Exchange your perspective
Host Family Info Sessions
Are you interested in becoming an AFS Host Family?
Join us for an Info Session! These Info Sessions are webinars designed for anyone who wants to learn more about the AFS experience.
Listen, ask questions, learn from alumni, and discover how AFS can connect you and those around you to a global intercultural community.
Information for Educators and Schools
The benefits of global education are endless – by becoming a part of our educator network, you’re taking the first step toward fostering intercultural competency in your classroom and beyond. Bring the power of intercultural learning into your school and classroom with AFS-USA!
NBC Chief Foreign Correspondent and AFS Alumnus Richard Engel Addresses the AFS-USA Family
Our Mission and Impact
100 years of volunteerism. 75+ years of exchange.
AFS-USA honors the legacy of its founders—volunteer WWI and WWII American Field Service ambulance drivers—who emerged from the wars with a bold mission: to help prevent future conflict through cultural exchange and understanding.
As a partner in the global AFS network, AFS-USA offers international exchange and education opportunities in over 45 countries and hosts exchange students from 80 countries. True to the spirit of our founders, these intercultural programs are made possible by the dedicated work of AFS Volunteers—more than 2,600 in the U.S. and over 32,000 worldwide.
Our immersive study abroad programs vary in length from a year to a few weeks. What every program has in common is a commitment to fostering intercultural and global competence in our students, host families, schools, and communities. This cultural exchange helps us come together, across typical divides, to make a more peaceful and just world. That’s the #AFSEffect.
The World Needs More Global Citizens
By supporting AFS programs, you foster transformative experiences that last a lifetime. Today’s exchange students are tomorrow’s changemakers: diplomats; thought leaders; influencers in the international business and nonprofit communities. Every new AFS Student is another global citizen in progress—an individual primed to help build a more just and peaceful world. And the impact doesn’t stop with the students. Host families’ lives are transformed by students from around the world, and host communities experience a broader range of perspectives. That’s The AFS Effect.
The AFS Effect
AFS-USA provides opportunities for intercultural exchange that develop the global competence needed to create a more just and peaceful world. As we’ve consistently demonstrated, AFS nurtures active global citizens who make the world a better place.