Studying abroad with a GDAAA family
Hosting with GDAAA is more than just giving a bed and meals to a young international. It’s adding a new member to your family, sharing your daily life and living a unique intercultural experience. It’s also learning more about yourself, your family, your community. Experience the world from home, become an international family and share with us!
So, there is no “typical” host family. Any family, urban or rural, with or without children, same-sex or single-parent, with working or retired parents, can live this original human experience of international openness.
Our language and intercultural immersion programs last the entire school year, from September to July. We also organize shorter educational programs of one semester (September to January or January to July) or one trimester (September to November). Would you like to become a volunteer host family? It is up to you to decide the best time for this and to define the duration that is most comfortable for you and your family.
It is also possible to become a “holiday family”, that is, a family that welcomes a young international during the school holidays to allow him to discover other regions during his stay.
What role for the host family?
The quality of the welcome in a family is the key to a successful complete immersion in a country! Welcoming a foreign student into your family means not only supporting them during their academic and cultural integration but also considering them as a full member of their daily life. Every opportunity is good to discover the culture of the country: from the simple preparation of a meal to the discovery of the cultural sites of the region… We ask our host families to provide support, security and comfort to their guests throughout their linguistic and intercultural stay.
Financial aspect?
Host families volunteer all over the world.
Volunteer hosting is a principle. The foreign high school students hosted have insurance and pocket money to manage their personal expenses (clothes, practicing an activity on site, cinema with friends, etc.) during their linguistic and intercultural stay. It is therefore up to the host families to take care of the costs related to domestic life and family outings.
Are you interested in hosting a young foreign high school student?
You can now start or complete your hosting file which will allow us to offer you profiles of young people who match your family. Subsequently, this file will be sent to the young person you have chosen to host.
Our support:
our support takes place before, during, and after the immersion experience abroad. The volunteers therefore organize an orientation a few weeks after the young person’s arrival, halfway through the stay and at the end of the stay. Other gatherings can also take place during the stay, but this depends on the volunteers and the other people being hosted. Pre-departure preparation weekends are also set up by the volunteers so that you can receive advice and possible explanations about your trip. Once back, weekends are again organized with all the returnees in order to take stock of your experience abroad. It is a friendly moment that will also allow you to meet up again, once you return home.
Our follow-up:
We pay close attention to the follow-up of our students, for this a local volunteer will be assigned to each young person who will also be in contact with the host family, the school and the AFS head office. We also want to have at least monthly contact with the young person to ensure that their stay goes as well as possible.
Our security system:
We also attach great importance to the safety of our young people who go abroad. This is why each country has an emergency number. We can be reached 24/7 in the event of a problem and are responsive to any situation.
Once there, the young people will also have a volunteer who will be there to support them. Therefore, if there is a problem, the local volunteers will communicate it directly to the head office, which will be able to react quickly and efficiently.
