The Office of Citizen Exchanges of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announces an open competition for cooperative agreements to support exchange programs and relationship building between American high school students and those who have just graduated, and host communities in selected countries

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with significant Muslim populations.

Through these cooperative agreements the Bureau will fund a pilot exchange program for recipients to recruit and select American students, and enroll them in secondary schools for an academic semester or year of study in a foreign country currently participating in the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program, incorporating themes for enhancement activities that promote respect for diversity, civil society, and mutual understanding.

We expect that most students will be placed in host families, but will consider alternative housing arrangements, such as dormitories.

Alternative arrangements must include daily adult resident supervision that ensures the security of participants and be combined with brief home stays.

In either case, the student must be ensured his or her own bed.

The exchange programs will take place between January 2009 and June 2010, and we anticipate that recruitment and planning will take place during the summer/early fall of 200 8. We anticipate funding approximately four cooperative agreements for a total of fifty students and $1,000,00 0. The YES Abroad program builds on a tradition established by the YES program that has brought high school students from countries with significant Muslim populations to the United States each year since 200 3. For more information about the YES program please refer to the website:
http://www.exchanges.state.gov/education/citizens/students/programs/yes.htm.