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Home > Archive > Jul 5, 2007

Family Anticipates Hosting Foreign Exchange Student
By Blake Paul
The Hall family, of Enterprise, is looking forward to welcoming a new member to their family in August. Her name is Ulyana, 16, and she is an exchange student from Ukraine. Johnny and Jennifer Hall and their two daughters, Shaleece, 19, and Michelle, 16, look forward to introducing Ulyana to life in Southern Utah and America.
“We wanted to see a person from a different country… to see how they live and what their culture is like,” Johnny Hall said about their decision to become a host family. “Also, we wanted to allow them to see how we live. We want to start a good friendship with our student and find out about her life and hopefully have the satisfaction of her having a good experience here as well.”
Ulyana is a participant in Future Leaders Exchange, a program initiated and funded by the State Department in an effort to provide the generation of leaders from the countries of the former Soviet Bloc with firsthand experience in how democracy and American culture function.
Chosen through an extensive and highly competitive process, the students will have the opportunity not only to live with American families, attend American schools, and meet American friends, but also to participate in specific activities designed to introduce them to the everyday realities of living in an established democracy. They will learn about our government, free enterprise and other freedoms we enjoy, as well as the effort required to safeguard such rights.
Ulyana will be joined by two other FLEX students locally: Jamshedjon, from Uzbekistan, and Iulia, from Moldova. Ulyana, who lives near the Ukrainian border with Poland, speaks Polish so well, she won a worldwide poetry contest in it and spent two weeks in Warsaw as her prize. She enjoys several sports, as well as acting and dancing, two activities she would like to continue here. Jamshedjon likes playing soccer and volleyball and is very interested in technology and computers. He hopes living and studying in America will help him expand his knowledge and experience in these areas. Iulia is very artistic, and particularly enjoys drawing, photography, knitting and crochet. She also likes bowling and ballroom dancing.
“These young people are not simply outstanding students, but have also been selected for FLEX due to their great leadership skills, well-rounded personalities, proficiency in English and determination to use their experience in America as a foundation in their efforts to make their home nations freer and better places,” according to Laurel Paul, local coordinator for Program for Academic Exchange which administers the FLEX program locally,
Jamshedjon and Iulia are still in need of host families.
“People interested in hosting should definitely consider it. … While it may be a bit of a sacrifice, your experience and helping your student have a great experience here will be more than worth the effort,” Paul said. “If we don’t give them and ourselves the opportunity (to participate in the exchange), neither of us will ever have that potential experience.  I find most things that are challenging or a bit scary at first end up being the most worthwhile and rewarding in the end.”
At the same time the students will be learning about the St. George area and America, host families will have the privilege of learning about them and their homes as they make presentations about their cultures and participate in local life.
If you are interested in learning more about hosting an exchange student, contact Laurel Paul at 435-251-8212.

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