First and most important, I hope you and your family are well, safe, and secure right now. The YFU Office in Washington, D.C., is closed, and all employees are working remotely for at least the next two weeks. While we’ve had no reports of YFU employees, volunteers, students, or host families who’ve tested positive for COVID-19, we do have at least one host family and student in quarantine due to exposure, and a number of returning U.S. students also in quarantine. Undoubtedly there will be more, and other YFU students have already been severely impacted in a number of other ways.
I’m writing to draw your attention to an emergency that can’t wait.
The COVID-19 outbreak has disrupted so many lives. And so many things are in chaos right now. YFU has already been working overtime to return students to their home countries. Of course, this involves air travel all over the world. As you can imagine and have likely read or seen on the news, there are a myriad of challenges.
For example, Ecuador announced that it was sealing its borders, including to its own citizens, with just two days’ notice. It was logistically impossible to get all of the YFU students from Ecuador who are here now home in time. We did manage to get one student out … unfortunately, the student’s flight involved transit through Canada without the appropriate visa … so the student was returned to the US by Canadian authorities. While he was ultimately successful in returning home, two others did not.
The reality is that some students are simply not going to be able to get back home, and we don’t know when that may become possible.
Until then, YFU must support them.
Unfortunately, this also comes at a time when YFU is already badly weakened because of COVID-19. We started to feel the effects in February when it became extremely difficult to recruit host-families for in-bound students. Programs in China were halted weeks ago, followed more recently by Italy and Latvia. Now it’s basically the whole world.
We at YFU are going to do everything in our power to ensure that exchange students are able to come to the USA in the fall. Unfortunately, even under the most optimistic scenarios, it’s going to be a significantly reduced number. Funding for YFU USA mainly comes from payments for in-bound students from our partner countries, which usually happens in April for fall students. No students and with such uncertainty means no payments. Yet YFU’s expenses to support students who are stranded by COVID-19 and usual course of business expenses continue to build.
I’m turning to YFU’s individual donors, volunteers, alumni, and
host families to ask for your help.
Frankly, I debated whether I should send you this appeal because of everything else that’s going on in the world right now. I asked several people for advice. One YFU alumnus told me: “If I found out that YFU needed support for its students, but no one asked me to help, I’d be upset.” So I can only hope you feel the same. I’ve found that’s just the way it is with YFU people — you get it.
Without the culture of stewardship among YFU’s alumni all over the world, there’s no way YFU could continue as we have done since 1951. If you’re not in a position to help YFU meet this emergency student need right now, I’ll understand entirely.
But if you are in a position to help, the need has never been greater than right now.
Youth for Understanding has always been about hope. Our founder, Rachel Andresen, stood in the ruins of Berlin after World War II, watching teenagers with no hope playing in the rubble. But she had hope for a better world, a peaceful world. And she founded YFU in 1951 to bring teenagers from Germany to the United States as a way to start building bridges of hope.
It would have been easy to give up. It wasn’t just Berlin. London was in ruins. Japan was devastated. People were starving in Russia and China. The whole world was hurting. Yet Rachel Andresen could still see the dream that became YFU. A few days ago, just when I needed it, the granddaughter of YFU Founder Rachel Andresen wrote me this note, which I’m sharing with her permission:
“My grandmother had many challenges, too, everything from hijackings with students on board, to spreading peace in a Cold War time. She never dealt with what you’re going through. But I do not grieve, I find only hope. No matter where this virus leads us, YFU stands for strength globally and nothing can stand in its way. That strength has always been in togetherness.”
She’s right. We’re all in this together, and I’m absolutely convinced that the way we’ll get through it is by sticking together. If you can help YFU support students, both those who are stuck because of COVID-19, and those who hope to come in the future, I’d be very grateful. And no matter what else you do, stay safe and healthy.
If you can help our YFU students, please donate today.