks will still be carried out by the same organizations as have done so in the past. For example, AFS-Egypt will still recruit Egyptian YES students, while IRIS will still recruit students from Nigeria and Tanzania. The difference, however, is that each of the 10 hosting organizations will now have the potential to receive students from all 40 countries, rather than only the countries that are part of their previous consortium. The process will now look more like this:
In this new structure, American Councils will now act as a sort of clearing house where all applications from abroad will be routed and then distributed among the 10 hosting organizations. Each hosting organization has agreed to host a different number of students based on their own hosting capacity. Based on that overall number, the students assigned to each hosting organization is likely to be roughly proportional to the number of overall students coming from that country.
For example: if the Indonesian students make up 15% of the total number of YES students, then it is likely that roughly 15% of all the students assigned to each organization will be from Indonesia.
What this means for AFS
AFS will be hosting a total of 225 YES students in 2011-12 (the majority being hosted in NH11, and a small number of MAS students in SH12). This is an increase of 50 YES students as compared to 2010-11. Please note that the national hosting number overall, including core and SP, has remained the same. CB and FLEX numbers remain the same. This creates a need for more clusters and larger clusters of Sponsored Programs participants.
AFS volunteers and host families will have the opportunity to place students from all around the world - far beyond AFS' usual reach - including the Middle East, SouthEast Asia, South Asia, Africa, and South America. Please see below for the full list of countries to be represented.
All students will go through a YES-specific orientation in Washington, DC upon arrival to the United States before travel on to their host-communities. For those sent from AFS partner countries (in bold below), this will be the same as it has been in years past and follow the same timeline. For those sent from the other organizations abroad, the timeline may be slightly modified. These details have not yet been determined but will be communicated as soon as they are known. The pattern of departures for the non-AFS recruited students is unknown at this time, but will also be sorted out soon. AFS-recruited participants will depart as they have in the past.
All applications will be coming to Global Link by way of American Councils, through a data transfer. The particulars of this data transfer are currently getting hammered out by our IT Department, working together with American Councils. The YES application will also look very similar to FLEX applications. ACIE will be fully responsible for timing of application distribution. The YES team at AFS is working very hard with our AFS partners abroad to ensure complete and timely applications arrive to American Councils so such timeliness can be passed along to the hosting staff and hosting volunteers.
The YES Countries
(AFS-recruited YES in bold)
| Afghanistan | Gaza | Kuwait | Nigeria | South Africa |
| Albania | Ghana | Lebanon | Oman | Suriname |
| Bahrain | India | Liberia | Pakistan | Tanzania |
| Bangladesh | Indonesia | Macedonia | Philippines | Thailand |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | Israel (Arab Community) | Malaysia | Qatar | Tunisia |
| Bulgaria | Jordan | Mali | Saudi Arabia | Turkey |
| Cameroon | Kenya | Morocco | Senegal | West Bank |
| Egypt | Kosovo | Mozambique | Sierra Leone | Yemen |
This is a wonderful, challenging and exciting time to be part of the YES Program and we thank all of you for supporting the program for all of these years. This new cycle will undoubtedly have its hiccups and we look forward to working together with you to overcome them. Many questions remain, especially in the area of, exact travel and orientation dates for the countries whose travel will not be arranged for by AFS and how to best prepare families, staff and volunteers with culture specific information that may help them in supporting YES participants from countries they have not had experience with lately. We look forward to hearing the questions and receiving feedback that this new YES model brings forth.
Ultimately, the expanded country mix that hosting YES in this new configuration brings to our respective communities is one that is perfectly in keeping with the AFS mission and an incredible way to expand the intercultural learning opportunities that AFS provides.
For more clarification, please contact the Sponsored Programs Inbound Team.
